Application Deadline: 16th April 2021 midnight (Brussels time)
Offered annually? Yes
Eligible Countries: Albania, Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Georgia, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Serbia, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.
To Be Taken At (Country): The following Coimbra Group Universities are participating in the 2021 edition of the Coimbra Group Scholarship Programme:
Eötvös Loránd University (Hungary)
University of Granada (Spain)
Karl Franz University of Graz (Austria)
University of Heidelberg (Germany)
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi (Romania)
Jagiellonian University Krakow (Poland)
KU Leuven (Belgium)
University of Padova (Italy)
University of Poitiers (France)
University of Salamanca (Spain)
University of Siena (Italy)
About the Award: Universities of the Coimbra Group offer short-term visits to young researchers from higher education institutions from countries in the European Neighbourhood. The main aim of this scholarship programme is to enable scholars to undertake research in which they are engaged in their home institution and to help them to establish academic and research contacts.
Type: Research
Eligibility: Applicants must fulfil all the following criteria:
be born on or after 1 January 1986
be nationals of and current residents in one of the above-listed countries
be current academic staff members of a university or an equivalent higher education institution located in one of the above-listed countries and be of postdoctoral or equivalent status, although some institutions may offer opportunities to doctoral students
Number of Awards: Not specified
Value of Award: Successful candidates will have access to excellent academic knowledge in quality facilities. The scholarships include financial support for tuition, living costs, airfares etc.
Duration of Program: The dates of your stay should be agreed upon between the applicant and the academic supervisor at the Coimbra Group University. Typically this will be during the academic year 2021/2022
Application Deadline: 16th April 2021 Midnight (Brussels time)
Offered annually? Yes
Eligible Countries: All African countries except Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia (applicants from these countries are eligible under the Scholarship Programme for Young Researchers from the European Neighbourhood).
To be taken at (Country): The following Coimbra Group universities are participating in the 2021 edition of the scheme:
University of Barcelona (Spain)
University of Coimbra (Portugal)
University of Cologne (Germany)
Eötvös Loránd University (Hungary)
University of Granada (Spain)
University of Graz (Austria)
University of Groningen (The Netherlands)
Jagiellonian University Krakow (Poland)
KU Leuven (Belgium)
University of Montpellier 3 Paul-Valéry (France)
University of Padova (Italy)
University of Pavia (Italy)
University of Poitiers (France)
University of Salamanca (Spain)
About the Award: Universities of the Coimbra Group offer short-term visits (generally 1 to maximum 3 months) to young African researchers from higher education institutions from Sub-Saharan Africa. The main aim of this scholarship programme is to enable scholars to undertake research in which they are engaged in their home institution and to help them to establish academic and research contacts. The scholarships are financially supported by the Coimbra Group member universities participating in this programme, while the Coimbra Group Office is in charge of the administrative management of the applications.
Type: Research, Short course
Eligibility: Applicants should be:
born on or after 1 January 1976
nationals of and current residents in a country in Sub-Saharan Africa
current staff members of a university or an equivalent higher education institution in Sub-Saharan Africa
of doctoral/postdoctoral or equivalent status although some universities offer grants for Master’s level students (please see details in the table in the Link below).
Female candidates are encouraged to apply and will be prioritised.
Selection: The administrative check of applications will be undertaken by the Coimbra Group Office in order to select candidates who meet the eligibility criteria. The selection of candidates will be undertaken by the host universities. When selection has been agreed upon, the host university may send a letter of invitation directly to the successful candidate. The Coimbra Group Office will contact all candidates and inform them about the result of their application. Successful candidates currently employed by a University are responsible for ensuring that their home institution will grant them leave of absence to undertake the proposed visit.
Number of Awardees: Limited
Value of Award: Successful candidates will have access to excellent academic knowledge in quality facilities. The scholarships include financial support for tuition, living costs, airfares etc.
Duration of Program: From 1 to maximum 3 months. The dates of candidate’s stay should be agreed upon between the candidate and the academic supervisor at the Coimbra Group University. Typically this will be during the academic year 2021/2022.
About the Award: We have set out to do everything in our power to create fashion that is more inclusive. Stitch by stitch, person by person, innovation by innovation. We’re determined to push boundaries – so we know that some of the best ideas won’t always be our own.
Launched in 2018, the Tommy Hilfiger Fashion Frontier Challenge is an annual program to discover and accelerate the work of the world’s most innovative and impactful fashion startups. Through mentoring and financial support, we want to help the best ideas breakthrough.
Building on Tommy Hilfiger’s sustainability vision to Waste Nothing and Welcome All, this year’s program strives to amplify and support black, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) entrepreneurs who are working to advance their communities and foster a more inclusive future of fashion.
Type: Contest
Eligibility: The global Tommy Hilfiger Fashion Frontier Challenge is an opportunity for entrepreneurial startup and scale-up stage businesses that are developing solutions that have a positive social impact on the fashion value chain.
Startup: Your business is in the early stages, yet to reach product-market fit, experimenting with customer segmentation and working toward overall positive contribution margin. Your company has made some revenue.
Scale-up: Your business has a validated product with product-market fit, clear and sustainable unit economics (outlook), and is in growth mode. Your company has made revenue for at least a year.
The Journey
Over a multi-stage process, applicants will be narrowed down to six finalists who will be invited to develop their project plans virtually with the support of dedicated Tommy Hilfiger and external subject-matter experts. With training from an experienced pitch coach, finalists will present their final concept at the global Tommy Hilfiger Fashion Frontier Challenge final event to be held in early 2022.
CALL TO ACTION – Interested businesses are invited to submit project proposals that focus on inclusive fashion.
DIGITAL VOTING – Internal Tommy Hilfiger associates and selected consumer judges digitally review applicants to take a top selection of 50 applications through to the Boot Camp.
THE BOOT CAMP – During a three-day process, 25 Tommy Hilfiger experts and 15 INSEAD alumni come together virtually to narrow the best 200 applications down to the top six using a rigorous seven-filter process.
DESIGN SPRINT – In partnership with OneUp, the six finalists are invited to attend a digital intensive impact venture design thinking accelerator. The finalists work with a team of designers and Tommy Hilfiger experts to bring a solution to their biggest business challenge.
FINAL EVENT – A prestigious jury panel selects winners to receive the prize fund of €200,000. An additional €15,000 is awarded to the finalist who wins the “Audience Favorite Vote.” The winners also receive a year-long mentorship with Tommy Hilfiger’s experts, as well as a place in the INSEAD Social Entrepreneurship Program (ISEP).
Eligible Countries: in Africa, Americas, Antarctica Region, Asia, Europe, Oceania
To be Taken at (Country):
Value & Number of Awards: A prestigious jury panel – including Mr. Tommy Hilfiger – selects winners to receive the prize fund of €200,000. An additional €15,000 is awarded to the finalist who wins the “Audience Favorite Vote”. The winners also receive a year-long mentorship with Tommy Hilfiger and INSEAD experts, as well as a place in the INSEAD Social Entrepreneurship Program (ISEP).
Application Deadline: 22nd March 2021 at 5:00 PM Pacific Time.
Eligible Groups: Women, African-Americans/Blacks, Latinos, American Indians/Alaskan Natives, Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders, and/or people with disabilities.
To Be Taken At (Country): U.S. and Canada
About the Award: Microsoft recognizes the value of diversity in computing. The Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant aims to increase the pipeline of diverse talent receiving advanced degrees in computing-related fields by providing a research funding opportunity for doctoral students from groups underrepresented in computing (women, African-Americans/Blacks, Latinos, American Indians/Alaskan Natives, Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders, and/or people with disabilities).
Type: Grants
Eligibility:
Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Grant recipients should support this mission and embrace opportunities to foster diverse and inclusive cultures within their communities.
PhD students must be enrolled at a university in the United States, Canada, or Mexico.
Proposed research must be closely related to the general research areas carried out by Microsoft Research as noted in the Research areas tab above.
PhD students submitting a proposal for this grant must self-identify as a woman, African American, Black, Hispanic, Latinx, American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and/or person with a disability.
Students must be in their fourth year or beyond in a PhD program when they submit their grant proposal. Students must have started their PhD in September 2017 or earlier to be considered in their fourth year of the program.
PhD students must continue to be enrolled at the university in the fall of 2021.
Payment of the award, as described above, will be made directly to the university and dispersed according to the university’s policies. Microsoft will have discretion as to how any remaining funds will be used if the student is no longer qualified to receive funding (e.g. if the student unenrolls from the program, graduates, or transfers to a different university). Grants are not available for extension; however, leaves of absence will be considered on a case by case basis.
Funding is for use only during the recipient’s time in the PhD program; it cannot be used for support in a role past graduation, such as a postdoc or faculty position. Those interested in receiving this grant will need to confirm their PhD program starting month and year, as well as their expected graduation month and year.
A recipient of the Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant subject to disciplinary proceedings for inappropriate behavior, including but not limited to discrimination, harassment (including sexual harassment), or plagiarism will forfeit their funding.
Number of Awards: Not specified
Value of Award:
The 2021 Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant recipients will receive funding up to $25,000 USD for academic year 2021-22 to help them complete research as part of their doctoral thesis work.
An invitation to the PhD Summit: a two-day workshop in the fall held at one of Microsoft Research’s labs where fellows will meet with Microsoft researchers and other top students to share their research.
How to Apply: Doctoral students enrolled in their fourth year or beyond of PhD studies and who are underrepresented in the field of computing must submit their proposal directly.
It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.
Acrimony and recriminations continue to swirl around the 2020 presidential election. Three out of four Republicans believe that there was “widespread fraud” in the election, while Democrats have sought to turn into criticisms of the election into a “Big Lie” heresy against democracy. Senior congressional Democrats are pressuring the nation’s largest cable providers to cease carrying conservative networks such as Fox News that raised too many questions about Biden’s victory.
What could possibly go wrong with sweeping the 2020 election controversies under the rug? Clues can be found in a recent report, “Elections: Lessons from the U.S. Experience in Afghanistan,” produced by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). That report contains more wisdom than will be found in President Trump’s idiotic tweet in December: “A young military man working in Afghanistan told me that elections in Afghanistan are far more secure and much better run than the USA’s 2020 Election.”
I have been thumping U.S. policy in Afghanistan for a dozen years in CounterPunch, including “Eight Years of Big Lies on Afghanistan” in 2009, “Dying to Corrupt Afghanistan” in 2011, “Obama’s Biggest Corruption Charade” in 2016, and “Your Tax Dollars Bankroll Afghan Child-Molesters” in 2018. Sad to say, this new report has shattered my final illusions on this U.S. rescue mission.
“Afghan democracy” is one of the most brazen shams of U.S. foreign policy in this century. Since the U.S. invasion in 2001, the federal government has spent more than $600 million to support elections and democratic procedures in Afghanistan (part of the $143 billion the U.S. spent there for relief and reconstruction there). Hamid Karzai, the smooth operator who the Bush administration installed to rule Afghanistan after 9/11, won a rigged 2004 presidential election. President George W. Bush boasted during his reelection campaign, “Afghanistan has now got a constitution which talks about freedom of religion and talks about women’s rights…. Democracy is flourishing.” A few years later, Karzai won support from fundamentalist voters by approving a law entitling a husband to starve his wife to death if she refused his sexual demands.
President Barack Obama justified his troop surge in Afghanistan to bolster its democracy. When Obama spoke to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in August 2009, he boasted that “our troops are helping to secure polling places for this week’s election so that Afghans can choose the future that they want.” At first glance, Karzai won a narrow victory. But two weeks after the election, the New York Times reported that Karzai’s operatives set up as many 800 fictitious polling sites “where no one voted but where hundreds of thousands of ballots were still recorded toward the president’s re-election.” In some Afghan provinces, pro-Karzai ballots outnumbered actual voters by tenfold. Peter Galbraith, a senior United Nations official in Afghanistan, was fired after he estimated that a third of Karzai’s votes were bogus. Galbraith wrote. “No amount of spin can obscure the fact that we spent upwards of $200 million on an election that has been a total fiasco” which “handed the Taliban its greatest strategic victory.”
Despite the shenanigans, the Obama administration praised Karzai as if he had won fair and square. The Obama administration told Congress that the decision to send far more U.S. troops to Afghanistan depended on the Afghan government’s “ability to hold credible elections,” among other tests. After the 2009 Afghan election turned into a sham, Obama decided it was “close enough for government work” to democracy. Thanks to Obama’s surge, 1400 American soldiers died in part to propagate the mirage of Afghan democracy.
Afghan officials have conspired for more than 15 years to both multiply and ignore election fraud. As early as 2009, U.S. Admiral Mike Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that the result was that the Afghan government’s legitimacy “is, at best, in question right now and, at worst, doesn’t exist.” An analysis by the U.S. Agency for International Development of the 2014 Afghan election noted that “several prominent election officials associated with fraud during past elections were promoted or given ministerial appointments.” Afghanistan’s 2019 presidential election was “the most corrupt the country had ever held,” according to some experts SIGAR consulted.
U.S tax dollars poured into the coffers of Afghanistan’s Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) to safeguard voting. Alas – that agency was a prime source of the most brazen vote stealing. ECC bosses were careful not to hire almost anyone with electoral experience since such folks might raise troubling questions. A former top ECC official told SIGAR that “one criterion for chief electoral officer applicants in 2018 was how well the candidates were dressed. He said this category was used as a pretext to reduce the scores of less pliable candidates.” It is unknown whether this villainy character test was inspired by Washington’s K Street lobbyists.
Push-button fraud
Afghan voting records are a mess, making it much easier to fabricate the “will of the people.” SIGAR concluded, “Afghanistan’s national voter registry and the voter registration process are exceptionally vulnerable to manipulation and mismanagement… The number of registered voters in Afghanistan is improbably high, given the population size and low turnout shortly after registering, which likely indicates registration fraud. Malpractice and lack of transparency also undermine the credibility of the voter registry.” In this country, controversies erupted in several states prior to the 2020 election over allegations that state voting roles had vast numbers of ineligible or deceased voters listed. Michigan delayed removing of 177,000 inactive voters from the state’s voting roles until earlier this month and acted only after a lawsuit forced the state’s hand.
Afghan elections have been institutionalized racketeering in part because the rules for elections have always been in flux. SIGAR noted, “Only one of the country’s election laws has ever been passed by parliament; the rest were presidential decrees that were never referred to the parliament for consideration.” The SIGAR report quoted election experts: “The likelihood of a credible election is inversely proportional to the degree to which the ruling regime directly controls the election management body.”
America has mostly avoided similar debacles because the Founding Fathers included an Elections Clause in the Constitution specifying that the rules for federal elections (president and Congress) “shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.” Unfortunately, that constitutional provision was trampled last year in many states. Time magazine recently revealed “the secret history of the 2020 election” – “a well-funded cabal of powerful people… working together behind the scenes to… change rules and laws” to “fortify” democracy. Democratic Party officials and election commission officials appointed by Democrats scorned state law to rewrite the rules for the 2020 election in several swing states.
A brief filed with the Supreme Court in December by the state of Texas noted, “Michigan’s Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson, without legislative approval, unilaterally abrogated Michigan election statutes related to absentee ballot applications” by sending “unsolicited absentee-voter ballot applications by mail to all 7.7 million registered Michigan voters… without verifying voter signatures as required” by state law. The impact was compounded when Democratic officials in the state’s most populous county (including Detroit) “made the policy decision to ignore Michigan’s statutory signature verification requirements for absentee ballots.” Elsewhere, the Wisconsin Elections Commission approved setting up to 500 unmanned ballot drop boxes in major Democratic cities in violation of Wisconsin law.
Politically-appointed judges effectively overturned state law by mandating new election procedures in several states. In Pennsylvania, the state Supreme Court invoked a vaporous phrase in the state constitution – “Elections shall be free and equal” – to justify invalidating a state law that prohibited counting mail-in ballots that arrived after Election Day; the judges even mandated including late ballots arriving with no postmark. A similar provision was struck down on January 27 by a Virginia circuit court overturning the Virginia Board of Elections’ decree permitting counting mail-in ballots that arrived three days after the election without a postmark.
Elsewhere in the report, SIGAR notes the difficulty of building a viable democracy when elected officials formally receive a license to steal. After noting the hefty bribes that politicians pay to election officials, SIGAR explains: “One reason candidates may be willing to pay such high prices for seats in parliament is to protect ill-gotten fortunes…. By becoming members of parliament, they can gain access to new sources of illicit revenue and immunity from prosecution.” That parliament is the last place on earth to seek a constituency for honest elections.
Afghanistan also illustrates the perils of computer voting. As one election expert told SIGAR, “There is no difference between stuffing 100 ballots and pressing a button on an electronic voting machine 100 times.” Afghan President Ashraf Ghani decreed that the 2019 election must rely on electronic voting. But SIGAR noted that electronic voting “did not reduce fraud overall; it just displaced it to other parts of the electoral cycle.” Confidence in Afghan electronic voting was not assisted by the secrecy surrounding the software and equipment. After the 2019 presidential election, Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission declared that it could not “share information” about how votes were being reconciled because “the contractor, Dermalog, controlled that process.” SIGAR quoted experts who warned that “because governments often control electoral commissions and the procurement of election technology, they are well placed to use it to commit fraud. The introduction of technology can also weaken the ability of political parties and observation groups to detect fraud.”
Luckily, no such problems occurred in the U.S. presidential election last year, as confirmed by the recent billion dollar defamation lawsuits filed by Dominion Voting Systems against its critics. But the SIGAR report did cynically note, “The true purpose of adopting election technologies may not be to actually reduce fraud, but to create the illusion of doing so.”
Perhaps the real Afghan lesson is that there is no “guardian angel of democracy.” Politicians permitting citizens to vote does not assure that election results will receive even a whiff of legitimacy. Once fraud or suspicions of fraud reach a certain level, any election winners will be suspected scoundrels. More than 15 years of corrupt elections in Afghanistan have resulted in a central government with little or no popular support or credibility. A U.S. Army colonel who deployed several times to Afghanistan told SIGAR that as early as 2006, the Afghan government had “self-organized into a kleptocracy.” Officials who were stealing everything else never hesitated to steal votes. The only reason the Afghan government has not yet been toppled by the Taliban is because of the presence of U.S. military.
And is there a lesson from the endless lies that U.S. government officials have told about Afghan democracy? At a confidential 2015 National Security Council meeting, President Obama admitted that the U.S. would never “transform Afghanistan into a semblance of a democracy able to defend itself,” the New York Times reported. But that didn’t deter Obama from publicly bragging the following year that U.S. troops and diplomats had helped Afghanistan “establish a democratic government.” Are U.S. government officials more honest when they talk about American democracy than when they praise sham democracies abroad?
Regardless of any Trump tweets to the contrary, U.S. election processes remain far more credible than Afghanistan’s. But last year’s election was the fourth U.S. presidential election since 2000 that was widely perceived as heavily tainted. When the Supreme Court voted last week not to hear cases challenging arbitrary changes in state election procedures, Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, “The decision to leave election law hidden beneath a shroud of doubt is baffling. By doing nothing, we invite further confusion and erosion of voter confidence.” Unfortunately, almost no one is talking of the peril of the “Afghanization” of American democracy.
There have been several reports about the adverse impact of high levels of meat production and consumption on food production. For example it is well recognized that seven kgs. of grain, or more, is used to produce one kg. of beef in intensive systems and at the same massive amounts of water are used, and this has a very adverse impact on food security. But unfortunately similar very adverse impacts of increasing alcohol consumption on food security have not received the due attention.
As liquor consumption is increasing more and more fertile land is being used to grow the various raw materials for the liquor industry. Often various crops are grown in ways, for example in terms of selection of crop varieties, such that these can be supplied directly to the liquor industry. Hence a lot of fertile land is taken away from the production of food. In conditions where profit is the main factor, and liquor being a very high profit industry, it is hardly surprising that land is diverted to meet the needs of the liquor industry.
In recent years in countries like India and China where liquor consumption and production has increased in a big way there is a significant diversion of fertile land from producing food to producing ( raw material for ) liquor.
There has been an increasing trend of diverting highly nutritious fruits like apples and plums in some hill areas in particular from direct consumption to processing as liquor, as this brings higher profits. In some hill areas known for their high production of apples we see that children from poor households hardly eat apples but apples are increasingly used in making expensive wines.
In addition it has been seen that sometimes in government storages deterioration of quality of some grain or its rotting is conveniently allowed by some corrupt persons with a view to facilitating its sale at a very cheap price to the liquor industry. This denies availability of food to those who need this the most.
Another way in which food security is impacted is at the level of increasing consumption of liquor in several poor households. Much to the resentment and distress of women and children, in several poor households with difficulty in obtaining adequate food and nutrition, men insist on regular consumption of liquor. This may happen due to a complex factors but the net result is that the food and nutrition situation in several poor households is further affected adversely.
Another aspect is that a lot of water is diverted for making liquor in several areas , or for irrigating water-intensive crops meant for the liquor industry, even though there is increasing water shortage for drinking and for irrigating food crops. Such reports have even been received even from drought-affected and drought-prone areas.
A report in India Today by Kiran Tare on serious water scarcity in Marathwada region said, “Indiscriminate release of water for sugarcane cultivation and alcohol production has depleted the (water) reservoirs. There are some 200 distilleries in Aurangabad, which use enormous quantities of potable water.” This was reported at the time of a serious water scarcity in the area.
In other areas water situation in threatened by fast increase in wine production and the increase in grapes production to feed wine units with raw material. The prestigious Economist journal reported some time back that 960 litres of water are used for one litre of wine.
From Punjab as well as from other areas there are reports of very high pollution of rivers and water sources due to the effluents released by distilleries. Distilleries are known to be a very significant source of water pollution in several areas, apart from spreading foul smell and hence hindering farm work in nearby villages.
What is the total impact of these two aspects – diversion of huge quantities of potable water to distilleries (as well as for the availability of their raw material) and the pollution of various water sources by effluents released by distilleries. The continued impact of these should be assessed in well-planned water audits of increasing liquor production.
At present India leads the world in increase of liquor consumption in recent times.. Alcohol consumption more than doubled in India between 2005 and 2016. According to WHO projections for year 2025, the increase of liquor consumption from 2005 to 2025 will be between 3 to 4 times in India. The discussion so far has been on on the disastrous health and social impact of this increase. We also need to know the food and water impact.
Similarly there is a need to assess all aspects of the adverse impact of tobacco production and consumption on food security.
Teachers voted on Saturday, February 27, to continue their strike against the murderous reopening of public schools in São Paulo, the state with the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in Brazil.
The vote, carried out through virtual assemblies, came the day after Brazil reported the highest number of COVID-19 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic over a year ago.
Despite the deadly implications of school reopenings amid this surge in the pandemic and with the imminent threat of a national collapse of the health system, the political groups within the São Paulo teachers union APEOESP executive board—the Workers Party (PT), the Maoist Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) and the various tendencies of the pseudo-left Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL)—continue sabotaging the teachers strike.
Maria Teresa, the first teacher killed by COVID-19 after the reopening of schools in São Paulo. (Credit: Facebook)
The strike began on February 8, when schools partially reopened for the beginning of the 2021 school year. Since then, the various tendencies of the PSOL, especially the Morenoite Resistência, have tried their best to end the strike, while the PT and PCdoB have advocated prioritizing teachers for coronavirus vaccinations and that the strike be limited to teachers who are not part of the COVID-19 risk groups and must go into the schools.
The “health strike,” as they are calling it, still implies that teachers continue to do remote work with their students. In the only official account of teacher participation in the “health strike,” APEOESP reported that 15 percent of the 170,000 teachers had not gone to school on the first day back.
Since it began, the “health strike” has been directly attacked by São Paulo’s right-wing Governor João Doria (Brazilian Social Democracy Party, PSDB), who has stopped paying teachers who have not gone back. Last week, there were reports of striking teachers being removed from “Google Classroom” by school principals, preventing them from conducting remote classes, and of striking temporary teachers having their work contracts terminated.
The “health strike” is also being undermined by the actions of the APEOESP executive board. A week after the strike began, on February 12, it presented a proposal in the virtual assemblies that called for teachers on “health strike” to return to the schools and “register attendance” in order to “dialogue” with the school community.
This, in practice, meant the end of the strike. This proposal, which was approved by teachers participating in virtual assemblies amid a deliberate effort by the executive board to sow confusion, put the executive board, in effect, on the same side as Governor Doria in his effort to reopen schools.
“Those who are on the school floor know that it is practically impossible to follow the required protocols.” (Credit: Movimento Escolas sem Luto/Facebook)
The APEOESP has also done everything possible to subordinate the teachers struggle against school reopenings to the capitalist courts. It has urged teachers who are on “health strike” to file a request to their schools to have their workday done remotely, and, if it is denied—as it is, in fact, occurring—to file a case in court. This same court, working in close collaboration with the state government, reversed in late January a decision that had prevented the reopening of schools because of the worsening of the pandemic in São Paulo.
This same treacherous script was followed by the groups that control the APEOESP executive board in the last regional virtual assemblies on Saturday afternoon. In the Greater São Paulo regional assembly, executive board member Stenio Matheus of the PSOL defended ending the strike without making a single reference to the seriousness of the pandemic in São Paulo. Ignoring the long history of betrayals by the APEOESP that has destroyed the union’s credibility among rank-and-file teachers, he blamed the teachers themselves for the low participation in the strike.
For those executive board members who pointed out the seriousness of the pandemic, these were just empty words. Richard Araújo, from the Morenoite Resistência tendency, defended the need for a “general lockdown” in São Paulo and Brazil as a whole. But he quickly added, “Now, how we are going to do this fight? That’s the big question. ... The best way to reorganize the troops for the war we are waging is to suspend the strike.” Since the first assembly, Resistência has opposed the action, and its website, Esquerda Online, has published only one article on the São Paulo teachers strike.
Rank-and-file teachers have expressed a principled position against these moves by the union’s executive board. In the online chat, they responded to the proposal to suspend the strike. “It was already dangerous to be in school [a month ago], imagine ending the strike now at the height of contaminations and deaths from COVID, and hospitals with no vacancies!!!” wrote one teacher.
“These people keep measuring this strike by the low numbers and not by life, which was and is the main reason it exists,” commented another.
“What is this tactic of making striking teachers return to the classroom? [This] will do nothing to increase the strike. It will only favor the infection and deaths of more teachers,” was another angry response.
One teacher further pointed out that there is a “strike [that] is strong, the one carried out by parents who are not sending their students to schools. This is driven by our struggle for the defense of life.”
Since the first day of reopenings, the APEOESP has reported that student participation, which is optional, had been less than five percent, a number well below the 35 percent expected by the government.
After a month of partial reopenings in São Paulo, the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths increased among the school community. As of Sunday, the APEOESP had registered 1,489 coronavirus cases among teachers in 726 schools, with 22 teachers dying from COVID-19. The first teacher victim of the disease, Maria Tereza Miguel Couto de Lourenço, was only 32 years old and died on February 20, two days after her mother died of COVID-19.
The São Paulo reopening of schools has also led to an increase in COVID-19 cases and deaths among children. In mid-February, the daily Folha de S. Paulo reported that “public children’s hospitals register an increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations.” The health secretary of the third largest city in São Paulo, Campinas, with more than one million people, reported last week an increase in hospitalizations of children and adolescents. A 13-year-old child has already died from COVID-19 in the city.
After Campinas registered a 100 percent occupancy of ICU beds in public hospitals last week, it postponed the start of in-person learning in its municipal public school system from March 5 to the beginning of April. This example has also been followed by many other cities. A report on the G1 website showed that, until last Thursday, 11 cities in the São Paulo metropolitan region were forced to postpone the reopening of schools to mid-March. Among those cities are the largest in the state outside the capital, São Paulo: Guarulhos, São Bernardo, Santo André and Osasco, all with more than 650,000 inhabitants.
These decisions to keep schools closed come at the most critical moment of the pandemic in São Paulo and Brazil. Last Thursday, Brazil recorded the highest number of deaths in 24 hours since the pandemic began—1,582. In São Paulo alone, there were 345 deaths. It has already seen 38 days with a daily moving average of over 1,000 deaths, the longest period since the pandemic began.
On Sunday, Brazil had more than 10.5 million cases and 254,000 deaths. This is the third largest number of cases and second largest number of deaths of any country in the world
Last week, this dramatic situation was expressed in the highest occupancy rate in the national health system since the beginning of the pandemic, with a huge increase in the occupancy of ICU beds. According to the leading epidemiological institute FIOCRUZ, at least 12 of the 26 Brazilian states reached 96 percent ICU occupancy last Friday, and 17 state capitals have an ICU occupancy higher than 80 percent.
Against this backdrop, 12 states have stepped up measures to contain the spread of the virus. However, many experts have advocated tougher measures. Miguel Nicolelis, one of Brazil’s most prominent scientists, said in an interview with O Globo last Friday that Brazil needs an “immediate 21-day national lockdown.” Otherwise, there is a “great chance of a national [health care system] collapse.”
In only a few places in the country is the clash between what science says should be done to fight the pandemic and the actions of governors who align themselves with the herd immunity policy of fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro so clear as in São Paulo, the richest state and financial center of the country.
Last week saw four straight days of record ICU bed occupancy. Physician Paulo Menezes, coordinator of the scientific committee that guides the actions of the São Paulo government, warned that São Paulo’s health system could collapse in three weeks. The UOL website reported that experts on the scientific committee are “increasingly unhappy with the governor” after advocating a “lockdown for at least 10 days” and Doria refusing it. The report also noted that this decision was due to pressure from the “‘economic sector’ of the government,” which does not want to “upset business.”
Despite the catastrophic situation, São Paulo’s Education Secretary Rossieli Soares wrote on his Facebook page: “São Paulo’s education will not suffer changes, schools will remain open within the permitted hours.” Based on last year’s disastrous “European experience” of keeping schools open, even with the pandemic out of control, the São Paulo government moved to consider education an essential service in December, allowing schools to partially reopen, even as the pandemic worsened.
Against the Doria government’s murderous policy of keeping schools open, aided and abetted by the pseudo-left and the APEOESP, São Paulo state school teachers should build rank-and-file committees independent of the union. Such committees are needed to coordinate their strike actions in defense of life, not only with the entire school community, but also with São Paulo municipal teachers on strike and those from all over Brazil and internationally fighting against the reopening of schools.
These committees should make the broadest possible call to other sectors of the working class and fight for the immediate closure of schools and non-essential services, with financial compensation to all those affected.
Amnesty International stripped Russian oppositionist Alexei Navalny of his status as a “prisoner of conscience” last week because of his history of hate speech. This step exposes the fraudulent character of the frenzied campaign in the bourgeois media, especially the New York Times in the US and DerSpiegel in Germany, aimed at portraying Navalny as a “democratic” opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin. As the World Socialist Web Site has warned for years, far from being in any way “democratic,” Navalny is a crude, anti-immigrant chauvinist.
He advocates violence against Russia’s Muslim peoples from the Caucasus and former citizens of the Soviet Union who hail from Central Asia. At the center of Amnesty International’s decision is a series of YouTube videos Navalny produced in the 2000s as part of building the National Russian Liberation Movement or NAROD [PEOPLE], which he co-founded with National Bolshevik Zakhar Prilepin in 2007. The videos bear the unmistakable hallmark of far-right propaganda.
One titled, “NAROD for the Legalization of Guns,” begins with Navalny standing next to the label, “Certified Nationalist.” He perches behind a table with a pistol, a shoe and a fly swatter. Cockroaches and flies, screeching and growling, leap out at the viewer. “Everyone knows we can use a fly swatter against flies and a shoe against cockroaches,” states Navalny. A photo of individuals from the Caucasus seemingly outfitted in military fatigues appears. On it is the inscription, “Homo Sapiens Bezpredelius,” which means “Homo Sapiens Borderless.”
Alexei Navalny talks to one of his lawyers during a hearing in the Moscow City Court in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2021. (Moscow City Court via AP)
Navalany asks, “But what happens if the cockroaches are too great and the flies too aggressive?” A person dressed in black comes screaming towards him. Navalny shoots the man point-blank. A dead body appears. “In that case, I recommend a pistol,” states the Russian oppositionist. The vile video can be seen on his YouTube page here.
In another clip titled, “Become Nationalists!”, Navalny, dressed as a dentist, tells the viewer, “I frequently see cavities.” Indicating that sometimes nationalists, going after these cavities, run amok. Images then stream across the screen of skinheads attacking people, Nazis giving the Hitler salute and Nazi war criminals hanged at Nuremberg.
But, adds Navalny, “These aren’t real specialists.” “You need to precisely and firmly deport,” he counsels. We then see frightened, presumably Central Asians being rounded up, as a yanked cavity rolls across the screen. Then an airplane appears. Only blockheads think that “nationalism is violence,” tempers Navalny.
“A tooth without a root is a dead tooth. Nationalists are those who do not want the word Russia to strike a blow at the Russian root.” More rotten teeth are pulled as agonizing sounds play alongside. “We have the right to be Russians in Russia, and we are defending this right,” he concludes.
Throughout this dialogue, Navalny uses the word russkiy to refer to Russians, which means only ethnically Russian people. There is another word in the language, rossisskiy, which denotes all people who are citizens of the Russian Federation, regardless of their specific ethnicity. Navalny is making clear that the country is not for these populations.
These videos have been floating around the internet since the late 2000s. In the lead up to Amnesty’s decision and afterwards, some press outlets have done some mild hand wringing over what they describe as Navalny’s “nationalism problem.” But they have largely kept quiet about it for over a decade, and the descriptions of these videos in the media vastly understate their filthiness. A 2017 article by The Guardian, for instance, characterized the first of the two videos mentioned here as one in which Navalny “speaks out in favour of relaxing gun controls.”
Navalny is unabashed. He defends the videos and his participation in Russia’s annual far-right event, the Russia March, which he helped organize for several years. He refuses to take down the YouTube clips or renounce their politics. The author of the above-mentioned 2017 Guardian article described the following exchange with Navalny about the subject:
“I ask him if he regrets those videos now, and he’s unapologetic. He sees it as a strength that he can speak to both liberals and nationalists. But comparing migrants to cockroaches? ‘That was artistic license,’ he says. So there’s nothing at all from those videos or that period that he regrets? ‘No,’ he says again, firmly.”
Prominent Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen, who spares no breath denouncing Putin for his authoritarian government and violations of human rights on the pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post and other leading news outlets, published a phony lament in the New Yorker on February 15, written as if Navalny’s far-right politics were new to her.
After giving some description of the oppositionist’s filthy outlook, Gessen justified his views, claiming that during the early Putin era, “The only alternative seemed to be broadly ethno-nationalist ideas.” Gessen concludes by noting that many people think Navalny should still win the Nobel Peace Prize, for which he was nominated in late January.
The Kremlin is one of the most fervent exponents of Russian nationalism and anti-immigration chauvinism. By promoting these views, Navalny is not opposing Putin. He is seeking to convince the country’s far right that it can find a home in the so-called “liberal,” free market wing of the Russian bourgeoisie.
There is nothing about Navalny’s program that is progressive, much less democratic. He advocates privatizations and tax cuts. He wants to open up Russia to more foreign investment and give global corporations an equal chance to work the country’s masses to the bone, reining in to some extent the share of Russian profits that accrue to the Putin-dominated state bureaucracy.
His anti-corruption crusade—the sort of thing that always and everywhere is an political empty vessel into which the most rancid politics can be poured—seeks to tap into widespread popular anger over the parasitism of the Russian ruling class, but keep it aimed at the Kremlin and away from capitalism as a whole.
Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation is financed by major figures in big business, including Roman Borisovich (of the insurance giant Rosgosstrakh), Boris Zimin (son of telecommunications oligarch Dmitri Zimin), Alexander Lebedev (former Soviet intelligence chief and later billionaire media mogul) and Vladimir Ashurkov (an executive with the massive banking conglomerate, Alfa Group) to name just a few.
The majority stakeholder in the leading pro-Navalny press—Ekho Moskvi—is Gazprom Media, which is connected to the Russian energy giant Gazprom. None of these forces has a problem with corruption per se; they only have a problem with “corruption” that cuts across their money-making interests and Putin’s foreign policies. They advocate deepening ties with Washington and Berlin.
Navalny’s far-right politics have been no secret to either Amnesty International (AI) or his imperialist backers. One news report about AI’s recent decision stated that the human rights organization only changed Navalny’s status after coming under external pressure. AI denies this charge. Clearly, however, the organization felt that it might lose some credibility if it continued to laud someone who performs racially motivated mock executions on video as a “prisoner of conscience.”
Sections of the ruling class may also be concerned that Navalny’s extreme right-wing nationalist orientation may endanger other foreign policy objectives in the region, particularly on the question of Ukraine.
A February 18 comment put out by the leading Washington think tank, the Atlantic Council, indicates that one of the biggest problems with Navalny is his support for Russia’s seizure of the Crimea and refusal to advocate for the peninsula’s immediate return to Kiev, which is “completely unacceptable” to Western allies in Ukraine.
However, German political scientist Andreas Umland, who has played a major role in justifying the Ukrainian far right and its role in the 2014 coup in Kiev, counsels that one cannot get too bent out of shape because Navalny is useful at the moment for undermining the Putin government. Should his usefulness prove short lived, he can be dispensed with.
“It will certainly be sensible to adopt a more cautious attitude towards Navalny if he is eventually released from prison and if he then goes on to acquire political power. Today, however, his rise to prominence is principally a destabilizing factor that poses various challenges to Putin’s authoritarian rule, while offering the prospect of a new Russian democratization drive,” writes Umland.
Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic there have been repeated alerts about an escalating mental health crisis. Psychiatrists’ warnings from last May of a potential “tsunami of referrals” after lockdown were seized on by the right-wing media to fuel demands for a return to work.
Ongoing research by the COVID-19 Psychological Research Consortium (C19PRC) paints a more nuanced picture of the mental health crisis, and suggests a more rational response that protects both physical and mental health.
C19PRC is an international multidisciplinary team of clinical and research psychologists centred at Sheffield University, studying the psychological, social, political and economic impact of the pandemic. Their research points to interpersonal trauma as having a more damaging effect on mental health than collective trauma.
An unemployment office in Britain
At the beginning of the first lockdown, C19PRC, a team of experts from five British universities, began surveying 2,025 adults “representative of the UK population in age, sex, household income, political attitudes and many other factors.” Their survey was not confined to mental health, but also covered family relationships, attitudes to vaccines and coronavirus conspiracy theories, adherence to social distancing and other related topics. They have collaborated in similar surveys internationally.
C19PRC have continued surveying these individuals as the pandemic has unfolded and have begun to draw out some patterns. Like other researchers, C19PRC saw an initial increase in rates of depression, anxiety and stress with the onset of the first lockdown. Those who had previously experienced mental health problems were hardest hit, but researchers noted the impact on the poor, the young, and those with small children at home.
Lockdown conditions were exacerbating existing problems.
Young workers have been particularly affected. In October-December 2020, after nine months of pandemic measures, fully one quarter of all those unemployed for 12 months or more were aged 16-24.
The unemployment rate for 16-24-year-olds in October-December 2020 was 14.4 percent. This had risen over the preceding year, but for the last period before lockdowns already stood at 12.1 percent—giving the lie to arguments that reopening the economy was for their wellbeing.
A survey of 1,300 mental health doctors last May reported a dramatic reduction in routine appointments. Professor Wendy Burn, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP), expressed concern that this was “storing up problems” that would culminate in “a tsunami of referrals.”
When former RCP president Adrian James described the current crisis as “probably the biggest hit to mental health since the second world war,” he was careful to oppose using this as an argument against lockdowns and the need for controlling the virus. But those most enthusiastic about reopening the economy, ending the lockdown and forcing a return to work used such observations to give their demands a humanitarian gloss.
The pro-Conservative government Daily Telegraph cited Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures showing that rates of depression in adults have doubled during the pandemic to one in five, and a recent National Health Service (NHS) survey showing that one in six children is and now experiencing mental issues such as anxiety, depression and loneliness, up from one in nine in a comparable 2017 survey. Referrals to child and adolescent mental health services at their highest on record, and up 20 percent on the previous year.
Describing “The whole system [as] clearly under pressure,” Adrian James said, “You’ve got to fund the long-term consequences” of the pandemic. The Telegraph used this as an opportunity to promote full school opening. They quoted Dr Bernadka Dubicka of the RCP speaking of children’s “sense of loss” at their exam preparations coming to nothing, and of “Landmark occasions” being “lost; never to be experienced by hundreds of thousands of children.”
In similar vein, former RCP president Simon Wessely was quoted saying, “We have taken away a whole year of students’ lives… For many of us those are the times that defined our futures.” His comments were directed solely at mental health provision, but the Telegraph deployed him against lockdown more generally.
A comment piece by Dubicka was accompanied by a box graph showing “41 percent of children say they are lonelier then before restrictions were put in place; 38 percent of children say they are more worried due to lockdown; 37 percent of children say they are sadder due to lockdown.”
Dubicka wrote of schooling as “helping children move out of poverty” because poorer children who are less able to engage in remote learning will therefore find their “ability to reach their full potential and flourish in the workplace will be limited and could potentially consign them to a life of poverty—one of the key drivers of mental illness.”
This is back-to-front. Poorer children must go back to school to escape a life of poverty, but what of the impact of the poverty they are already living in? And why does such disadvantage magically disappear in a classroom setting, when all available evidence point to social class as the primary determinant of educational achievement?
This is where C19PRC’s findings are most suggestive. While confirming the problems experienced during the first lockdown, they subsequently noted a general reduction in the number of people reporting “above average” levels of psychiatric symptoms, in line with other studies. There was instead a “picture of adaptation and resilience,” with some coming together collectively, stronger social bonds and a sense of belonging and shared identity. C19PRC confirmed that the pandemic had hit hardest those with a history of poor mental health, but its findings point to an underlying cause quite different to that proposed by the right-wing media.
Writing in the Guardian against the “tsunami” narrative, Professor Richard Bentall said it was “important to recognise that some of the consequences of the pandemic have been beneficial—people who have kept their jobs have often saved money, the daily commute has been eliminated for some, and we found that most parents of older children have enjoyed having their kids at home.”
In mental health, as in all aspects of socio-economic and political life, the pandemic has acted as an accelerant for tensions and crises that already existed. This is corroborated by a Spanish study Bentall was involved in, into post-traumatic symptoms (PTS) and post-traumatic growth (PTG) during confinement caused by the coronavirus. That study confirmed “the important role of intolerance of uncertainty in relation to PTS”—and, more specifically, to current anxieties.
In other words, what is causing the mental trauma is not primarily the pandemic in itself but its effect on the work stresses and instability of life under capitalism. Those most likely to suffer worsening mental health are those already most traumatised by the profit system which casualises, trivialises and discards every aspect of workers’ lives and work.
This was confirmed by last summer’s report from mental health charity Mind, which found that over half those living in social housing said their mental health was poor or very poor. Two-thirds living in social housing reported worsening mental health during lockdown. Nearly three quarters of those who were furloughed, lost their job or changed jobs saw a decline in their mental health, compared to two-thirds whose employment status did not change. More than half receiving free school meals (58 percent) said their mental health was poor or very poor, compared to 41 percent not receiving free school meals.
Mind’s Head of Policy and Campaigns, Louise Rubin, said the survey revealed the major drivers of mental health problems were anxieties around benefits, losing jobs, and being able to put food on the table. This was an existing social crisis accelerated by the pandemic creating mental health problems.
The forced reopening of workplaces does not ease the mental health of workers. Accompanied by a worsened threat to life and health, and the speed ups, job cuts and wage slashing of the employers, it will worsen it.
Trying to temper the “tsunami” arguments, Bentall touched on this underlying crisis with reference to the restricted availability of health provision under capitalism. “Even if there really were a tidal wave of mental illness washing over the population,” he wrote, “what would anyone be able to do about it ( it would not be possible to install a clinical psychologist in every neighbourhood )?” [emphasis added] “When additional resources are available for mental health services,” he wrote, they should be targeted at the most vulnerable.
Health provision should not be dependent on additional funding possibly becoming available. Like every aspect of social and economic life, it must be rationally planned and delivered for the benefit of all, not for corporate profit.
Bentall wrote of the “practical implications” of their findings: “The government can most preserve the population’s mental health by protecting people from the economic consequences of the pandemic.”
Those economic consequences, however, are the inevitable product of the capitalist profit system in which the interests of the corporations and the super-rich are prioritised over the health and well-being of the working class. The solution lies with the socialist reorganisation of economic and social life.
