Shanghai under citywide lockdown as COVID-19 cases continue to climb

Benjamin Mateus

“It is an arduous task and huge challenge to combat the Omicron variant while maintaining the normal operation of core functions in a megacity with a population of 25 million,” Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan said over the weekend as she toured Shanghai amid its lockdowns. New cases have been climbing rapidly, necessitating harsh measures to bring the outbreak under swift control.

A health worker in protective suit takes a throat swab sample from a resident at an outdoor coronavirus testing site, Wednesday, March 23, 2022, in Beijing, China. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

The outbreak in Shanghai is primarily a byproduct of local authorities having resisted employing more stringent measures earlier, allowing the situation to spiral to its current state.

The visit by Sun, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, served to assure the population that there would be “unswerving adherence to the dynamic Zero-COVID approach and mobilizing COVID-19 testing capacity, medical personnel, and COVID-19 prevention supplies to support Shanghai in the fight against the epidemic.”

It was also intended to quell concerns raised in Chinese social media, which had been gaining international interest about the death of a nurse suffering from an asthma exacerbation who was denied entry into a hospital. Additional concerns being raised are that the lockdowns were being extended beyond what authorities had promised and concerns over access to food and supplies.

However, consistent with President Xi Jinping’s previous concerns over minimizing disruptions to the economic infrastructure, Sun stressed that “key industries and institutions” would operate under a “strict closed-loop management” that could ensure “the normal operation of core functions and the stability of supply and industrial chains.”

A concept borrowed from the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2021 and applied to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics meant that some large-scale manufacturers with the ability to house workers in their compounds and act quickly ahead of lockdown orders could continue running their operations. Reuter reported last week that “GM, which said [last] Monday that its Shanghai joint venture was producing normally, declined to comment on the arrangements at its factory. A spokesperson said the company and its joint ventures had developed and were executing contingency plans with their suppliers to mitigate uncertainty related to COVID-19. SAIC [Chinese state-owned automaker in joint venture with GM] did not have immediate comment.”

Shanghai’s two-phased lockdown was modified into a full-scale lockdown late Thursday night as new cases of COVID-19 were discovered, underscoring the silent uncontrolled community spread that had been underway for several weeks.

The National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China reported there had been 13,146 confirmed COVID-19 cases on Sunday, of which 11,691 were asymptomatic. In March alone, there were more than 100,000 infections reported.

Yesterday’s numbers make for the highest single-day figure in China during the COVID-19 pandemic. The high number of asymptomatic cases has been attributed to both the character of the Omicron strain and early detection due to mass testing, a fundamental strategy for the Chinese Zero-COVID strategy.

Figure 1 Daily COVID cases China March 1 to April 3, 2022. Source WSWS

Zhang Boli, an academician from the Chinese Academy of Engineering and head of the Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, explained that the increase in vaccination rates has helped boost population immunity. Health officials have reported that more than 3.27 billion doses of COVID vaccines have been administered.

Yet, those over 80 years of age and the most vulnerable are the least vaccinated in China. And a considerable number of those 60 and older have only received two doses. Like Hong Kong, a policy of allowing the virus to spread with meager mitigation measures would have deadly consequences.

Wu Zunyou, principal epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told the Global Times about the vast number of asymptomatic cases , “It is the result of our effective epidemic prevention work, namely the early identification of the epidemic, timely response, and the whole process management of all infected people, including the asymptomatic cases…” However, Wu acknowledged epidemic controls will grow more challenging if daily infections continue to rapidly rise above 10,000 in the city.

Resources are currently being mobilized to protect the health system in Shanghai. Health care workers from neighboring provinces are being mobilized to assist in mass testing and the building of makeshift hospitals to manage asymptomatic infections. Additionally, food and necessities are being directed to support the population with volunteers working round the clock.

According to the Shanghai Health Commission, the city launched a citywide COVID-19 antigen self-testing campaign to identify early cases based on a self-reporting system. This will be followed by Monday’s citywide Nucleic Acid testing (PCR). In all, 32.74 million PCR tests have been conducted in the city since March 28, 2022, when the phased lockdown commenced. For this monumental undertaking, a sample collection site has been set up for every 3,000 residents, with the samples reaching testing institutes about once every hour.

However, rather than acknowledging the complex network of operations that have had to be mobilized in short order to ensure that millions are protected from infection and the virus can be suppressed and eliminated, the primary focus of the Western mainstream media is to take advantage of the chaotic nature of these developments and malign these efforts in the realm of public opinion.

In particular, the New York Times has chosen to focus on the separation of some children from their parents during the lockdown and mass testing, which was met with an outpouring of anger and frustration on Chinese social media.

They wrote, “In the images [photos and videos], a series of hospital cribs, each holding several young children, appeared to be parked in the hallway of the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center in the city’s Jinshan District. A video showed several of the children crying.” The health center acknowledged that these images were authentic. And indeed, these are concerning. However, in the context of the outbreak and its dangers to the population, it is self-serving of the New York Times which is using this to discredit the tremendous effort undertaken in the face of the Omicron variant in Shanghai. The same leading press of American liberalism has repeatedly published demands for living with the virus.

Meanwhile 243,000 children in the US have lost a caregiver to COVID-19 over the last two years. Of these, 194,000 lost both parents. As Scientific American noted, “The psychological and economic aftershocks can have lifetime negative impacts on their education and career.” Meanwhile, as the BA.2 surge begins to catch steam, more than 700 people are dying from COVID-19 each day in the United States. Almost 1,500 children in the US have been killed throughout the pandemic, two-thirds of them during the last eight months, as a byproduct of the bipartisan policy of ensuring schools would remain open during repeated waves of infection.

Meanwhile, the Chinese CDC has said a new strain of the virus was isolated from a patient with mild COVID-19 symptoms in Suzhou, approximately 43 miles from Shanghai, which has never been sequenced before. According to Bloomberg, it appears to have evolved from the BA.1.1 branch of the Omicron variant .

Despite the stringent measures, the dynamic Zero-COVID strategy remains popular in China. The global experience with COVID-19, particularly in the US, where 1 million people have been killed by COVID-19, has not escaped the population. Dr. Q, a cardiologist in Shenyang, acknowledged that a “live with the virus” scenario in China would lead to the death of well over a million people. “And I would be the first to catch it and bring it to my mother, who is over 70, and I fear what would happen to her.”

COVID-19 deaths escalate across the Pacific

John Braddock

Thousands of COVID-19 cases, including of the virulent Omicron strain, which gained a foothold in Pacific nations in January, are continuing to be recorded across the region. Tonga, Samoa, American Samoa, and Vanuatu all recently recorded their first COVID-related deaths.

The Pacific islands, which saw virtually no infections in 2020–2021 due to their geographic isolation, small populations and strict border controls, are now battling outbreaks—even as local governments end restrictions in line with the global drive to open borders and economies at the expense of public health measures.

Medical staff of Papua New Guinea’s Defense Force received hands-on training on COVID-19 response. (WHO/ Papua New Guinea)

Health experts and aid organisations fear the virus could be devastating to the impoverished countries, made more vulnerable by fragile health care systems and high rates of noncommunicable diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease.

In Tonga, COVID-19 infections are continuing to climb as the kingdom reels from the destructive January 15 volcanic eruption and tsunami. Prime Minister Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni has recently been in self-isolation, along with half the cabinet, after testing positive for COVID.

On March 21, the government imposed a week of new lockdown rules after health authorities recorded a total of 1,819 active cases and the country’s first 2 deaths, a figure which has now risen to 6. Some COVID victims initially had their deaths attributed to other illnesses.

Before this year, Tonga, with a population of 105,000, had recorded just one COVID-19 case. By April 1 there were 6,423. The outbreak began with two port workers unloading ships bringing in aid to the capital Nuku’alofa following the eruption. The Australian navy vessel, HMAS Adelaide, had reported 23 of its crew were infected with the virus when it arrived on January 26, but the ship has not been confirmed as the source.

A lockdown in early February was eased by the government, allowing the virus to spread. Now a daily average of 229 new infections are being recorded. Tonga has administered 147,193 doses of COVID vaccines, enough to have vaccinated just 70.4 percent of the population. At the current rate, it will take a further 80 days to cover the next 10 percent of the population. This does not include booster doses needed to counter the Omicron variant.

Tonga is dealing with a double disaster. Editor of Matangi Tonga, Pesi Fonua, told Radio New Zealand that the volcanic eruption recovery has been severely hampered by the COVID-19 outbreak. Under the recent “hard” lockdown all businesses, including retail and petrol stations, were closed for a week. The public, with essential health workers exempted, were only allowed to venture out between 8am and 8pm to go to health facilities and tend to plantations.

The eruption of the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai volcano left more than 84 percent of the country covered with volcanic ash. The cost of recovery is estimated to be more than $US90 million. Officials estimate more than $US20m in damages to the agriculture sector, which involves roughly 86 percent of the population. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has warned the ash could delay or stunt harvests and impact fisheries, crops and livestock.

At the end of March, Samoa, American Samoa and Vanuatu all reported their first COVID -related deaths. The Samoan fatality, of a 67-year-old man, came 13 days after the first community transmission case was detected on March 17. Fifteen initial infections were passengers on a repatriation flight from New Zealand in early March. Case numbers have since risen sharply to 2,331 with over 1,500 active. Health Ministry data shows that 101 children under five have tested positive, with infections significantly higher among those aged from 15 to 35.

The Samoan government extended an existing lockdown for another two weeks on March 24 because of the rapid community spread. Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa said the surge in cases was “expected” and would continue to increase due to the transmissibility of the virus. Only 66 percent of the population is double vaccinated.

Notwithstanding the ongoing surge of the disease and risks involved, cabinet last week reduced the quarantine time for visitors to seven days. Over 200 passengers on a March 29 flight from New Zealand were the first to quarantine for a week rather than 14 days. The move is particularly reckless given New Zealand is grappling with an Omicron outbreak that has resulted in nearly 400 deaths so far. In October 2019, a measles outbreak in Samoa, originating in Auckland, led to 83 deaths, mostly of children.

Vanuatu’s Ministry of Health also confirmed the first two Covid-19 related deaths in the country on March 31. Minister Bruno Lengkon said the victims, a 22-year-old woman from Port Vila and a five-year old boy, both had underlying conditions. The total number of confirmed cases since the beginning of 2022 is now 3,881.

Authorities are blaming “hesitation” about vaccinations, especially in the capital. Only 27.7 percent of the 307,000 population is double vaccinated. Meanwhile, the first 20,000 AstraZeneca vaccines have been destroyed after they expired. The Ministry said they arrived on time but were not used soon enough.

Low vaccination rates across the Pacific are bound up with the policies of vaccine inequity, which have seen wealthy countries appropriate supplies of vaccines for their own use, as well as the low numbers of the necessary medical equipment and personnel to carry out mass campaigns. According to World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, 75 percent of the world’s vaccines have been administered in just 10 countries.

Vaccine access has been thwarted by nationalism, profiteering and opposition by the imperialist powers to any coordinated international campaign to combat the pandemic. The situation across the Pacific is exacerbated by the legacy of a century of neo-colonial domination, which has left the region with disastrously low levels of health and education infrastructure.

In Vanuatu, life expectancy is just 67 years for men, and 70 for women. Health expenditure per capita is under a quarter of the Western Pacific regional average. There is a severe shortage of qualified health care professionals and equipment. Travel restrictions due to the pandemic meant that overseas health specialists could not enter to undertake consultation and treatment work or for training of the local health workforce.

American Samoa recorded its first death from the virus on March 22. The number of COVID cases in the US territory has been climbing steadily since the first community case appeared in mid-February. Total cumulative infections have reached 2,751.

In mid-March, the StarKist Samoa tuna cannery, the territory’s largest private employer, was allowed to reopen after being closed for two weeks due to the community spread of COVID. The chairman of the COVID-19 Task force, Lieutenant Governor Talauega Eleasalo Ale, said authorities decided to move away from “mass and indiscriminate lockdown” policies and place emphasis on “self-responsibility.”

Elsewhere across the region, the Solomon Islands has recorded 11,470 cases at a rate of nearly 300 a day and 133 deaths. Nauru last week confirmed its first two infections, both detected in quarantine after a flight from Brisbane. Kiribati has 3,066 cases and 13 deaths, forcing the government to extend a curfew for another month. The Cook Islands, despite registering 1,442 infections between March 19 and April 1, is preparing to reopen its borders to the world and ease remaining COVID restrictions.

Imperialist powers escalate Ukraine war over allegations of Russian war crimes in Bucha

Clara Weiss

This weekend, a major campaign over alleged war crimes by Russian troops in Bucha, a city of about 28,500 inhabitants northwest of Kiev, swept the Western press.

The campaign marks a significant escalation of the war in Ukraine and comes right after Russia reported that two Ukrainian helicopters had entered Russian territory and bombed an oil depot in Belogorod on Friday.

Heavy smoke billows after a Russian bombardment on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, March 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

The campaign is based on allegations by the Ukrainian authorities and army that Russian troops, while being in control of Bucha, tortured and murdered large numbers of civilians, with figures cited in press articles ranging widely, from a few dozen to over 400. Several bodies were reportedly found in ditches. Human Rights Watch has published a report, based on interviews with eyewitnesses in Bucha and other towns, that described rape and forms of torture, and called for an investigation into these as “war crimes” by Russian troops.

The Kremlin has denounced the claims of atrocities against civilians as a “provocation by Ukrainian radicals” and has called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Monday. The Russian Foreign Ministry has pointed out that Russian troops had withdrawn from Bucha by Wednesday, March 30, one day after Russia had promised at peace negotiations that it would dramatically reduce its forces near Kiev.

The Kremlin also noted that a video message by Bucha’s mayor from March 31 makes no reference to any atrocities and that the images and reports only started circulating after Ukrainian troops and television had entered the town on Saturday, April 2.

The video message by Anatoly Fedoruk, indeed, shows the mayor exalted, proclaiming that all “Russian orcs”, as he called the Russian troops, had left the town, without any mention of atrocities or war crimes having been committed.

While the facts of what happened in Bucha and who perpetrated what crimes remain murky, two things are clear: First, the campaign brings the cynical hypocrisy of the imperialist powers over war crimes to a new level; and, second, it is used to significantly escalate the war.

The same imperialist powers that are now crying “shock” and “horror” at unproven allegations over killings by the Russian army have reduced large parts of the Middle East and North Africa to ruins. US wars since 2001 alone have claimed, according to conservative estimates, between 3 and 4 million civilian casualties.

In fact, the rhetoric of the press campaign over Bucha and the claims of a “genocide” and “atrocities” bear the hallmark of the imperialist propaganda that has preceded the launching of or the escalation of countless wars in defense of “human rights” since 1991, including in Yugoslavia, the Middle East and North Africa.

It is impossible to provide anything close to an exhaustive list of the war crimes that have been perpetrated by the US, as well as by British, Australian, French and German imperialism in the past decades. Future historians will have to fill volumes to document and analyze the crimes committed.

A few recent cases, however, should be recalled:

· The Kunduz Massacre in 2009, the single biggest war crime of the German army since the end of World War II, which resulted in at least 90 civilian deaths.

· The US siege of Mossul, Iraq, in 2014, that claimed an estimated 40,000 lives.

· The destruction of Raqqa, Syria, in 2017, by US forces with over 1,600 civilian casualties.

In none of these cases, which have by now been abundantly documented, were those responsible held to account. Julian Assange, who has exposed some of the most horrendous crimes by US imperialism, has been cruelly tortured and confined for over a decade at the behest of Washington. He is now being threatened with extradition to the US and a 175-year prison sentence.

It should also be noted that, on Thursday, Human Rights’ Watch published a report, indicating that Ukrainian troops may have committed war crimes by shooting Russian prisoners of war in their legs and filming it. The Ukrainian army has, in fact, publicly announced such war crimes and has been engaged in a weeks-long social media campaign, sharing images of killed Russian soldiers. This itself constitutes a violation of the Geneva Convention for the humane treatment of prisoners of war. Of this, however, there has been almost no word in the Western press.

The campaign over Bucha now serves as the basis for a significant escalation of NATO’s proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, just days after both Russian and Ukrainian negotiators evaluated peace negotiations as “positive.”

The response in Germany has been particularly hysterical. Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz described the dead bodies in Bucha as “a war crime” and announced further weapons deliveries to Ukraine as well as sanctions by NATO against Russia in the coming days.

Writing for the liberal Süddeutsche Zeitung, Stefan Korenlius raged that the “revelations” of dead bodies in Bucha showed that Ukraine was subject to “a war of annihilation,” directly comparing the ongoing war to Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. This is a conscious minimization and relativization of the crimes of German imperialism in World War II. As part of Hitler’s war of annihilation against the Soviet Union, the Nazis occupied Soviet Ukraine, killing over 5 million Ukrainians, among them 1.5 million Ukrainian Jews.

Ukrainian nationalists, the antecedents of the Azov Battalion and other paramilitaries that are now functioning as shock troops by the imperialist powers and the Kiev government, participated in these crimes, perpetrating massacres against Jews, Poles and civilians who opposed fascism.

Now, the German ruling class is again relying on these far-right forces and seizes on the war as an opportunity to ram through a record 100-billion Euro war budget, tripling the country’s defense spending—something not even Hitler dared to do after coming to power in 1933.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky called the dead bodies in Bucha evidence of an unfolding “genocide” and effectively ruled out any significant progress in peace negotiations, stating, “We can only have peace by fighting.” His foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba said that now there could be no more hesitation about further weapon deliveries to Ukraine, “We need weapons—now!”

In fact, Ukraine has been flooded with weapons by NATO, especially the US and now also Germany, which is sending tanks, drones and anti-tank weapons. According to the Washington Post, the Biden administration has spent $2.3 billion on “defense support” for Ukraine since coming into office. Of these, $1.6 billion were committed in the first five weeks of the war.

Last week, Biden announced another $500 million of “budget aid” for Ukraine. On Saturday, the Pentagon pledged yet another $300 million for military equipment, including drones, armored vehicles and machine guns.

These massive weapons deliveries have already had a major impact on the war. Even judging by figures provided by the Kremlin, Russian military casualties (1,351) are higher than the official Ukrainian civilian death toll, which stands at 1,232. However, the real death toll among Russian soldiers is widely believed to be much higher, with the Pentagon estimating that 7,000 Russian troops may have been killed.

According to the Economist, Russian generals are dying at a rate unprecedented since World War II. Reports suggest that as many as 18 high-ranking military commanders have been killed in combat, including several generals.

While the Economist cited a number of possible reasons for the high exposure of Russia’s highest-ranking military—including poor equipment, logistics, and morale among troops—the report also noted that NATO was likely helping Ukraine in intercepting Russian military communication and locating troops. Moreover, the Economist referenced a report by Yahoo News that revealed many years of US training of Ukrainian paramilitaries, including snipers. One former American official told Yahoo News, “I think we’re seeing a big impact from snipers…the training really paid off.”

Stanford Seed Transformation Programme 2022

Application Deadline: 1st June 2022

Eligible Countries: African countries

To Be Taken At (Country): African countries & at your company

About the Award: The Seed Transformation Program (STP) is a year-long, part-time intensive leadership program for CEOs/founders of established businesses. Stanford Graduate School of Business faculty and other experts deliver strategy sessions for CEOs and their management teams, in which leaders learn and apply skills, tools, and mindsets to drive growth and innovation. CEOs and their management team members will be challenged to refine their strategy and value proposition, and set a course for scalable growth and impact.  During and after the STP, leaders will network with approximately 1,000 entrepreneurs from across Africa and South Asia – joining current and past participants.

Covid policy: The program will include both in-person and online components.  Any in-person components may be shifted online if health conditions do not permit in-person delivery. A reliable and strong internet connection will be required to derive maximum value from the program.

Type: Entrepreneurship

Eligibility: 

• CEOs/founders of for-profit companies and for-profit social enterprises
• Companies based in Africa & South Asia with annual revenues between US$150,000 and $15 million

Number of Awards: Not specified

Cost of Participation: 

• US $5,000 (Fee has been subsidized by philanthropic contributions)
• In Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa, the cost of the program has been further subsidized by the De Beers Group.
• Fee includes value-added tax.
• Limited scholarships for women CEO or founders and social entrepreneurs are available. Information will be made available to admitted applicants upon request.

Value of Stanford Seed Transformation Programme:

• Take advantage of a world-class curriculum from Stanford GSB and the innovative thinking that has shaped so many of the most successful companies in Silicon Valley.
• Get the support from trained local facilitators to help you introduce what you’ve learned to your company and promote buy-in.
• Develop relationships with like-minded leaders to share experiences and develop an ongoing peer-to-peer support network.

Duration of Program: 12 months (September 2023 – October 2024)

How to Apply: Apply Here

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Visa Creator Program 2022

Application Deadline:

11th May 2022

Tell Me About Visa Creator Program 2022:

Introducing the Visa Creator Program, a one-year immersion program geared towards entrepreneurs working in art, music, fashion and film looking to accelerate their small business through NFTs. The goal of the Visa Creator Program is to bring together a global cohort of digital creators and empower them through product strategy mentorship.

The Visa Creator Program is global and all interested creators are invited to learn more and submit their information for consideration to be part of the Visa Creator Program. We will contact potential candidates and announce the final class later this year. The deadline to express interest in the program is Wednesday, May 11th, 2022.

What Type of Scholarship is this?

Entrepreneurship

Who can apply for Visa Creator Program 2022?

This inaugural class is for digital-first creators and artists who are engaging with NFTs and blockchain technologies in their businesses.

We envision a creator class reflective of rich cultural and global perspectives across artistic disciplines, races, genders, beliefs and backgrounds. Our goal is to foster a community of passionate and purpose-driven creators.

Which Countries are Eligible?

Any

How Many Positions will be Given?

Not specified

What is the Benefit of Visa Creator Program 2022?

Selected creators will join a cohort-driven program designed to build and deepen their fluency in crypto commerce and traditional payments. The program is focused on supporting creators in five key areas: 

• Join a community of creators in various stages of their NFT journey.
• Mentorship with Visa’s team of crypto product and strategy leaders
• Work with thought leaders across digital commerce, web3, crypto and payments.
• Opportunities to engage with Visa’s network of clients and partners.
• One-time stipend to help creators kick-start the next phase of growth.  

How to Apply for Visa Creator Program 2022:

Join us

Learn more about Visa’s commitment to the digital economy, blockchain innovations like NFTs, and how we’re making them more accessible to digital creators by lowering barriers and scaling business models across the globe.

It is important to go through all application requirements before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Australia Awards Africa Short Course 2022

Application Deadline:

24th April 2022 (11.59pm AEST) 

Tell Me About Australia Awards Africa Short Course 2022:

Africa is highly sensitive to both existing climate variability and projected climate change. As a result, governments, industries and communities throughout Africa will be increasingly required to respond to and mitigate the impacts of climate change.

The ANU Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions (ICEDS) has developed this intensive 6‑week online course to provide professionals employed in government, non-government organisations (NGOs) and the private sector in Africa with a synoptic and contextual understanding of climate change adaptation and mitigation options.

What Type of Scholarship is this?

Short Course

Who can apply for Australia Awards Africa Short Course?

Course Requisites

To participate in this course, you must be based within one of the specified countries: Algeria, Burundi, Central African Republic, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Malta, Morocco, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda 

The course will be taught in English, and participants must have English language proficiency (written and spoken) to at least ‘completed secondary school’ level.

Participants are expected to hold a professional mid- or senior-level position in policy, practice, research or reform, whether in government, civil society or the private sector. We expect participants to have completed secondary schooling and at least three years’ tertiary education, have at least three to five years of work experience at mid- to senior-levels, and have a reasonably good understanding of the subject matter.

As participation in this course is likely to intersect with your work duties, we require you to submit a letter of support from your workplace as part of your application for this course. See the attached sample letter for guidance. The letter should reflect a clear understanding of the commitment of a minimum of 37 hours of course participation.

Who Should Enrol

We encourage professionals working in government, NGOs or private business on issues related to climate change adaptation, mitigation and/or disaster recovery to enrol.

Which Countries are Eligible?

Note that this course is available to participants from the following countries (region 2): Algeria, Burundi, Central African Republic, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Malta, Morocco, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda 

Additional courses (soon to be advertised) will be open to participants from other African countries in 2023.

Where will Award be Taken?

Online

How Many Scholarships will be Given?

Not specified

What is the Benefit of Australia Awards Africa Short Course?

• This course is being delivered under the Australia Awards program. There are no fees associated with submitting an application, nor are there course fees for participants who are selected onto the course.
• As a participant on this course, you will receive a contextual understanding of the science for identifying and defining climate change impacts and vulnerability, development implications, legal frameworks, governance, sectoral contexts and socio-economic rationales underpinning climate change adaptation and mitigation. You will acquire knowledge to assist evidence-based policy development and reform, enhance interpretation and analysis skills, and explore socio-economic impact and policy intervention.
• This intensive 6-week online course is highly interactive with a mix of lectures, group activities and interactive sessions, providing participants with formal and informal learning opportunities from leading Australia- and Africa-based academics.

How Long will the Program Last?

Fri 01 Jul 2022 – Fri 12 Aug 2022

18:00 – 22:00

How to Apply for Australia Awards Africa Short Course:

To apply for this course, you must create a profile with CCE (requiring your name and an email address) and then you must complete the course application form (via this CCE website). The application form includes questions for you to answer relating to demographics, language, your current and previous relevant work experience, and your reasons for applying for this course. The application form also asks for you to attach 3 mandatory documents:

• evidence of your English language proficiency (i.e. evidence of your IELTS test score, TOEFL test score, or a formal writing sample) – mandatory requirement,
• a Letter of Support, Letter of Response, OR Letter of Recommendation (depending on your employment circumstance) – mandatory requirement, and
• your curriculum vitae – mandatory requirement.

Letter of Support/Response/Recommendation

If you are currently an employee, you must attach a Letter of Support (on official letterhead) from your employer and signed by a supervisor, stating that they support your application for this course. We advise that you use the sample letter here: Sample Letter here (DOC, 20 KB)

If you are currently self-employed, you must attach a Letter of Response (on official business letterhead) that is signed by you and outlines the role you play in your business/organisation, the length of time you have held this position, and major activities you have lead or been involved in over the past 2 years.

If you are currently unemployed or studying, you must attach a Letter of Recommendation from a previous employer (employment within past 2 years) OR from a community-based organisation that you have undertaken work for within the past 2 years OR from the institution where you are studying. The Letter of Recommendation must be on official letterhead and signed by a previous or current supervisor, or by a lecturer/convener.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Strikes sweep Brazil as prices soar

Tomas Castanheira

A wave of wage strikes is spreading across Brazil among different sections of the working class in response to explosive inflation rates that have built up over the last two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The official inflation rate in 2021 hit a high of 10 percent, the highest since 2015. The increase is even more dramatic in food prices, which in February registered a 13 percent increase over 12 months. A sharp increase of 25 percent in fuel prices was announced by Petrobras at the beginning of March, following the global price hike. Vehicular natural gas saw a 38 percent increase in 12 months, ethanol 36 percent, and gasoline 32 percent.

Striking teachers assembly in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerias, March 31 (Credit: Luiz Rocha - Sind-UTE/MG)

Since February, educators across Brazil have declared strikes demanding that state and local governments implement a 33.24 percent adjustment in the “teacher’s national minimum wage” approved that same month by Jair Bolsonaro’s federal government. The minimum wage for educators working 40 hours a week stands now at 3.845 reais (US$811) a month.

• On February 9, Piauí state teachers declared a strike disrupting the beginning of the school year. After refusing a 16 percent raise counterproposal made by the government of Wellington Dias of the Workers Party (PT), the strike movement in the state continues. Last Wednesday, when the strike had completed 49 days, teachers held a demonstration in the state capital Teresina alongside public transportation workers also on strike for better salaries.

• On February 16, Acre state teachers went on strike, joined a week later by their colleagues in the municipal network of the state capital, Rio Branco. The movement forced the government to postpone the return of in-person classes in the state network, and in the municipal network. According to G1, 75 percent of schools remain closed by strikers. The teachers refused several proposals by Governor Gladson Cameli, from the right-wing Progressive Party (PP), which did not benefit all categories of educators.

• On March 7, teachers in the municipal network of Recife, state capital of Pernambuco, began a strike for the 33.24 percent raise. It ended 10 days later, achieving 23 percent for those who were already paid above the minimum wage.

• On March 9 state teachers of Minas Gerais went on strike, joined a week later by their colleagues in the municipal network of the capital, Belo Horizonte. The strike reached massive proportions, with 85 percent of the workers on strike according to a report by Agência Sindical.

Being the third richest state in the country, responsible for almost half of the Brazilian trade balance surplus, Minas Gerais pays starvation wages to its teachers, which start at 2,100 reais (US$ 443) a month, or 45 percent less than the national minimum wage. Governor Romeu Zema, from the “ultra-liberal” New Party, suggested a meager 10 percent raise for teachers, corresponding to last year’s official inflation index. After the teachers refused this proposal, maintaining their strike and staging demonstrations, the government appealed to the courts to declare the strike illegal and cut the strikers’ salaries.

In the last two weeks, strikes have multiplied at an ever-increasing pace.

• On March 20, subway workers in Belo Horizonte went on strike against the privatization of the subway being promoted by the Minas Gerais state government, threatening their jobs.

• On March 23, teachers from the municipal network of Feira de Santa, Bahia, and Dourados, Mato Grosso do Sul, declared a strike. On the same day, public employees of the National Institute of Social Security(INSS) went on strike nationally, demanding a 19.9 percent increase for three years without wage adjustments. The strike already closed INSS agencies in dozens of states across the country.

• On March 25, while teachers held large demonstrations in Belo Horizonte, municipal educators in Goiânia, capital of Goiás, went on strike.

• On March 28, teacher strikes began in Porto Seguro, Bahia, and Natal, capital of Rio Grande do Norte. On the same day, street sweepers and bus transportation workers in Rio de Janeiro went on strike for better wages, massively impacting the functioning of Brazil’s second largest city. The street sweepers are demanding a 25 percent salary increase and have already rejected two proposals from the Municipal Urban Cleaning Company (Comlurb), which initially offered a 5 percent increase and then 8 percent in installments throughout the year. The Rio de Janeiro bus drivers and fare collectors, who transport 3 million people daily, are demanding a raise to compensate for three years without adjustments.

The mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes, of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), virulently attacked both strikes. Despite the broad participation of workers, he claimed that the street sweepers’ strike was orchestrated by “old figures in Rio politics (who aren’t even from Rio)” and accused workers of “acts of terrorism, vandalism and threats” against the city.

• The following day, March 29, drivers and delivery workers for apps such as Uber and iFood held strikes and demonstrations in 17 Brazilian cities, demanding better payment and working conditions. The rise in fuel prices in recent weeks, which substantially impacts them by the very nature of their work, was a substantial factor triggering the strike.

The World Socialist Web Site interviewed Rober, a striking teacher from the municipal network of Belo Horizonte, who reported on his experience and the political implications of the movement in which he participates.

Explaining the underlying problems that led educators to strike, Rober said: “Both state and Belo Horizonte teachers have suffered salary losses in recent years, but mainly losses in career plans [wage increases for years at work]. In the state, they have the problem of a large number of teachers working under temporary contracts. Recruitment programs are increasingly rare and insufficient to fill the necessary number of teaching positions. Wage increases have only been conceded after strikes, but even then were far below the demanded rates and the real inflation for poor and lower middle class consumers.”

Asked about the workers’ active participation and militancy, he reported, “I feel that the demonstrations are gaining strength, in large part given by the fatigue that the workforce is feeling from the abuses to which it has been subjected over the years. Many, even those distant from the political discussions, are realizing the losses, not only the salary losses. The posture of explicit disrespect on the part of the president, ministers, governor, mayors and secretaries has become hard to ignore.

“The sight of people sleeping on the streets and begging for food or spare change, shacks multiplying under bridges; the rising prices of many essential foods, rents, consumer goods and fuel; the frequent reports of police abuse and corruption with no action on the part of governments, even seeming that governments collaborate on this, is waking people up.”

The WSWS asked the teacher how he sees the potential for unifying the struggles of educators and other workers nationally and whether unions are striving for it. Recognizing the common nature of the problems faced by educators throughout Brazil, he said, “The unions are weakened and don’t seem very combative in defending the rights of the workforce. Even so, they are still what we have to fight, but we need to recover their strength through the engagement of the workers.”

Rober’s response, which in many ways reflect the perception of large numbers of workers, raises fundamental questions of political perspective for the Brazilian and international working class. In particular his conclusions regarding the unions deserve to be discussed in light of the experience of recent years.

The response of Brazilian unions to the social and political crisis unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which deepened the fundamental contradictions of the international capitalist mode of production, is extremely revealing of the real nature of these organizations that portray themselves as representatives of the workers.

The “Balance Sheet of Strikes in 2020” published by the Inter-Union Department of Statistics and Socio-Economic Studies (DIEESE) points out that the year of the outbreak of the pandemic registered the lowest number of strikes in the last 10 years in Brazil, and a drop of 42 percent in relation to the previous year. Drawing conclusions from these figures, DIEESE stated that “There are, in conditions like these [posed by the pandemic], very few chances on the horizon for a union campaign to be successful.”

This is a delicate way of saying that, in the face of the biggest crisis of world capitalism since the first half of the 20th century, unions proved incapable of offering any protection to the working class as it suffered brutal attacks on its jobs, income and its very physical existence. On the contrary, in the name of saving the capitalist economy, the union federations negotiated wage reduction programs, forced workers into workplaces infected with the deadly coronavirus, banned strikes, and openly sabotaged the workers’ struggles that emerged against their opposition.

The experiences of public transportation workers and educators, who are at the forefront of the current wave of strikes, vividly illustrate how the unions worked against the development of an independent political response of the working class to the pandemic.

In response to an explosion of strikes by bus drivers and collectors, considered by DIEESE as the “largest striking sector” in 2020, the National Confederation of Land Transport Workers (CNTTT) directly appealed to the Brazilian state for measures to “mitigate the growing general strike movement” in its ranks. Similarly, the National Confederation of Education Workers (CNTE) has responded to dozens of educators’ strikes across the country against the unsafe reopening of schools by joining the capitalist governments and justifying their criminal policies on the false premise that damage to education “outweighs the direct risks from coronavirus.”

These experiences attest to the fact that unions are not the “only available tool” for workers to fight, but rather that to advance their struggle workers need to break free of these corrupted pro-capitalist organizations and form new ones that directly and democratically represent the rank-and-file.

A fundamental factor prevents unions from being reformed to assume a democratic and progressive character for the workers’ movement today. Formed in the early stages of industrial capitalism as nationally based reformist organizations, the trade unions entered into a historic crisis as capitalism entered its imperialist stage and have then taken an eminently reactionary character with the globalization of the economy in recent decades.

The struggle of the Brazilian workers is developing as part of an increasingly integrated movement of the international working class: the wave of wildcat strikes by Turkish workers demanding wage hikes that compensate for the explosive inflation rates; the government-attacked strike movement by railway workers in Canada and the United States; the massive strike by Spanish truck drivers against fuel price hikes; the hunger protests in Sudan and other African and Middle Eastern countries, triggered by inflation provoked by the war in Ukraine fomented by US-NATO imperialism.

German unions agree to below inflation “wage rise” for airport security workers

Marianne Arens

On Monday, the services union Verdi and the Federal Association of Aviation Security (BDLS) agreed a new contract for airport security workers. However, this does not solve a single problem for the workers since the agreed wage increases are well below the current level of inflation.

The agreement is an attempt by the employers, with the help of Verdi, to suppress the growing resistance at Germany’s airports. Nationwide, about 25,000 workers are employed in airport security. The new contract binds them to a no-industrial-action obligation for two years. Verdi had originally announced it would only agree a 12-month deal, however, the new contract runs for 24 months, from January 2022 to January 2024.

The new pay rates fall well short of the current level of inflation, which means a cut in real wages. Inflation was already running at 7.3 percent at the end of March, according to the Federal Statistical Office, and it will keep rising. “In February, inflation was still at 5.1 percent,” the official statement of March 30 said. “In Hesse, inflation rose to 8.0 percent, the highest level in 48 years.”

Warning strike at Terminal 1, Frankfurt Rhine-Main Airport (Photo: WSWS Media)

The price of petrol has also long since climbed above €2 per litre. Most airport security workers rely on their own car—or even more expensive secondary accommodation—because of their irregular round-the-clock shift work.

A look at the details shows how far the agreed wage increases fall below the price hikes.

The top pay grade, covering passenger and baggage screeners, will be aligned with that of aviation security assistants. Their wages will rise by 8.3 percent in three steps over two years. Only this grade will see the first 80 cents introduced retroactively to January 1, 2022. Nevertheless, the bottom line is that they are being fobbed off with a wage rise of 4.15 percent per year, which means a real wage decrease of 3 percent per year at current inflation levels.

Wage increases in grades covering staff and goods control vary depending on the federal state in which they work. Some particularly low wages will be raised to the higher level of other colleagues over the next two years, which has led to business owners whining about the “special burden” of this long overdue measure. In general, however, the pay increase for these grades is also less than 5 percent per year, also far below the rate of inflation.

In the lowest wage grade, which has so far been fobbed off with an hourly rate of €12.32, wages will rise to €13.83 within two years. So here, too, an increase of just over 12 percent over two years equates to just 6 percent per year, again well below the inflation rate of 7 or 8 percent. And all those in this grade also must pay high petrol prices for their long daily commutes.

Lost wages from the period staff were put on short-time working, when airports were temporarily closed at the beginning of the pandemic, have never been compensated. Regardless, airport workers toiled through on the front line since the beginning of the pandemic, despite the great risk of infection. Many are unhappy and angry because at least 10 percent of the workforce was laid off during this period. The job cuts led to staff shortages and unprecedented permanent stress.

For these reasons, Verdi felt compelled to call two full-day warning strikes during the negotiations, on March 14/15 and 22, which showed that the security workers can paralyse the entire flight operations. But despite the great willingness to fight and the visible solidarity of their colleagues at the airports, Verdi has now agreed to this sell-out contract.

It joins the numerous lousy deals of the last years at Fraport, Lufthansa, WISAG and many other airport companies. Especially since the beginning of the pandemic, corporations have dropped any inhibitions and, with the help of the trade unions, have carried out spinoffs, site closures, mass sackings and wage cuts.

In the Länder (federal states), Verdi, together with the state governments, already made it clear last autumn that the union shares the “profits before lives” policy of the corporations and banks when it comes to the public sector. They have imposed a wage freeze on blue- and white-collar workers in hospitals, schools and public authorities until December 2022.

Now, the industrial action by airport security workers has been sold out. Next up is the dispute in social and educational services where Verdi is negotiating for 330,000 workers, mainly in nurseries and schools. Following a well-established pattern, Verdi carefully separates all industrial disputes to keep them under control and sell them out one by one.

The close relationship between the union leadership and management is particularly evident at airports, where Verdi officials are on a first-name basis with company managers.

The BDLS negotiators are also long-time union members. Their spokesperson, Rainer Friebertshäuser, was a Verdi member and official for 40 years before he moved to the post of labour director of FraSec, the subsidiary of the Frankfurt airport operator Fraport.

Matthias von Randow, general manager of the German Air Transport Association (BDL), was a head of department at the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB), then a state secretary in the Federal Ministry of Transport and a director of Air Berlin. In the same way, today’s trade union leaders easily move to the boardroom or government bench when the opportunity arises.

Workers have no such lucrative opportunities. They are left with all the costs: the costs of years of social cuts, privatisation and deregulation, as well as the costs of the pandemic, both health and financial.

Now they are being saddled with the costs of the Ukraine war. The coalition government headed by social democrat Olaf Schulz has just pulled an additional €100 billion out of the hat for the Bundeswehr (armed forces). Politicians are openly talking about a nuclear-armed Germany and a world war, and workers will pay for it. Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier calls for “ sacrifices ” for the war effort and to ensure profits continue to flow for German big business. Verdi and the other DGB unions stand firmly on his side.