US Government TechWomen Program 2022

Application Deadline: 5th January 2022 09:00AM PDT (GMT-07:00)

Eligible Countries: Be citizens and permanent residents of Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Palestinian Territories, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan or Zimbabwe at the time of application and while participating in the program.

To be taken at (country): USA

Eligible Field of Study: Any STEM fields

About the US Government TechWomen Program: From the moment the Emerging Leaders arrive, they are immersed in the innovative, constantly evolving culture of Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area. Emerging Leaders work closely with their Professional Mentors to design meaningful projects while exploring the San Francisco Bay Area with their Cultural Mentor and fellow program participants.

US Government TechWomen Emerging Leaders will:

• Challenge themselves with new questions and concepts
• Collaborate with like-minded women in their fields on an innovative project
• Network with influential industry leaders
• Discover their own innovative leadership style
• Create meaningful friendships with women from all over the world
• Explore the diverse communities of the San Francisco Bay Area and Washington, D.C.
• Inspire the next generation of women and girls in their home countries

Type: Training, Fellowship

Eligibility: Applicants for US Government Techwomen Program must

• Be women with, at minimum, two years full-time professional experience in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields. Please note that internships and other unpaid work experience does not count toward the two-year professional experience requirement.
• Have, at minimum, a bachelor’s degree/four-year university degree or equivalent.
• Be proficient in written and spoken English.
• Be citizens and permanent residents of Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Palestinian Territories, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan or Zimbabwe at the time of application and while participating in the program.
• Be eligible to obtain a U.S. J-1 exchange visitor visa.
• Not have applied for an immigrant visa to the United States (other than the Diversity Immigrant Visa, also known as the “visa lottery”) in the past five years.
• Not hold U.S. citizenship or be a U.S. legal permanent resident.

Preference will be given to applicants who

• Demonstrate themselves as emerging leaders in their chosen professional track through their work experience, volunteer experience, community activities and education.
• Are committed to return to their home countries to share what they have learned and mentor women and girls.
• Have limited or no prior experience in the United States.
• Have a proven record of voluntary or public service in their communities.
• Have a demonstrated track record of entrepreneurialism and commitment to innovation.
• Demonstrate a willingness to participate in exchange programs, welcome opportunities for mentoring and new partnership development, and exhibit confidence and maturity.

US Government TechWomen encourages people with diverse backgrounds and skills to apply, including individuals with disabilities.

Selection: TechWomen participants are selected based on the eligibility requirements above. Applications are reviewed by independent selection committees composed of industry leaders and regional experts. Semifinalists may be interviewed by United States Embassy personnel in their country of permanent residence.

Number of Awardees: 100 women

Value of US Government TechWomen Program: International travel, housing, meals and incidentals, local transportation and transportation to official TechWomen events are covered by the TechWomen program. Participants are responsible for the cost of any non-program activities in which they wish to partake, such as independent sightseeing and non-program-related travel.

Duration of US Government TechWomen Program: The 2020 TechWomen program will occur over five weeks from February 2022 – March 2022. Due to the fast-paced nature of the program, arrival and departure dates are not flexible.

How to Apply for US Government TechWomen Program: CLICK HERE TO APPLY

• Interested TechWomen participants should apply based on the application requirements in link below.

Visit Programme Webpage for details

Kofi Annan Award for Innovation in Africa 2021

Application Deadline:

1st December 2021 at 11:59 pm (CET)

Tell Me About Kofi Annan Award for Innovation in Africa:

The Austrian Federal Chancellery is inviting African social entrepreneurs and purpose-driven enterprises with a measurable social impact and sustainable business model to apply in order to bring their social impact to scale and benefit as many Africans as possible.

Let us connect African, European and Austrian entrepreneurs to scale up and boost the social impact of innovative digital solutions. 

With the Kofi Annan Award for Innovation in Africa, the Austrian Federal Chancellery, together with well-renowned partner organizations, is looking to support innovative and digital healthcare solutions across Africa and boost their impact.    

The Call will be open to African social entrepreneurs and purpose-driven enterprises with a measurable social impact and sustainable business model. The focus of the first edition of the Kofi Annan Award for Africa will be on Sustainable Development Goal 3: Good Health and Well-Being.

What Type of Scholarship is this?

Entrepreneurship

Who can apply?

Innovations submitted for the Kofi Annan Award for Innovation in Africa will be evaluated and selected according to the following criteria: 

1. Impact & Scalability: The idea has the potential to positively impact the health and wellbeing of a specific population. 
2. Business Model: the project has a scalable product/service with sustainable revenue generation and scalable financial model. 
3. Team: The team members have relevant experience, are committed to the project and ability to implement the solution. 
4. Innovativeness: The idea is a new technology, the approach of applying existing technology, process or business model addressing a problem. 
5. Traction: The innovation has shown demonstrable results in terms revenue, customers, investments, or grants.

How are Applicants Selected?

Nine candidate teams will be selected to further develop their solutions in the 5-day intensive Innovation Bootcamp and consequently pitch their solutions in front of a high-level jury. 

Alongside this, candidates will further benefit from the Support Network of the Kofi Annan Award for Africa – a community of passionate and engaged mentors, investors, consultants, corporate partners and industry experts who share one goal: to help social entrepreneurs get access to the right resources at the right time.

Which Countries are Eligible?

African countries

How Many Scholarships will be Given?

9

What is the Benefit of Kofi Annan Award for Innovation in Africa?

With your application for the Kofi Annan Award for Innovation in Africa you will get the chance to 

• win up to EUR 250,000 in grants as a finalist and attend a 12-month accelerator program 
• participate in a 5-day innovation bootcamp
• present your solution to a distinguished jury
• network with mentors, investors and potential business partners
• gain international exposure

Let us connect African, European and Austrian entrepreneurs to scale up and boost the social impact of innovative digital solutions. 

How Long will the Program Last?

12 months

How to Apply for Kofi Annan Award for Innovation in Africa:

Apply here

Visit Award Webpage for Details

The American Dilemma

Paul Edwards

In the arcane mythos of Medieval Christianity, Gog and Magog were monstrous, demonic allies of Satan, striving with him to see mankind damned to perdition and eternal punishment in Hell.

Religious mythology, from the Greeks on down, has been utilized to provide easily interpreted moral imperatives for the guidance of vulnerable, credulous humans. Gog and Magog embodied the power of evil, as symbols of all that was corrupt, perverse, and destructive in human nature, and were dreaded as such.

Americans are short on mythology now, except for the sleazy, dirty joke of Exceptionalist bullshit, but the Gog/Magog model will serve well in describing one aspect of the waning days of this despicable, moribund empire: its governing political parties.

The Party of Gog is less a party than an agglomeration of the bitterly resentful. It’s the Big Tent of the furiously pissed off, an attribute common to all its devotees. Their sources of resentment are many, the causes are various, but a raging fury bonds them.

They’re a mix of economic and social classes, a broad range of education levels, predominantly white but not exclusively, sexist male in presentation but with an amazing number of white female adherents. In their rage, they embrace a range of what civil society deems odious, primitive prejudices, and they flaunt them openly with prideful hostility. It is clear that they have had to stifle their views for far too long, waiting for their time to shine.

At its top financially are the maverick billionaires who resent government impeding unfettered, unrestrained acquisition of wealth, who believe society should exist to enable unlimited privilege. Under them are many very wealthy of the Ayn Rand school, all reciting the mantra that government is the enemy. These upper echelons harbor deep animosity for the system in which they have done so well because they have not done better.

Under this favored few, there is a great mass who feel they’ve been denied what they deserve. Small business men, ranchers, professionals, commercial, industrial, or manufacturing workers who have lost jobs or been replaced, they form a vast army with minimum-wagers/part timers struggling desperately to survive, and a mass of hillbillies and hicks with slim or no prospects.

The prejudices the wealthiest trumpet loudest are against all Democratic government or Social Welfare for the poor, sick, old, and disadvantaged, which is to say against society itself. This is hidden from the lower orders who are better off not knowing.

The lower groups—with some spillover from the wealthy—have simpler, more visceral biases. While the super wealthy have to conceal their contempt for their working class confreres, lower income groups feel no need to hide their gross, vulgar hatreds. These include, but are not limited to, race hate, misogyny, and xenophobia, detestation of education, intellect, science, history, humanism, evolution, paleontology, and environmentalism. They vigorously support religious and cultural hate, brutal exploitation of nature and other nations, all weapons—personal and of war— war-making in general, violence as mediation, crudity, cruelty, a rabid un-Christian Christianity, and killing wild animals for fun.

The Party of Magog differs radically in membership and core tenets, but not in the dogged loyalty of its faithful. Their chief characteristic is a passion to feel morally righteous, and a mind-boggling credulity for virtuous pronouncements. This party functions on the imperial model with a slender elite controlling a mass of subjects. The guiding principle of its rulers is that people must be deceived, betrayed and cheated but constantly reassured of the Party’s integrity and good intentions. It claims other virtues but they are negligible and negotiable. Its only true aim is survival, power, control, and continuity of imperial policy.

Accordingly, its top financiers are from the dominant lords of the Billionaire Class, the Establishment, the anointed nobility of the Deep State, whose money is older than they are. Beneath the Barons of Finance, is a large section of millionaires of louchely liberal persuasion, whose tiny, acid hearts belong to The Empire.

Under this vast wealth, a huge, varied segment of our tattered, battered middle class forms the bulk of membership. These folks are ready—no, eager—to affirm whatever the politburo asserts, and ever poised to adopt the designated Enemy of the Moment. Education and status in this set runs down from the high octane professionals and academics, to legions of diplomates and the moderately educated, to high school grads in crappy jobs, and a multi-racial mass pursuing the non-existent American Dream.

The animating principle of the Party, beyond their own privilege, is to steal as much money as possible for the massive banks, corporations, and insiders of the American War Machine. Since Gogs and Magogs both worship Mars, they are united on looting the treasury for the War Machine of all the money that could be used for public good. Unity makes their work simple. Gogs boast it; Magogs bullshit about it. Both ignore its devastating effects on the American people that neither represents.

This then is American politics, 2021. Well, fine, you say, but what has any of it to do with medieval mythology? I’d offer this. Since even phony Christians no longer buy or obey the lunatic dogma of Christianity, and we have no effective catalog of holy nonsense to scare us, we must make do with political monsters. Is there any doubt now that our political parties have replaced the ancient
horrors in their satanic determination to effect our destruction?

Gog and Magog live!

Turkish government persists with mass COVID-19 death policy

Hasan Yıldırım

As the COVID-19 pandemic rages internationally, the Turkish government’s determination to end social-distancing measures and keep schools open in the interests of the ruling class is leading to mass slaughter.

According to Worldometers, Turkey ranks sixth in the world in total number of cases with nearly 8.3 million persons infected since the pandemic began. The number of daily new cases in Turkey has been over 20,000 since the end of August and around 30,000 in November. Since the second half of August, 200 to 300 people have died of COVID-19 every day.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Prime Minister of Turkey (Paul Morigi Photography/Flickr)

While the official death toll exceeds 72,500, this is clearly far below the actual number of deaths. According to calculations of Güçlü Yaman, a member of the Pandemic Working Group of the Turkish Medical Association (TTB), excess deaths caused by the pandemic in Turkey reached 208,000 on November 4.

This tragic situation is the direct product of the “social murder” policy implemented by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government, with the support of the bourgeois opposition parties and trade unions. Insisting on keeping all non-essential workplaces and schools open, the government lifted almost all measures to prevent the spread of the pandemic.

Erdoğan emphasized on Monday his determination to continue this policy. He bluntly stated his government’s priorities, declaring: “From the early days of the pandemic, we have built a system that will not allow any disruption in industrial production. By doing so, we have not only maintained our export volume, but also boosted it.”

Trying to normalize preventable deaths and infections, Erdoğan added: “The numbers of patients, admissions, ICU patients and deaths are all at a manageable level.”

According to the weekly incidence data for October 23-29 announced by Health Minister Fahrettin Koca on Sunday, the northwestern city of Karabük leads with 534 cases per 100,000 people; in only 8 of Turkey’s 81 major cities is it less than 50 per 100,000. It is 293 in Istanbul (population 16 million) and 287 in the Turkish capital, Ankara.

As schools become a hotbed of coronavirus, with many teachers and students infected, social opposition is growing against sending children to unsafe schools so parents can be sent to work. According to a survey by NG Araştırma Şirketi, 76 percent of parents think that “reopening of schools will lead to an increase in the number of coronavirus cases.”

However, Erdoğan has declared, “The debate on whether schools will stay open or close should come to an end. Face-to-face education in schools will definitely continue.”

According to Health Ministry data, 35 percent of new cases in October were youth under the age of 19. If students tested positive for COVID-19 in Turkey, the classroom is quarantined, not the school. Moreover, to stop in-person education in a classroom, there must be at least two cases. If there is only one case, the class continues as if nothing had happened.

The information provided to bianet by Eğitim-İş union official Orhan Yıldırım shows contagion in schools reaching gigantic proportions. According to Yıldırım, at least 1,000 classrooms are quarantined every day in Turkey. “We express the number of closed classes per day in thousands. Every day, some classes are closed while some classes reopen,” he said.

COVID-19 is killing children and causing long-term health problems. The government refuses to disclose data on teachers and children. However, it is known that one of the latest child victims of COVID-19 was Yiğit Parlak, an 11-year-old secondary school student in Samsun.

He was a child who was more vulnerable to the COVID-19 due to his chronic lung disease. According to his father, he was treated for coronavirus in the hospital for 12 days after being diagnosed with COVID-19, but shortly after returning home he fell ill again and tragically died.

Nonetheless, Education Minister Mahmut Özer said, “Our biggest advantage in keeping schools open right now is the high number of vaccinated teachers. We are in the decision to continue face-to-face education by revising the pandemic measures from time to time.” He announced that 87 percent of 1.2 million teachers received two doses of vaccine. However, only 58 percent of the population in Turkey is fully vaccinated, and vaccination has come to a standstill.

Moreover, teachers are heavily affected by COVID-19 and are forced to work despite being exposed to virus. Yıldırım commented: “We can say that 10 percent of the teachers are Covid positive or contacts. We talk about a number about 100,000 and this is the weekly number.”

Yıldırım all but admitted that there are no precautions in schools, and that the government implements a policy of mass infection, declaring: “[The ministry] doesn’t send teachers who had contact [with COVID patients] home as well. In fact, if one teacher in a school has COVID, all teachers should be considered contacts. However, they don’t implement this but just send the COVID-positive one home. They don’t consider [students] in a classroom whose teacher is COVID-positive, either, and this causes the [COVID] numbers to appear lower.”

Health Minister Koca admitted this murderous policy at the end of October, declaring: “Unfortunately, the spread will continue until herd immunity is achieved.”

Ümmühani Yeşilkaya, 33, who died from COVID-19 during her pregnancy in October, was one of the teachers who fell victim to this herd immunity policy. As her condition worsened, doctors decided to give birth by cesarean section to save the baby’s life, but the mother tragically died.

The government is trampling upon scientists’ calls for a more humane policy. A member of the government’s Science Board, Prof. Alper Şener said: “In case of a jump to 60,000 or 70,000 cases per day, there may be situations such as lockdown and closing of schools.”

Immediately afterwards, two ministers stressed their determination to keep schools open. While Education Minister Özer said face-to-face education would continue, Health Minister Koca said, “I came across a news article that talks about the possibility of schools closing. This news is false. Our Science Board does not have such an agenda.”

Although the vaccination age has been reduced to 12 in Turkey, vaccination at that age is not obligatory, and many children aged 12-18 are still unvaccinated. Children under the age of 12 are not in the vaccine program. Koca announced: “We do not think [to vaccinate] under the age of 12 in Turkey. It will not be correct for the next period for now.” While Koca does not take the trouble to scientifically explain this position, children under the age of 12 continue to be sent to schools under unsafe conditions.

The “herd immunity” policy that created this disaster is implemented with the support of the entire political establishment, including the pseudo-left parties and trade unions. The so-called opposition parties organize crowded ceremonies, celebrations, or festivals in municipalities they control, as if there were no pandemic.

Similarly, education unions, including Eğitim-İş, have never demanded the closure of unsafe schools. On the contrary, they advocated opening schools, claiming that children must not fall behind in education.

Pandemic outbreaks grow in China but Beijing maintains zero-COVID policy

Jerry Zhang

Beginning in mid-October, following the resurgence of the global pandemic, there have been more widespread outbreaks in China. Most provinces have been affected, and the situation is still not fully contained.

As of November 5, outbreaks had spread to more than 20 provinces. In addition, due to seasonal factors, particularly the onset of colder weather, pandemic prevention and control has become more difficult and complicated, among the country’s nearly 1.5 billion people.

According to the National Health Commission, as of midnight on November 8, there were 393 imported confirmed cases and 1,222 local cases, including 27 severe ones. On that day, 62 new confirmed cases and 74 new asymptomatic infections were added.

The current wave of infections was caused by a number of unrelated overseas sources. As of November 10, there were 88 medium and high-risk areas. The seven high-risk areas were in Heilongjiang Province (three regions), Hebei Province (two regions), Beijing (one region) and Inner Mongolia (one region). The 81 medium-risk regions were in 14 provincial-level administrative regions, including Beijing, Liaoning and Sichuan.

Reports indicate multiple transmission chains, with most of the cross-regional infections related to domestic travel. Potentially at-risk personnel have greater mobility across regions, increasing the risk of further spread of the pandemic.

At the same time, transmission chains have emerged in multiple port cities, some related to elderly tour groups. The proportion of elderly patients suffering severe illnesses is relatively high.

There have been cases of infection of medical workers and other front-line workers in many places, including nurses, doctors, medical students and workers in centralised quarantine facilities. According to information released on November 3, in Xining City, Qinghai Province, the six new confirmed cases from November 1 to 2 were all medical workers. Ningxia, Guizhou and other provinces have also reported infections of workers in quarantine facilities.

In addition, elementary and middle school students have become victims. Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, reported 12 confirmed cases on November 7, of which nine were primary and middle school students, and seven were from the same primary school. The previously reported confirmed cases in Xinji City, Hebei Province also included many primary and middle school students.

At present, the number of new cases in a single day in Heilongjiang Province is gradually decreasing. Hubei, Hunan, Shaanxi and other provinces have not seen any new cases for 12 consecutive days. Community transmission in Inner Mongolia, Beijing, Shandong and other regions has been basically controlled. There are still fluctuating epidemics in Gansu, Qinghai, Yunnan and other places, but the risk of external spread is said to be relatively low.

On November 6, National Health Commission spokesperson Mi Feng told a press conference that since mid-October, the number of new confirmed cases worldwide had rebounded for four consecutive weeks, and China’s actions to prevent infections from overseas had continued to increase.

“It is necessary to adhere to the general strategy of preventing the importation of overseas cases, and the rebound of the domestic pandemic, strict port management and monitoring, and improvement of personal protection of risk groups,” he said.

Generally speaking, the government is adhering to its strict lockdown, mass detection program and pandemic prevention and control strategy, and has become more proficient in implementing it. The government has punished or warned local bureaucrats over “laxity in prevention and control of the pandemic,” but the large-scale pandemic prevention mobilisation has kept the outbreak under control in most areas, at least at this stage.

Wang Huaqing, an expert from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, has suggested that for people who completed vaccination more than six months ago, the third dose of vaccination should be provided as soon as possible.

Previously, Wu Liangyou, deputy director of the CDC of the National Health Commission, also said vaccination was still the most critical factor. In the next stage, increasing the rate of triple-dose injections nationwide would be a central policy.

At present, triple-dose injections are mainly provided to people at high risk of infection and personnel in key positions. According to reports, more than 20 provinces have carried out this work.

Despite the Western media launching a new round of campaigns to promote the alleged problems of China’s pandemic prevention policy, and to demand the country’s “opening up,” major Chinese scientists are supporting the government’s policy.

On November 1, Zhong Nanshan, a well-respected medical scientist and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, gave an interview rejecting the view that the “zero-COVID policy is too costly.” He said China’s continuous “zero-infection, zero spread” policy seemed to require a lot of investment, but compared with the killing policies of some countries, the actual cost was lower.

Epidemiologist Jiang Qingwu also said the zero-COVID policy was to use affordable low costs to ensure the health of the people and low mortality.

An important reason for Beijing’s adherence to zero-COVID is the general support of scientists and the public. Although the Stalinist bureaucracy is very bureaucratic when implementing policies, and this has generated complaints on social media, the regime is also under working-class pressure to retain the policy to protect public health.

Recent comments on Weibo provided some insight into this sentiment. One noted: “Some time ago, both Europe and the United States had to open up. The Western media all devalued and questioned China’s zero-COVID policy. This time the epidemic in Europe has become the epicenter, and experts predict that this will be 50 percent of the epidemic. Ten thousand people have died, and there are voices in the West that agree with China’s policies, and they are beginning to recognise that this is the lowest cost measure.”

Another said: “Given the population density of China, if zero-COVID is not carried out, it will become like the original situation in Wuhan. At that time, it was just a city in Wuhan. If all of China became like that, not only would it not be able to guarantee the economy and production, but also a large number of lives would have to be sacrificed.”

Another commented: “The public has reached a consensus on zero-COVID, and no one will be dissatisfied with this epidemic prevention goal. However, when implementing policies in different regions, the situation is complicated. But since epidemic prevention and control is for the people, we hope to give full play to the power of the masses. Then people should be allowed to express their opinions.”

The Stalinist regime in Beijing is no defender of working-class interests, but it is fully aware of rising economic and class tensions, and that abandoning the zero-COVID policy would face large-scale opposition, as was revealed when the pandemic initially got out of control in Wuhan in early 2020.

However, the Chinese Communist Party bureaucracy is incapable of advancing an international perspective to halt the spread of the pandemic on a global scale. Ending the pandemic requires a conscious international mobilisation by the working class, to demand the elimination of COVID-19, unifying across national borders against the homicidal capitalist ruling elites.

Profits über alles: German ruling class ends “national pandemic situation” despite record infections

Johannes Stern

With its criminal profits before lives pandemic policy, the ruling class in Germany has created a surge in cases that exceeds the catastrophe of last winter when tens of thousands died. In the last three days, a new record for incidences per 100,000 inhabitants has been reported daily: 201 on Monday, 214 on Tuesday and 232 on Wednesday. The number of daily new infections also reached a new all-time high of 39,676 on Wednesday. On Thursday, it even rose to 50,196.

The death toll is also rising massively, rapidly approaching the shocking mark of 100,000 coronavirus victims. On Wednesday, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported 236 new deaths and on Thursday again 235. This brings the total number of people who have died from COVID-19 to 97,198, according to the RKI. The actual number is likely to be far higher, as in other countries, and it could double in the coming months.

Speaking on the latest episode of broadcaster NDR’s podcast Coronavirus Update, the chief virologist at Berlin’s Charité hospital, Christian Drosten, warned Tuesday of another wave of mass deaths. If tougher measures are not taken now, he conservatively expects up to 100,000 more deaths coming to Germany. His projection is informed by the experience in the United Kingdom with a similarly high vaccination rate, but significantly more infections and deaths in recent months.

The situation in hospitals has already reached the limit. On Tuesday, 1,364 hospitalizations related to COVID-19 were reported, according to the RKI. A total of 2,687 COVID-19 cases were undergoing intensive care. In particularly affected states and districts, there are already virtually no vacant intensive care beds. According to the Divi Intensive Care Registry, intensive care units in 21 Bavarian municipalities are fully occupied. The situation is similarly dramatic in parts of Saxony and Thuringia.

In schools, the situation nationwide is catastrophic. Since the respective state governments, with the support of the GEW education union, have reopened schools with virtually no safety and security measures, masses of students and teachers are being infected with the deadly virus. According to current figures from the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder (federal states, KMK), there have been around 23,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus among schoolchildren and 1,800 among teachers in recent weeks. Last week alone, around 54,000 students were in quarantine along with more than 1,000 teachers.

In large parts of Europe, the situation is similarly dire. Nevertheless, the German ruling class is sticking to its plan to allow the declaration of a “national epidemic situation” to expire on November 25, eliminating the legal basis for uniform nationwide protective measures. Since March 2020, the Bundestag (federal parliament) had regularly extended the “epidemic situation.” That is now to be ended.

On Thursday, acting Finance Minister and Chancellor designate Olaf Scholz (Social Democratic Party, SPD) will present a new draft law by the coalition of the SPD-Green Party-Liberal Democrats (FDP) to replace the previous provisions. According to media reports, it includes plans for a 3G rule (vaccinated, previously infected, or tested negative) in the workplace, in addition to the possible reintroduction of free rapid tests. Even if these minimal measures were implemented, they would not interrupt the explosive spread of infections.

Due to the low vaccination rate of 67 percent, about 27 million people, including all children under 12, are completely unprotected against the virus. Compounding the problem is the growing risk of breakthrough infections among the vaccinated. According to the RKI’s latest weekly report on Nov. 4, 145,185 probable vaccine breakthroughs have been recorded since February. Only 2.2 million people have received a third booster vaccination.

The main goal of the coalition’s bill is to prevent the measures that would be necessary to contain the pandemic, eliminate COVID-19 and save lives. “Very drastic measures—like a lockdown, like blanket school closures, like closing restaurants, like shutting down tourism—are no longer proportionate in our view,” explained Dirk Wiese, one of the SPD’s deputy parliamentary group leaders.

Wiese thus summed up not only the position of the “traffic light” coalition, but that of the entire ruling class. The push to end the “pandemic situation” originally came from the incumbent conservative health minister in the grand coalition, Jens Spahn. The plan is supported by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) as well as by the Left Party, which, wherever it governs with the SPD and Greens—as currently in Berlin, Bremen and Thuringia—actively promotes the policy of deliberate mass infection.

“In our view, a new lockdown must be prevented quite urgently,” said Dietmar Bartsch, parliamentary group leader of the Left Party in the Bundestag, at a press conference on Wednesday. He said he could only hope “that with the new government, there will be different actions. Some of the measures that are enshrined in the law are also to be welcomed on our part, especially when it comes to the rights of workers.”

Who is Bartsch taking for fools? The “traffic light” coalition represents the interests of workers just as little as the Left Party itself. This is particularly clear when it comes to pandemic policy. With their decision to officially end the “national pandemic situation,” the SPD, FDP and Greens are signaling to the ruling class that they will push through the interests of finance capital even more ruthlessly than the outgoing grand coalition did before.

The “traffic light” coalition makes no secret of the interests that determine their policies. The battle cry of the ruling class is: Profits über alles!

In their exploratory discussions on forming a coalition, the SPD, FDP and Greens have already committed themselves to sticking to the debt ceiling and setting themselves the goal of increasing the “competitiveness of Germany as a business location.” The “traffic light” coalition is thus setting itself the task of extracting from the working class the enormous sums that were funneled to the large corporations and banks through the coronavirus bailout packages last year.

There are also geostrategic and economic goals at stake. They want to “ensure that Europe emerges from the pandemic economically stronger on the basis of sound and sustainable public finances,” as the “traffic light” coalition partners write. This includes “future German missions abroad,” as well as “increased cooperation between the national European armies.”

This agenda in the interests of finance capital and the world power aspirations of German imperialism leaves no room for the scientifically necessary measures to contain or even eliminate the virus. This would mean comprehensive lockdowns—first and foremost for schools, universities and non-essential businesses—in conjunction with vaccinations, mass testing and the isolation of all infected persons and their contacts.

The surging cost of living and the class struggle

Gabriel Black

The price of goods and services used by US households increased 6.2 percent over the past year, according to data released Wednesday by the Department of Labor. This is the highest increase since 1990. In October alone, the cost of key goods rose by nearly 1 percent.

Amid concerns of the spread of COVID-19, a shopper wears a mask as she looks over meat products at a grocery store in Dallas, April 29, 2020. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)

But official inflation statistics only begin to tell the story:

• Groceries have increased 5.4 percent year over year. In particular, the cost of bacon is up 20 percent, beef roasts, 25 percent, and the index, generally, for poultry, fish, eggs and meat 11.9 percent.
• Fast food prices have increased 7.1 percent compared to last year. Full-service restaurant prices have increased 5.9 percent.
• The cost of filling up on gas at the pump has risen by 49.6 percent over the last 12 months. According to the AAA, the nationwide average was $3.42 per gallon Tuesday, up from $2.11 last year.
• Energy prices as a whole have risen by 30 percent. The US Energy Information Agency predicts that households will spend 43 percent more on heating oil and 30 percent more on natural gas this winter.
• The cost of vehicles has increased significantly. Used cars are up 26.4 percent, new vehicles are up 9.8 percent, and rental cars are up 39.1 percent.
• Other important increases include appliances (6.6 percent), hotel and motel rooms (25.5), furniture (12), moving and freight costs (7.9), postage (7.2), garbage and trash collection (5.3), tobacco (8.5), computers (8.4), sporting goods (8.7), cameras and camera equipment (5.5), as well as dry cleaning (6.9).

While average hourly earnings are up 5.1 percent compared to last year, inflation is higher. When placed against it, wages are down 1.1 percent—a pay cut for the typical worker.

What is more, increases in consumer costs are disproportionately borne by poorer sections of the population. A dollar more per gallon of gas weighs far more heavily on a worker making $19, the 2019 median wage, than it does on the rich.

Workers cannot afford these increases. A March poll from Jungle Scout consumer report found that 56 percent of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck. This week, the Federal Reserve announced that US household debt rose to a historic high of $15.24 trillion. This was driven by credit card debt, auto loans and student loans.

Commenting on these developments, CNN wrote, “Now that the stimulus sugar rush has worn off, consumers are going back to their old ways of spending with their credit cards.” Although framed in the callous and indifferent language typical of the US media, this statement points to a basic reality: the modicum of financial assistance that allowed workers to survive amid the pandemic has been ended, and working-class families are forced to pay their surging bills by borrowing.

The present surge of inflation arises from the intersection of the crisis triggered by the pandemic with the decades of policies promoting the growth of social inequality.

For decades, the US government and political establishment sought to overcome the crisis of American capitalism through the impoverishment of the working class, coupled with the provision of unlimited cash for the financial elite.

In 1979, the Carter administration appointed Paul Volcker to the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve. Volcker moved to raise interest rates to historic levels in order to break the resistance of the working class.

With the election of Reagan in 1980 this assault was intensified. Gaining assurances from the AFL-CIO that the unions would not interfere, Reagan crushed a strike of air traffic controllers in August 1981. The betrayal by the AFL-CIO initiated a wave of defeats for workers, as the trade union bureaucracy morphed into low-wage labor contractors, functioning to police the working class for the benefit of their increasingly wealthy and corrupt executives.

But the underlying economic crisis of American capitalism driving these policies only deepened. The Federal Reserve encouraged speculation and debt to keep asset bubbles going. In crisis after crisis, beginning in 1987, the government intervened to buy toxic assets, lower interest rates, and funnel money into financial markets. The wealth of the upper classes ballooned, tethered to rising stock prices.

This policy came to a head in 2008. Toxic subprime mortgage assets in the US imploded, engulfing the entire world economy. In response, the Federal Reserve, and other central banks, took unprecedented measures to prop up capitalist markets. Bush and Obama funneled trillions of dollars into financial markets, bailed out Wall Street directly, refused to prosecute those responsible, and restructured American manufacturing by gutting pay and benefits in the auto industry.

By 2020, the trillions of dollars of cash injected into financial markets in response to 2008 had led to record highs in the stock market.

While the pandemic temporarily disrupted these gains, the response of the ruling class has been to orchestrate another massive bailout of the rich. The Federal Reserve initiated an emergency program of asset purchasing. Some $4.5 trillion of digitally printed money has been used to prop up financial markets. Asset purchases continue to the tune of $120 billion every month. In addition to this, the CARES act, which cost $2.3 trillion, was largely a bailout of major corporations and businesses, many of which received billions of dollars in direct aid.

This free money has fueled a massive inflation in the value of all financial assets and the wealth of the rich.

The financial oligarchy that dictates social and political life in the United States is determined that the entire burden of the crisis triggered by the pandemic should be borne by the working class. This overriding concern led to the coverup of the dangers posed by COVID-19 in early 2020, then the systematic abandonment of public health measures beginning in late March, followed immediately afterward by the slashing of emergency jobless aid, with the aim of forcing workers to accept any job, no matter how unsafe or low-wage, that they can get.

But despite the ruling class’s efforts to force workers into disease-ridden factories and warehouses, the pandemic, coupled with the international tensions it intensified, has had a major impact on global supply chains. Many workers with health conditions, or whose family members are immunocompromised, have chosen not to return to poverty-wage jobs amid a raging pandemic.

The ruling class is concerned that the growing demands of workers for higher wages, expressed in both strikes and the so-called “great refusal,” that is low-wage workers leaving their jobs, has led to significant labor shortages in key sectors.

The surging cost of living has propelled the largest strike wave in decades, including major struggles at Volvo, Deere, Dana and elsewhere.

In each of these struggles, the workers confront not only their employers, but the trade unions, which have worked to systematically isolate, sabotage and shut down every strike. If these organizations of scabs had their way, the class struggle in 2021 would proceed the way it had in decades past: with plummeting wages, mass layoffs and soaring corporate profits.

But at factories, hospitals and schools across the country, new rank-and-file committees are forming which represent the genuine interests of workers. To succeed, these organizations must, through coordinated action, break through the isolation imposed on them by the trade unions. This means forming bonds and links with workers in other sectors, other states and, critically, other countries.

Faced with the growth of the class struggle, sections of the political establishment are considering solving the “labor problem” by force, with Biden saying last month that he is considering deploying the National Guard to “get the ports up and running.”

Since the start of the pandemic, the US ruling class has sought to ensure that the entire cost of the crisis, whether in death or economic suffering, must be borne by the working class, even as the world’s billionaires pile up immeasurable fortunes.

But enough is enough. It is not America’s exploited and impoverished workers—who have been told for decades that they must accept layoffs and pay cuts for the good of American industry—but America’s financial oligarchy that must bear the cost of a health, social and economic crisis created by American capitalism.

Living with the virus: UK government confirms aim of endemic COVID-19

Thomas Scripps

“Ultimately our plan, we will, I hope be the first major economy to transition from pandemic to endemic and have an annual vaccination programme.”

With these words, former vaccines minister and current education secretary Nadhim Zahawi summarised the criminal COVID policy of the UK government. The British ruling class is racing the world to normalise the unnecessary death and debilitation of tens of thousands of people a year in service to its own economic interests.

The drumbeat from the government and its associates is that public health restrictions, above all lockdowns, are a thing of the past. Last asked about the subject ahead of the COP26 climate summit, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Chancellor Rishi Sunak insisted there was “no evidence whatever to think that any kind of lockdown is on the cards.”

NHS Providers Chris Hopson told Times Radio Sunday, “I think all of us in the NHS [National Health Service] recognise that we are moving from a situation of a pandemic towards an endemic where we need to live with COVID.”

He insisted supposedly on behalf of an exhausted workforce whose daily efforts he plays no part in, “the bit I’m really keen for people to understand is that everybody in the NHS absolutely recognises that it’s our job to cope as best we can with COVID pressures, without resorting to the very draconian lockdowns that we’ve had to go through before.'

On Monday, government scientific advisor Dr Mike Tildesley told Sky News, “I would hope that, with a very successful vaccination campaign, the idea of a winter lockdown is a long way away.”

The government’s refusal to implement measures to cut the circulation of the virus comes as tens of thousands (over 70,000 on the estimate of King’s College London’s ZOE COVID study) are infected every day, and over 7,000 hospitalised and 1,000 killed by the disease every week.

The policy of willfully endangering lives was given consummate expression by Johnson on Monday, as he paraded through Hexham General Hospital in Northumberland, England without a mask.

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson during a visit to Hexham General Hospital in Northumberland, England, Monday, November 8, 2021. (Peter Summers/Pool Photo via AP)

Thousands responded with outrage on social media. Rachel Clarke, a palliative care doctor who has published books on end-of-life care, working as a junior doctor and the effect of the first COVID-19 wave on the National Health Service, received over 17,000 likes and nearly 5,000 retweets for a tweet reading, “There are so many people dying of Covid in my trust right now. It makes the sight of Boris Johnson—casually strolling without a mask through Hexham General Hospital today—absolutely sickening.”

There is no question that Johnson’s provocative appearance was discussed at the highest levels of the Conservative Party, especially given his infamous hospital visit in March 2020 where, he later boasted, he “shook hands with everybody” and where he may have caught the Covid virus that almost claimed his own life. A deliberate decision was made to repeat this spectacle to give the signal to big business that no popular opposition or scientific evidence will move the government from its homicidal policy.

The working class must heed this warning. Johnson’s last hospital performance was followed by a devastating wave of infections and death, topped by a second surge last winter after the prime minister declared, “Let the bodies pile high in their thousands.”

Vaccination has since significantly reduced the ratio of hospitalisations to infections, but the dangers remain extremely severe.

Since the last lockdown began to be lifted with the opening of schools on March 8, over 17,400 people have been killed by COVID-19, according to official government figures. Over 13,200 of those deaths came after “Freedom Day” on July 19, at a rate of roughly 118 people per day or over 43,000 a year.

Included in these figures are dozens of children. The government sent all pupils aged 12-15 back to school without vaccinations this September. The vaccination rate for this age group in England is still only 25 percent. As he wished fondly for an endemic virus, Zahawi suggested the UK would not vaccinate under-11s, saying “the evidence says we don’t need to move away from where we are” with the current vaccination policy.

On Monday, newspapers reported that a nine-day-old baby died on October 13 after being born by emergency caesarean section 14 weeks prematurely when her 22-year-old mother become ill with COVID. The child also tested positive for the disease.

The number of people suffering symptoms of Long COVID has increased from 970,000 people on August 1 to 1.2 million people on October 2, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Government ministers and a supportive media have seized on a two-and-a-half week fall in recorded infections to sweep this grisly record under the carpet and promise calmer waters ahead.

This decline should be looked at with scepticism. The number of tests conducted per day fell significantly from mid-September as the test positivity rate rose from 3 to over 5 percent.

Data from the ZOE COVID study suggests a fall, from much higher numbers than the official totals, but the ONS Coronavirus Survey has cases plateauing to October 30. Both show falling rates among children obscuring increases in adult age groups and both place the reproduction ( R ) rate for the virus in the UK very close to 1, as does Imperial College London’s REACT survey.

Official daily case numbers are still well over 30,000. This leaves the UK poised at an extremely high level of infection (roughly one in 50 people) with winter coming and vaccine immunity waning in older sections of society.

Dr Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser at the UK Health Security Agency, warned Sunday, “We’re still seeing deaths in mainly the unvaccinated population, but increasingly, because of immune waning effects, there are deaths in the vaccinated group as well.”

Last Thursday, the government’s vaccine surveillance report found that more than 3,000 double-jabbed people aged over 70 were hospitalised by COVID-19 in October, and 2,032 were killed. So far, 30 percent of over-80s and 40 percent of over-50s in England have yet to receive a third, “booster” vaccination.

Pressure from COVID is already having a disastrous effect on a broken NHS. .

In the same breath as he proclaimed his determination to avoid a lockdown, Hopson admitted that hospital trust executives had “never been so worried… we’re seeing bed occupancy levels, it’s sort of 94, 95, 96 percent at this point, before we’re into peak winter. We’ve not seen that before. That’s unprecedented.”

Hopson pointed to the “accident and emergency pathway”. According to an investigation by the Independent newspaper, patients are waiting close to twice as long for an ambulance as they were at the peak of the pandemic. Deaths as a result of ambulance safety incidents are already up 13 percent on 2019.

Government advisor Professor Peter Openshaw warned Monday on Times Radio, “I just don’t think people realise the serious situation that there is out there in the National Health Service hospitals, with so many people on ventilators and over 9,000 people actually in the hospital currently with COVID-19. COVID isn’t done. It’s not over.”

Europe is at the epicentre of a global resurgence of the virus, with the World Health Organisation warning of another half a million deaths on the continent within the next three months. The UK is part of this still raging pandemic and its consequences, including the development of new variants.

Already, the untrammeled spread of the virus in Britain has given rise to the “Delta Plus”, or AY.4.2, variant, thought to be some 10 percent more transmissible than the original Delta. From roughly 6 percent of UK cases in September, the variant had grown to 11.3 percent by the end of October.

Declaring the virus endemic is an acceptance of countless more deaths and years of serious illness to come. This is not inevitable, but the conscious choice of the government, supported by the Labour Party and the trade unions, acting on behalf of the corporations and the super-rich. An opposed policy of elimination can only be implemented through a struggle against these forces by the international working class.