Australian government overturns university research grants as part of anti-China campaign

Mike Head

According to an “exclusive” report in the Murdoch media’s Australian newspaper yesterday, the federal Liberal-National government last December secretly blocked a number of university research grants because they allegedly represented a China-linked “national security threat.”

This development, only made known by a leak to the corporate media two months after the grants were overturned, is bound up with the US-instigated confrontation with China, now being intensified by the Biden administration.

Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison (AP/Kiyoshi Ota)

It also marks a further step in the government’s political censorship of research at universities, and their integration into preparations for a potentially catastrophic military conflict with China in order to reassert US dominance over the Indo-Pacific region and internationally.

The Australian reported: “Top scientists at Australian universities have been denied lucrative taxpayer-funded research grants on national security grounds, as the federal government cracks down on projects that could hand military or economic advantage to foreign adversaries.

“The Australian can reveal that, in the first decision of its kind, five applicants for Australian Research Council (ARC) grants were blocked from receiving funding of up to $500,000 a year on the orders of former education minister Dan Tehan.”

Tehan reportedly refused approval after Australian intelligence agencies, such as the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), subjected 18 ARC grant applications to additional checks.

The move came amid an escalating anti-China scare campaign, spearheaded by the same agencies, the media and the entire political establishment, including the Labor Party and Greens, featuring unsubstantiated allegations of “Chinese interference” and “recruitment” of dozens of academics.

Contrary to the Australian’s report, Tehan’s black-banning of five grants was not the first such arbitrary exercise of the ministerial power to do so.

In November 2018, it was belatedly revealed that the government had surreptitiously vetoed 11 ARC grants, without notifying the public, or even the research teams involved. One of the projects was a study of the social impact of the 2017 closure of the General Motors plant at Elizabeth in northern Adelaide, which destroyed thousands of jobs at the factory and related auto industries.

Like all ARC-recommended grants, the five recently rejected applications went through a rigorous and intensely competitive process to assess their scientific significance. Every year, hundreds of proposals are submitted to the ARC and each is assigned two assessors—relevant experts—then sent to up to six reviewers, who provide ratings.

One of the overturned ARC grants involved advanced wireless communications research, with applications in radar and satellite systems. Another focused on nanotechnology advances for miniaturised optical systems, including autonomous vehicles and robots. The other three involved hi-tech lasers, next-generation electricity networks and cutting-edge fuel cell technology.

The government declined to identify the scientists whose applications had been rejected, but the Australian insinuated that they were linked to a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) “Thousand Talents Program.”

The Australian claimed credit for “revealing” last August that “dozens of leading scientists at major universities across the country had been recruited” to this program, prompting an inquiry by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security into “national security risks affecting the Australian higher education and research sector.”

Home Affairs Minister Peter Duncan fast-tracked the inquiry, issuing its terms of reference last November, and requesting a report by this July. The terms of reference demand that all universities and other research facilities demonstrate their “capacity to identify and respond to” risks to “Australia’s national security,” such as “foreign interference” and “undisclosed foreign influence.”

The composition of this committee underscores the bipartisan character of the witch hunt. Currently chaired by Liberal Party Senator James Paterson and deputy chaired by the Labor Party’s Anthony Byrne, the committee consists of six government members of parliament and five from Labor.

ASIO’s submission to the inquiry indicated the importance of the university and research sector for war preparations. “Their work leads to the development of proprietary and other sensitive information critical to the development of new technologies, medicines, techniques and practices that are fundamental to the future of Australia’s economy, military capabilities and security,” ASIO said.

Without providing any evidence, ASIO issued several provocative claims, including that researchers and their families “have been threatened, coerced or intimidated by actors seeking to have their sensitive research provided to a foreign state” and “some universities have been threatened through financial coercion should critical research continue.”

China was not named explicitly, but it was clearly being accused of serious crimes.

One of the instigators of the inquiry is the government-funded Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). Alex Joske, a former ASPI analyst, told the inquiry that his research suggested CCP “talent recruitment activity” could be associated with as much as $280 million in grant “fraud” over the past two decades.

Joske said he had identified 325 members of CCP talent programs in Australian research institutions, including in all leading universities and the government’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).

Previous such claims by Joske, published by ASPI, have been based on flawed evidence, such as the number of Chinese academics and their international colleagues who are publishing articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Joske also contributed to Silent Invasion, a 2018 book by Greens-associated academic Clive Hamilton that claimed that a war against China was needed to prevent Australia from being taken over by Beijing.

In its submission to the inquiry, Universities Australia, representing the 39 public universities, pledged to keep collaborating with the government and the intelligence apparatus. The university chiefs said they already were working closely with the government and “government agencies” on the Defence Trade Controls Act and a University Foreign Interference Taskforce.

Increasingly starved of funding by successive governments, the university managements promised to “continue to build on such successes in partnership with government to further strengthen their resilience to foreign interference.”

Under the Defence Trade Controls Act, introduced by the last federal Labor Party government in 2012, people face up to 10 years’ imprisonment for “publishing or otherwise disseminating” information about research covered by the government’s Defence and Strategic Goods List or the Defense Trade Cooperation Treaty between Australia and the US.

University managements have also tied their institutions into joint research with US universities on “priority projects” under the Pentagon’s Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative, which the Australian government joined in 2017.

Universities in Australia, as in the US and internationally, are becoming integral components of military networks preparing for high-tech warfare. This includes the Lockheed Martin research centre at the University of Melbourne.

The National Tertiary Education Union, which covers university workers, is also complicit in the creeping militarisation of universities. For example, in August 2019, in response to a review of the Defence Trade Controls Act, the union issued a media release calling for a “balance” between “Australia’s defence and/or national security concerns” and “academic freedom.”

Such promotion of “national security” is part of a broader anti-China drumbeat. In 2018, the Liberal-National government and the opposition Labor Party jointly pushed through parliament “foreign interference” laws designed to crack down, above all, on anti-war dissent and anyone linked to China.

Last December, unprecedented legislation was passed to give the government sweeping powers to prohibit any agreement with China signed by a state, territory or local government, or a public university, and Chinese investment is now effectively banned across most of the economy.

These moves further demonstrate that the government is placing Australia on the front line of Washington’s plans for war to prevent China from challenging the global hegemony established by US imperialism after World War II.

Bitcoin over $50,000 as Wall Street surges

Nick Beams

Almost every day there are figures revealing the extent of the speculation on Wall Street fueled by the trillions of dollars funneled into financial markets by the Fed.

On Tuesday, the cryptocurrency bitcoin passed $50,000 for the first time, after doubling in value over the past two months and rising by 74 percent so far this year. The surge continued yesterday when bitcoin reached close to $52,000.

Bitcoin cryptocurrency (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Since the beginning of the year Wall Street has been regularly closing at record highs with the Dow Jones hitting another record yesterday—the third in five days. This is despite increased warnings, some from within financial firms, that the market has become a dangerous bubble.

The latest bitcoin surge was sparked by the announcement by Tesla chief Elon Musk earlier this month that the company was investing $1.5 billion in the cryptocurrency and would accept it as payment on some transactions.

But Musk is not the only one to join in the frenzy. This month the Bank of New York Mellon announced it will start treating bitcoin like any other financial asset and MasterCard has said it will integrate bitcoin into its payments system this year. Billionaire investors Paul Tudor Jones and Stanley Druckenmiller have also started speculating in bitcoin.

These moves come in the face of the widespread view that there is no intrinsic value in bitcoin, which is not a physical asset but which is created electronically, and that there is no prospect of it becoming an integral component of the international monetary system as touted by its promoters.

But while its price continues to rise, even amidst the occurrence of violent downswings, there are large profits to be made and this is what is drawing in some of the major financial institution and hedge fund operators.

The bitcoin speculation mania is only the most egregious example of what is taking place throughout the financial system.

Due to the flow of money from the Fed, accelerated after the freeze in financial markets last March and which is continuing at the rate of $1.4 trillion per year amid a commitment to maintain its base interest rate at virtually zero for the foreseeable future, finance is readily available for below investment-grade junk bonds.

Last year a record number of companies were rated at triple C, one of the lowest on the scale, and almost double the number in 2019.

But they have not been denied funds. Money has been pouring in. According to a report in the Financial Times (FT) last week more than 15 cents of every dollar in the high-yield or junk bond market has gone to companies with ratings of triple C or below since the start of the year.

“That marks the highest share of deals in any year since the eve of the financial crisis, when loose lending standards set off a race by weaker companies to borrow cash. The fundraising binge by companies that carry some of the highest risk of default highlights the hot conditions in global capital markets,” the FT noted.

Bank of America analyst Oleg Melentyev told the newspaper: “Last year it was the strongest companies that reacted to unprecedented events by shoring up their balance sheets in case cash was needed. Now we are at the bottom of the barrel in terms of the weakest and most fragile issuers finally being able to fund themselves in this market.”

This process is a direct result of the Fed interventions. Its stimulus measures have pushed down the interest rates on investment-grade government and corporate bonds meaning that investors are pushed into riskier areas of the market where returns are higher.

Companies whose bonds are rated at less than investment grade have been able to raise money at less than three percent, including the health insurance company Centene, the house builder MDC, T-Mobile and this week, Ford.

The extent of the shift to junk bonds is indicated by the fact that at the start of 2019 the rate on US treasury bonds, considered one of the safest investments in the world, was 3 percent.

The co-founder of Concise Capital Management Tom Krasner commented: “In our mind a 3 per cent yield is just ludicrous. We never would have imagined buying things at a 3 percent yield in our entire career.”

Fed chairman Jerome Powell has said the surge on Wall Street and the rampant speculation is not due to the policies of the Fed and that other factors are at work.

This fiction has been refuted by those directly involved in the financial markets.

Marty Fridson, the chief investment officer at Lehmann Livian Fridson Advisors said it all came back to the intervention by the Fed. “It gives investors the sense that they can buy with impunity. The Fed is effectively putting a floor under the prices of anything they buy right now.”

And there is no sign the Fed will change course from its massive market interventions, notwithstanding the warnings it is creating a dangerous financial bubble.

Minutes from its January meeting released yesterday reveal that its governing body considered that the risks posed by subdued inflation were greater than the danger of rising prices.

According to the official record “participants emphasised that it was important to abstract from temporary factors affecting inflation… in judging whether inflation was on track to moderately exceed 2 percent for some time.”

This is an assurance to Wall Street and the financial markets that even if inflation does spike, possibly as a result of the $1.9 trillion stimulus package proposed by the Biden administration, the Fed will not respond by tightening monetary policy.

The view within sections of the Democratic party-aligned political, media and financial establishment is that the stimulus package poses no dangers as far as inflation is concerned. Summing up these views New York Times editorial board member Binyamin Applebaum wrote this week: “The boldness of the Biden administration, and of the Fed, shows that many in government understand the need to stop fighting the last war. It’s not the 1970s anymore.”

But the entire package depends on the continuation of historically unprecedented policies. The stimulus measures are not being financed through inroads into the profits of the corporations or taxes on the ultra-wealthy but almost exclusively through the issuing of more debt.

However, the increase in the supply of government bonds tends to lower their price and increase their yield or interest rate (the two have an inverse relationship)—a tendency which has already started to emerge with the incremental rise in the 10-year Treasury bond rate to around 1.3 percent from its lows of less than 1 percent last year. It has been noted that only a relatively small rise in rates could trigger a collapse in the financial house of cards.

Upward pressure on interest rates as a result of increased government debt means that the Fed must intervene in the market to buy up more bonds and keep interest rates down, thereby further fueling the Wall Street speculation.

An explosion at an Indian fireworks factory kills 20 workers

Shibu Vavara & Saman Gunadasa

The criminal disregard of the Indian ruling class for the lives of workers has once again been demonstrated by the death of 20 workers, including a child and pregnant woman, in a massive explosion at a fireworks factory in southern India.

The blast took place last Friday at the Sree Mariamman Fireworks factory at Achankulam village in Virudhunagar district, which is known as India’s firecrackers capital, in Tamil Nadu. The explosion occurred around 1.30 p.m. when workers were about to take their lunch break.

A victim of the disaster is carried from the scene (Credit: Daily Tamil News)

Three bodies were charred beyond recognition. The death toll could rise as at least 35 more workers were hospitalized with extensive burns from the blast.

Fire and rescue services workers were unable to immediately enter the premises as chemicals kept exploding inside the factory. It was only some four hours later that more than 50 dead and injured workers were found inside.

Even though the cause of the explosion is yet to be established, an officer from the local fire department told the media that the blast occurred while chemicals were being mixed to make firecrackers. “Friction during the mixing of chemicals appears to have caused the explosion,” he said.

The factory complex, spread over 18 acres of land, was involved in manufacturing “fancy-type fire crackers.” It comprised a total of 60 rooms and was divided into several units. The explosion took place in a unit that had been divided into 15 rooms all of which have burnt to the ground.

The fire at the factory (Credit: Seithi Alai)

The 15 rooms were leased to four separate manufacturers. They had been employing more and more workers creating highly congested spaces, in complete disregard for basic safety requirements for the dangerous industry as well as the current COVID-19 pandemic. This factory unit operated under the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organization (PESO) license from Nagpur.

In an attempt to counter public anger, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced compensation of 200,000 rupees ($US2,700) for the families of each of the dead workers and 50,000 rupees for each of the injured. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami announced similar grants. Indian governments, state and central, routinely give such handouts to the victims of tragic incidents, having turned a blind eye to the dangerous conditions that have caused them.

The latest explosion follows a pattern in the industry over decades. A worker from the fireworks industry told the media after the explosion that such accidents are frequent, causing permanent disabilities in many cases. Also exposure to various toxic substances used in making fireworks including barium nitrate, aluminium compounds and potassium nitrate can cause various diseases for workers.

Last September and October, two explosions in fireworks factories in Tamil Nadu killed at least 12 workers. Earlier in February and March, 11 workers died in two separate factory blasts in the same region. According to official data, at least 250 workers have perished and many more have been injured in around 150 explosions in the region during the past decade alone.

In Virudhunagar district, an explosion in a fireworks unit in Mudalipatti in September 2012 killed 40 workers and injured 38 others. In July 2009, more than 40 workers were killed in another blast in Namaskarichanpatti.

India has the world’s second largest fireworks industry after China, mostly concentrated in Virudhunagar district, which has more than 1,000 factory units employing an estimated one million workers. The industry is considered a thriving business as pyrotechnics are often used in India for celebrations including weddings and festivals such as Diwali. The factories also cater to the Indian army’s Ammunition and Ordnance factories. Their owners are reaping super profits at the expense of the workers’ lives.

Most workers are from the Dalit caste, previously known as the untouchables, which is the “lowest” in the reactionary Hindu caste hierarchy. The deaths of these workers are quickly forgotten by the media. Poverty and the lack of education drives many to take up these dangerous jobs to earn a living. Significant numbers of women and children are working in these factories.

Many fireworks workers labour in makeshift factory units which are hot, humid and cramped. Even though each room is allowed four workers according to safety regulations, more than three times that number are often assigned to a room.

Workers are not only forced to work long hours but also even bring their children to work as the low wages are inadequate for basic needs. They are required to handle dangerous explosives in these virtual death traps without any precautionary training.

Some of the previous explosions were connected to practices including rough handling of chemicals by untrained and unskilled workers, spillage or overloading of chemicals during the filling process, and working outside permitted areas. The ban on using iron tools or hinges due to the potential for sparks is often ignored.

Even the minimal safety and health regulations set by authorities are not strictly monitored in part due to the lack of inspectors. Action over safety breaches rarely occur despite the illegal sub-leasing of work to unlicensed cottage units being widely acknowledged. The common reasons cited for accidents also include the overstocking of explosives, raw material and finished goods, and employment of workers in excess of the permitted numbers.

Successive governments are criminally responsible for endangering the lives of the fireworks workers, who are one of the most oppressed sections of the Indian working class.

CDC school opening guidelines ignore the critical role of ventilation and infection control in classrooms

Benjamin Mateus

“When the building’s air filters do not remove the particles from the air, the occupant’s lungs become the filter.” —H.E. “Barney” Burroughs, Building Wellness Consultancy

The importance of clean air in schools has been a chronic issue that has developed into a pressing concern. There are significant health consequences for teachers and staff, students and their respective communities as the Biden administration pushes for the resumption of in-person schooling as the COVID-19 pandemic continues.

The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that 54 percent of public school districts require the overhaul or replacement of multiple building systems or features in their schools. It is estimated that around 41 percent of school districts need to update or replace their dilapidated heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, which represents about 36,000 schools across the country.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, center, feels for airflow from a ventilation unit inside a classroom at Bronx Collaborative High School, during a visit with School Chancellor Richard Carranza, right, to review health safeguards in advance of schools reopening during COVID-19, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2020, in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, Pool)

According to the National Air Filtration Association website, in the section on air filtration for schools, they write, “Every child and school employee should have the right to an environmentally safe and healthy school that is clean and in good repair.” They underscored that schools are even more densely populated than a typical commercial building, making the “bio-burden” much more significant and leading to some of the worst air conditions in any environment.

To effectively remove infective particles, the repair or replacement of ventilation systems is critical, but it is only one part of a constellation of measures that must be met before schools are reopened. This includes reducing regional cases of COVID-19 to exceptionally low levels, a vast acceleration of the production and distribution of vaccines to inoculate the population, the establishment of a rigorous, well equipped and trained contact tracing infrastructure that can do rapid testing of individuals and their contacts and, if necessary, close schools and communities to bring the pandemic under control. Until then, schools should remain closed and students taught remotely.

It is highly significant that the recently published CDC guidelines, which claim that schools are safe for in-class instruction, have sidestepped the issue of school ventilation, essentially burying any discussion into hyperlinks and technical jargon aimed at preventing teachers from making the appropriate and essential connections between the mode of transmission of the virus and the need for highly efficient HVAC and filtration systems.

It cannot be emphasized strongly enough how important it was to identify aerosolization as a critical mode of transmission for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This key understanding helped to explain what was occurring in recent superspreading events, where a few individuals infected many others, even across large rooms.

In an important Lancet article published in July 2020, the author, Dr. Kevin Fennelly, wrote, “These data show that infectious aerosols from humans exist in a wide range of particle sizes that are strikingly consistent across studies, methods, and pathogens. There is no evidence to support the concept that most respiratory infections are associated with primary large droplet transmission. In fact, small particle aerosols are the rule, rather than the exception, contrary to current guidelines.” These particles are known to linger in the air for several hours.

This tremendous leap forward in our understanding of the pandemic dynamics confirmed that preventative measures had to address this critical issue: the ventilation of indoor spaces. More precisely, infection control is essential to making schools safe.

Yet, in its push to support the Biden administration’s efforts to open schools rapidly, the CDC has altogether negated the nature of aerosolization of the virus. Its guidelines make no mention of these transmission mechanisms. The CDC has nimbly backpedaled to emphasizing respiratory droplets and surface contamination as primary modes of infection. Its schematic makes this evident: universal masking, the physical distancing of six feet when possible, handwashing and respiratory etiquette.

These are by design. The acknowledgment of airborne routes of spread would necessitate ensuring that physical conditions of schools were thoroughly assessed and addressed before approving any reopening plan. A national call to refurbish school districts’ facilities to bring them up to code would be the primary focus over the intervening months as schools shifted to complete remote learning until the fall or when deemed safe. An independent body would be elected to oversee these efforts, and public updates would be held on their progress.

But the Biden administration is doing the opposite. While the rhetoric coming out of the White House may have been altered, the Democratic president is pursuing the same policy as the Trump administration by forcing teachers and students back into the schools so parents can go to work to produce corporate profit.

The guidelines set by the CDC are not based on science and public health needs. In reality, they have been politically manipulated to give the Biden administration and its allies in the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and National Education Association (NEA) a pseudo-scientific cover to open schools and beat back the resistance of teachers.

Under the CDC guidelines, cleaning and maintaining healthy facilities and contact tracing have been, in essence, promulgated to auxiliary roles. Under the very brief subsection on “cleaning and maintaining healthy facilities,” they allow the following few words, “Improve ventilation to the extent possible such as by opening windows and doors to increase circulation of outdoor air to increase the delivery of clean air and dilute potential contaminants.”

The absurdity of this proposal can be seen in Philadelphia, where Democratic officials have proposed to install window fans in classrooms, a move that has provoked the ire of educators who have defied back-to-school orders.

The deplorable state of many of these HVAC and filtration systems is the result of insufficient funding. Whatever pittance Biden and the Congress provide to schools, it will not overcome the decades of bipartisan budget cuts, including under the Obama-Biden administration. While both parties handed trillions to Wall Street, they intend to continue the systematic defunding of public education and the diversion of public funding to for-profit charters and other school privatization schemes.

More than just requiring highly efficient HVAC systems, ventilation rates need to be calculated for the type of activities that are taking place in classrooms. Additionally, to ensure there is adequate ventilation that reduces the risk of transmission, schools must limit the number of people that can occupy that space.

The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) is also recommending doubling air exchanges per hour from three to six to ensure as much of the particulates in the air are removed. HVAC systems need to be able to accommodate the demands placed on them by high-rated filters that are very effective in preventing the passage of microscopic particles from being recirculated back into the classrooms.

Another key to having efficient well-working systems requires hiring trained technicians who can make necessary inspections and maintenance. Untrained technicians may close air dampers to adjust for excessive hot or cold days, impacting their ability to conduct appropriate air exchanges for class sizes. Sometimes these dampers are left closed for years.

Necessary and immediate steps for infection control, per ASHRAE, include assessing and repairing existing HVAC units, installing carbon dioxide (CO2) sensors in classrooms and providing MERV 13 filtration or better where feasible.

CO2 is exhaled along with aerosols containing SARS-CoV-2 if the person is infected and contagious. The measurement of CO2 levels can be a proxy for the in-door concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 levels. Studies have been conducted on classroom CO2 levels by using activity-dependent settings to ensure adequate infection control and a measure of proper ventilation.

Research from around the world has found that carbon dioxide levels in classrooms are notoriously high. “Poor ventilation is an age-old problem that pre-dates the current COVID-19 crisis. Many classrooms did not have HVAC units operating at the minimum required ventilation rates even before the pandemic,” said Christopher Ruch, director of training at the National Energy Management Institute. “The benefits of adequate ventilation, including reduced absenteeism, improved cognitive retention, and improved productivity, have been well documented in multiple publications. This issue needs to be addressed regardless of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

A more recent 2019 study of California schools found that in 85 percent of 94 newly installed HVAC systems in K-12 classrooms did not provide adequate ventilation, meaning fresh outdoor air was not coming into rooms. This detrimentally impacted student performance, respiratory health, leading to missing classes, as well as transmitting airborne diseases.

As the Los Angeles Unified School District and the United Teachers Los Angeles maneuver to bring students and teachers back to the classrooms, these same districts face funding shortages for these necessary upgrades. Low-income students are more likely to attend schools with crumbling infrastructure and poor air quality. This will only further exacerbate the community transmission.

The Biden administration intends to throw tens of millions of children and teachers into 120,000 school buildings five days a week. The assertion that schools are safe havens and that children are low risk are bald lies repeatedly being hurled at the working class. Teachers must arm themselves with the correct information and fight against this criminal enterprise.

Facebook blocks all news content in Australia

Oscar Grenfell

In an extraordinary attack on democratic rights and the freedom of information online, Facebook this morning blocked the sharing and posting of all news content in Australia. The indefinite ban also prevents Australians from accessing international news on the platform.

Because of the corporation’s monopolistic share of the social media market, Facebook has effectively shut down a considerable portion of the Australian internet, with major consequences not only for publishers, but virtually every facet of civil society and the country’s 25 million citizens and residents.

This Oct. 23, 2019, file photo shows Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifying before a House Financial Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo)

The move is in response to the passage yesterday of a news media bargaining code by the Australian House of Representatives. With bipartisan support from the Liberal-National Coalition government and the Labor Party opposition, the legislation was set to be ratified by the Senate, the upper house of Australia’s parliament, and to become law.

Facebook and Google have bitterly opposed the code, which would require them to divert a portion of their advertising revenue to Australian news corporations. Google last month threatened to block access to its search engine in Australia if the bill was passed. It has since rescinded the ultimatum and entered into talks with the media companies over revenue-sharing arrangements.

With its news shutdown, Facebook is essentially declaring that it will not submit to any attempts by national governments to regulate its business practices. The ban is intended to send a menacing warning to other countries that are considering adopting similar media codes.

More is at stake than the immediate conflict between the Australian media conglomerates and the social media monopolies over the respective proportion of online advertising revenue that their billionaire owners and wealthy shareholders will control.

Facebook is establishing a precedent for preventing entire populations from accessing and discussing news developments and political issues. Its news ban is of a piece with a dramatic escalation of online censorship over recent years, and a turn by the ruling elites internationally towards authoritarian measures aimed at suppressing growing social and political opposition.

The scope of the Facebook shutdown was outlined in a statement issued yesterday by William Easton, the company’s managing director for Australia and New Zealand. Under the Orwellian heading “Changes to Sharing and Viewing News on Facebook in Australia,” it outlined a series of measures that could be compared to a declaration of online martial-law.

The statement announced that Australian publishers are “restricted from sharing or posting any content on Facebook Pages.” International media organisations “can continue to publish news content on Facebook, but links and posts can’t be viewed or shared by Australian audiences.”

The Australian people “cannot view or share Australian or international news content on Facebook or content from Australian and international news Pages.” In other words, they are being subjected to a total news blockade. The measure affects the world population, with Facebook banning everyone, wherever they may be, from sharing Australian news content.

Ordinary people have expressed their shock and outrage after seeking to post news content today and receiving a pop-up message informing them that they are not able to. The Facebook pages of major publications have been stripped of all content, with the records of thousands of postings and comment sections being wiped out overnight.

There are already indications that the Facebook measures are an even broader attack on democratic rights than the company indicated in its statement. The Australian Council of Trade Unions, the national union federation, announced this morning that links from its website cannot be shared on Facebook. This raises the spectre of a broader shutdown of political organisations.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), the national weather service, also reported that its “Facebook page has been impacted by the broader Facebook changes.” This, on a day when there is a “catastrophic danger” of bushfires in Western Australia and warnings of possible flooding in the state of Queensland. The BOM is one of the primary agencies for alerting the population to dangerous weather events, including those that threaten lives.

Facebook has responded by claiming that some pages, such as the BOM’s, have been inadvertently caught up by the ban in the digital equivalent of collateral damage.

In any case, the measures have the character of a nihilistic attack on society, and especially the working class, carried out by a corporation that will not let anything get in the way of its bottom line.

According to figures last December, more than 50 percent of the Australian population receives its news from social media, primarily through Facebook. Workers, who are under immense financial, economic and time pressure, frequently check Facebook to see the latest news developments when they are able to spare a minute or two. Amid a global pandemic, and the major social, economic and political upheavals associated with it, millions of people are being cut off from their primary means of accessing news.

The federal government and the media conglomerates have expressed their “shock” and “outrage” at the ban. Their concern is not over the assault that it represents on the rights of ordinary people.

The media bargaining code has always been aimed at augmenting the profits of the largest media companies and shoring up their market dominance. The code is based on the dubious premise that the social media companies should provide vast sums to the media conglomerates, for the privilege of indexing their content in search results and having their users post links to articles.

The code explicitly stipulates that only “registered news business corporations” accepted by federal authorities and with a revenue of more than $150,000 a year are covered. The primary beneficiaries will likely be News Corp, Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, along with Seven West Media and Nine Entertainment Corporation.

In addition to shaking down the social media companies for hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, the aim of the media conglomerates is to entrench their position as semi-official sources of news.

On Monday, Seven West announced that it had signed a $30 million a year deal for its content to be featured in Google’s “News Showcase,” with News Corp following suit today. The “News Showcase” is a new, curated feature that will direct users to “authoritative” and “high-quality” news sources, i.e., primarily those owned by multi-billion dollar corporations with close ties to the political establishment.

This is directed against the increasing popularity of alternative and independent media sites, whose readership has grown through the expansion of the internet and widespread hostility to the role of the media companies as “gatekeepers” that uncritically promote the claims of governments, the intelligence agencies and big businesses.

Proponents of the bill, in the government and the media companies, have explicitly touted it as a means of marginalising “fake news,” a catch-all term for any information that is not in line with government and state propaganda.

This is of a piece with a sharp escalation of online censorship over recent years. In 2017, Google effectively blacklisted the World Socialist Web Site from a raft of search results, while diverting traffic from other left-wing and progressive outlets to corporate publications. Facebook has carried out similar measures, aimed at reducing the spread of alternative news sites. This included a crackdown on the pages of socialist organisations and the personal profiles of their leading members last month.

The Facebook news ban demonstrates the scale of the threat posed by online censorship. The response of the news corporations in seeking to become the official partners of the social media companies, as they further sideline alternative publications, demonstrates that this agenda is supported by the entire political and media establishment.

The fight against these attacks requires a political movement of the working class, directed at transforming the social media monopolies into publicly-owned utilities, democratically controlled by working people.

Why India Should Prioritise its Inner-Maritime Regions

Siddharth Anil Nair

India entered 2021 faced with two security challenges: a standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and China’s growing covert presence in the eastern Indian Ocean (EIO). These challenges should signal to New Delhi the need to develop its own ‘theatre-wide’ approach in countering Beijing's Indo-Pacific expansionism. As India continues to develop capabilities in Eastern Ladakh, it should also prioritise its inner maritime regions, the Andaman and Laccadive Seas.

Common Theatre-wide Concerns

Both incursions—the first, of course, more critical than the other—are part of Beijing's global designs as exemplified by the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Its willingness to militarise territorial claims, as in the South China Sea (SCS), and BRI’s potential dual use, pose a systemic threat to India's evolution from a regional to a trans-regional power.

Over the years, these developments have provoked India to respond diplomatically and geo-economically. Continuing Chinese aggression has finally highlighted the need to factor military measures in the response matrix. Given the criticality of the LAC incursion and encounters in the Northeast, India's inner maritime regions in its primary interest area (PIA)—the Andaman and Laccadive Seas—receive less attention in the security discourse. The strategic concerns for both however are similar: connectivity and capacity.

Naval Priorities and a Capacity Overstretch

The People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) sub-surface drones, ‘dark’ surveys in the EIO, and deployments to the Arabian Sea highlight the need for greater sub-regional maritime domain awareness (MDA).

The situation in the Indo-Pacific, however, has changed. It requires more than just MDA capabilities. India’s encounters with China have escalated over the past two years. The US and its partners and allies have reinvigorated their resolve to counter Chinese aggression. If India aims to participate in maintaining collective regional security, power projection and ‘sea control’ have to be at the centre of the Indian Navy’s (IN) Indo-Pacific operational doctrine.

While IN deployments to the SCS have increased in recent years, these are small-scale projections. This is indicative of a capacity overstretch. To assert medium-to-long term dominance in the Indo-Pacific’s EIO sub-region, the IN must improve its amphibious/marine, anti-ship, air-defence, sea-lift, and carrier capabilities. The last two issues are crucial since current theatre-wide ratios appear inimical to Indian forces. A comparison between Indian and Chinese naval forces shows that Beijing is far better prepared for Operations Other than War (OOTW) and Small Scale Contingencies (SSC) in the SCS.

The Indian military establishment’s maritime security discourse begins with the idea of a "natural carrier" in the Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC). However, a proactive posture in the Indo-Pacific requires expeditionary capabilities. For long-term regional dominance, the IN should aim for effective control in the eastern Indo-Pacific straits connecting the two oceans, along with regional partners like Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia, and Australia. Such control will play a crucial role in quickly containing, overpowering, and defeating hostile action in the Indo-Pacific. This is especially important given the potential of a short-to-medium term US-China Pacific conflict.

The IN’s maritime security priorities are influenced both by contemporary issues as well as its colonial past. Following French expansionism in Indo-China, the Royal Indian Navy (RIN) drew the EIO’s eastern extent at the Singapore Strait. Similarly, during WWII, the RIN maintained this line with US naval forces stationed along the northern Australian coast. Sustained military ties between India and Singapore make a red-line in the Singapore Strait viable today.

A Review of New Delhi’s Measures

In light of these naval limitations, New Delhi has pursued formal and informal security arrangements with 'like-minded' partners such as Tokyo, Washington, Paris, and Canberra, and even those averse to the idea of the Indo-Pacific, like Moscow.

Following the 2020 Galwan Valley clash, the IN also initiated a build-up of forces in the ANC. It gradually accelerated deployment of all 150 warships to the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) by the end of the year. Elements of the ANC, Indian Army Southern Command, Marine Commandos, and others conducted a marine-landing exercise in the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal in 2021.

While a number of projects are underway to fulfil the 200-ship ambition, delays in production, staggered purchases, and platform-leasing only address short-term goals. For the medium-to-long-term, they will be insufficient in effectively expanding India’s security interests beyond the IOR. Even with the slated 2022 commissioning of INS Vikrant, carrier capacities will remain experimental in the face of rapidly growing PLAN capabilities.

With an eye on short-term success, the IN must improve its sea-lift, amphibious, and marine SSC capabilities. Instead of increasing the tempo of limited projections Pacific-side, India should focus on building solid material capacity in its PIA, specifically the EIO. Indian Coast Guard stations in Kavaratti and Port Blair should further integrate their surveillance, communication, and intercept systems to monitor key sub-regional IOR choke-points. These systems should then be integrated with IN MDA operations.

Conclusion

In a theatre as wide and undefined as the Indo-Pacific, clarity of priorities while developing operational strategies is critical. India is not a comprehensive regional power. Further, the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated its economic conditions, structural deficiencies, and material paucity. An ineffective prioritisation of India’s PIA could thus make the Indo-Pacific a security overreach for New Delhi in 2021.

Anzisha Prize $100,000 Entrepreneurs Awards 2021

Application Opening: 31st March 2021

About the Award: 12 finalists from across Africa will win an all-expenses paid trip to South Africa to be a part of a week-long entrepreneurship workshop and conference at the African Leadership Academy campus on the outskirts of Johannesburg.  The grand prize winners, selected from these finalists, will share prizes worth $100,000 USD.

The Anzisha Prize is funded by a generous grant from the MasterCard Foundation.

Africa needs strong, innovative entrepreneurial young leaders to create jobs, solve problems and drive our economies. Our continent’s future will be determined by entrepreneurial leaders across all sectors. We believe fundamentally in the power of youth-led change.

Type: Entrepreneurship

Number of Awards: 12 young entrepreneurs will be selected

Eligibility: As you prepare to apply, make sure you are eligible to enter:

1. You must be between 15 and 22 years old with an ID document or Passport to present as evidence. Anyone born before April 16, 1996 or after April 16, 2003 will not be considered.
2. You must be a national of an African country with a business based in Africa for African customers/ beneficiaries.
3. Your business must be up and running. The Anzisha Prize is not for great ideas or business plans – you must have already started, and be able to prove it! You have time to get started now and have tangible results to share before applications open.
4. Your business, invention or social project can be in any field or industry (science and technology, civil society, arts and culture, sports, etc.). Any kind of venture is welcome to apply.
5. Individuals who apply must be one of the founding members of a business (for example, 2 or 3 co-founders who started a business together). One person can apply for the Prize, on behalf of the team.

Selection Criteria: To be selected as one of our 12 Anzisha Fellows, your business or project will be judged on the following 5 criteria:

• Already Running Venture: Is the venture established with customers and beneficiaries? Does the venture deliver value to said beneficiaries and customers?
• Founder-led: Is the venture led and managed by the founder?
• Impact: Has the venture demonstrated some impact already?
• Scalability: If the venture is a for-profit business, does it already earn revenues and does it have potential increase revenues with the support of Anzisha? If the venture is a not-for-profit enterprise, does it already reach beneficiaries and does it have the potential to reach many more beneficiaries with support from Anzisha?
• Job Creation: Has the venture created some jobs and has the potential to create more high quality jobs?

To be selected as one of our Anzisha Fellows, you must demonstrate the two following qualities:

• Venture leader: Are you the leader of your venture and do you drive both venture strategy and operations?
• Commitment: Do you spend at least 20 hours a week or more on your business and will you continue to do so after selection?

Value of Award: Additional investment of $8,000/ $10,000 in each Fellow

1. Monetary Reward of a shared amount of $100,000
2. $2,000 access to a world- renowned Entrepreneurial Leadership curriculum and training with the potential for further investment based on engagement and performance
3. $2,500 worth of rewards from consulting and mentorship services
4. $2,000 worth of rewards from Global speaking events or Experts in Residence support
5. $1,000 worth of rewards from Regional Indabas across the continent

Each fellow also gains access to the African Leadership Academy network.

How to Apply: APPLY NOW!

Download the Application Guide:

The Applications Guide is packed with useful information and guidance to help you submit a high quality application you feel confident about. This year we are thrilled to welcome our tenth Anzisha Prize Fellowship, and we can’t wait to celebrate your achievements with the world!

• DOWNLOAD IN ENGLISH 
• DOWNLOAD IN FRENCH 
• DOWNLOAD IN PORTUGUESE 
• DOWNLOAD IN ARABIC

Visit competition webpage for details