Right-wing ruling party wins Japanese upper house election

Ben McGrath

Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) secured a large victory in the July 10 election for the upper house of the National Diet, the country’s parliament. The LDP, together with its allies and like-minded right-wing parties, now has the two-thirds majority in each house required to push through pro-war and anti-democratic changes to the constitution.

Fumio Kishida in October 2017. (Photo: Wikimedia commons)

Of the 248 seats in the upper house, the House of Councillors, 125 were up for election. These lawmakers serve six-year terms and half face election every three years. The LDP took 63 seats, while its coalition partner Komeito took 13.

Other right-wing parties supporting constitutional revision, include the Japan Innovation Party (Nippon Ishin no Kai), which won 12 seats, and the Democratic Party for the People (DPP) which won 5. Including so-called independents, the pro-revision bloc took 95 seats, bringing its total to 179.

The main opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), won only 17 seats while the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) took 4, bringing their totals in the upper house to 39 and 11 respectively. Other minor parties won seats in the single digits.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made clear that his government would move quickly to revise the constitution, saying, “I would like to push forward efforts that would lead to the proposal [of a revision] as soon as possible.” Any revisions also have to pass with a majority in a national referendum.

The proposed amendments include, above all, altering Article 9, which formally bars Japan from fielding a military or sending it overseas and remains a barrier to Japanese imperialism’s full remilitarization. One proposal includes adding a paragraph that would explicitly recognize the legality of the Self-Defense Force (SDF)—Japan’s military. More extensive revisions are also under discussion, including the complete abolition of this so-called pacifist clause.

Another proposed change is to add a state-of-emergency clause that could be used to silence political dissent, including by banning political meetings or demonstrations. All four parties in the pro-revision bloc agree on allowing Diet members to extend their terms in office during a declared emergency—a step towards dispensing with parliamentary democracy and establishing autocratic rule.

A third proposal would alter Article 96, which deals with how the constitution is amended, requiring only a simple majority in both parliamentary houses to revise the constitution and opening the door for additional changes in the future.

Contrary to claims in the establishment media, the election does not represent widespread support for the LDP and its agenda. The turnout barely passed half of eligible voters, reaching 52.05 percent, indicating broad dissatisfaction with the entire political establishment.

The election also took place two days after the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was closely associated with the campaign for constitutional revision. As additional information emerges, it appears that Tetsuya Yamagami, the accused shooter, was motivated by Abe’s connections with the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, also known as the Unification Church, a cult begun in South Korea in 1954.

Yamagami was apparently angered by a 100-million-yen ($US725,000) donation his mother had given to the cult’s Japan branch, and had initially sought to shoot one of its leaders. Believing Abe to be involved with the group, Yamagami supposedly decided to target the former prime minister instead. According to Unification Church officials, Abe had sent a video message to a related group in September 2021, with Yamagami supposedly stating he saw the video this past spring.

Whatever Yamagami’s motivation, the LDP traded on public sympathy and will exploit the assassination to further its pro-war aims. Kishida and the LDP have backed the US/NATO-proxy war against Russia in Ukraine to justify constitutional change. The government has also used anti-Russia and anti-China propaganda to promote plans to double military spending to 2 percent of GDP. This would make Japan the world’s third-largest military spender.

In pursuing this agenda, it is the working class that will be forced to pay for it through increased attacks on job and social conditions. Inflation has grown by 2.5 percent, and while low compared to other countries, it has led to a 1.8 percent loss in real wages, compounding the impact of more than two decades of almost no wage growth.

At the same time, big business in Japan is enjoying record profits. In May, SMBC Nikko Securities reported that 1,323 major companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange had taken in 33.5 trillion yen ($US243 billion) in net profits for the 2021 fiscal year, surpassing the 30-trillion-yen ($US218 billion) record posted in 2018. Toyota Motor Corporation, for example, had an operating profit of 3 trillion yen ($US21.75 billion), an increase of 610 billion yen ($US4.4 billion) over the previous year. Profits for major companies are expected to continue growing this year.

This makes clear the reality of Kishida’s so-called “new capitalism,” which was touted as a plan to raise wages for workers. Instead, the government’s economic plan is a continuation of “Abenomics,” in which, low interest, monetary easing policies are kept in place while the workforce continues to be casualized, with approximately 40 percent of workers now considered to be in irregular employment.

The LDP’s ability to continue in office is a result of the political bankruptcy of the opposition parties, led by the CDP, which are widely distrusted by workers and youth. While the so-called “liberal” opposition postures as opponents of constitutional revision and war preparations, the reality is they have all embraced the remilitarization drive and the attacks on working conditions.

Hiroshi Yoshida, who leads the Research Center for Aged Economy and Society at Tohoku University, told Bloomberg that older voters especially were wary that the opposition parties could cut pensions to pay for election promises like reducing the sales tax. “Older people think it could be worse if others take over,” he stated.

During the election the attempts by the Stalinist JCP to direct widespread anti-LDP opposition behind the pro-capitalist Democrats failed, as they have in the past. Rather than work towards building a working-class movement, Chairman Kazuo Shii, demonstrating the JCP’s commitment to capitalism, begged the other opposition parties to unite, saying, “The only way to change Japan’s politics is [for the opposition] to fight together. I want to move forward on this decisively.”

Philippines government declares COVID-19 is “here to stay”

Dante Pastrana

COVID-19 infections are increasing again in the Philippines, six months after a massive January surge that peaked at 34,832 daily cases and left in its wake 3,145 dead.

From June 27 to July 3, the weekly officially reported infections totaled 7,398, a 60 percent jump from the previous week, and a sharp rise from three weeks earlier, when 1,675 cases were recorded.

The sign reads “It’s too much, we’re tired! We need mass hiring!” [Screen Capture from Alliance of Health Workers Facebook page]

From July 11 to 17, the country recorded 14,640 additional COVID-19 infections, or an average of 2,091 cases a day. The infections rose by 44 percent over the last seven days. Active cases now number 20,511. The total official death toll since 2020 stands at 60,641.

This is a vast undercount. According to a World Health Organisation report, excess deaths in the Philippines associated with COVID-19 from January 2020 to December 2021 were estimated to be as high as 208,000.

The test positivity rate nationwide is at 9.6 percent. According to a BusinessMirror report, a sustained case uptrend was observed in 91 percent of provinces and cities. In Metro Manila, the positivity rate was at 10.4 percent. Cavite province was at 16.2 percent, Capiz province at 17.8 percent and Antique province was at the highest, 18.9 percent.

Meanwhile, hospitals reported 16.13 percent of all COVID-19 dedicated ICU beds were already occupied and 228 COVID-19 ventilators were in used.

As with every other government internationally with the exception of China, the newly-elected government of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is making no pretence of combating the pandemic, much less eradicating the virus. Marcos Jr. has not even appointed the health department secretary, who nominally leads the pandemic response.

Former President Rodrigo Duterte had already abandoned most of the public health measures, meagre and underfunded as they were. Mobility restrictions within and into the country were lifted, resulting in domestic and foreign tourism skyrocketing. According to the Philippine Tourism Satellite Accounts report, “domestic tourism tallied 37,279,282 trips in 2021” and foreign tourists totalled 163,879 that year.

All businesses are now in full operation. Last month, the biweekly testing mandated for unvaccinated workers were scrapped for businesses in areas under Alert Level 1, which is virtually most of the country.

Six million students out of an estimated 27 million were herded back to school for 2021–2022. According to the education department, over 73 percent of public schools were opened. Vice President Sara Duterte, who has been appointed concurrent education secretary, announced she aimed to have full resumption of face-to-face classes in public schools by August.

Even the mask mandate, despite continued popular support, is being rolled back. The governor of Cebu Island, an ally of Marcos Jr, with a population of 3.3 million, declared masking as optional.

What remains of the government’s response is mostly a vaccination program that has stalled, with just over 70 percent of the population vaccinated and barely 13 percent having had their first booster shot.

There has been a campaign to shift the responsibility of dealing with the public health calamity to individuals. This has been sold on the basis that the Omicron variant’s high transmissibility and supposed mildness means that eradication is both impossible and unnecessary, and therefore the virus is to be treated as endemic so that people must learn to live with it.

The virus is “here to stay,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire declared last month in a press briefing. “We’re already teaching our countrymen that we should live with this virus, they must protect themselves by receiving our vaccines and also doing and complying with our safety protocols like wearing face masks.”

However, cases are on the rise again due to mobility patterns, low vaccine uptake, especially for booster shots, and minimal public health standards. Vergeire insisted that as “long as it’s mild and moderate only and asymptomatic, we can survive this. What’s important now is to manage and maintain our hospitals, that the cases admitted won’t increase and we maintain low severe and critical cases.”

In a previous public briefing in June, Vergeire said daily infections could rise to as much as 4,600 by mid-July, citing projections by Australian Tuberculosis Modeling Network. The projections were based on assumptions that included increased mobility, reduced adherence to public health standards, and low uptake of boosters.

These are the very conditions that the ruling elite’s profit-first policy are creating.

With the health department remaining headless, the business elites are moving swiftly to essentially privatise the handling of the ongoing pandemic and thereby head off any re-imposition of mobility restrictions and other public health measures that could impinge on the production of profits.

Last month, Joey Concepcion, multimillionaire businessman and presidential adviser to Duterte, convened an Advisory Council of Experts, composed of medical advocates of vaccine-only and “herd immunity” strategies and economists with close links to international finance, to map out a transition to a “better normal, one that encourages economic activity and does not risk the public’s health.” More bluntly, this is a “normal” of repeated infections, mass debilitation and possibly death for millions of working people.

Concepcion stated: “The most important thing for our business leaders right now is to not lock down. We cannot lock down anymore as rising prices are a big issue for all manufacturers. We don’t want consumers to slow down their spending. This is not good for the economy.”

Concepcion has been spouting medical advice without the benefit of a medical degree. In 2020 as the pandemic surged, he suggested that the poor were naturally immune from the COVID-19 virus as they had long been exposed to viruses and germs because of living in poverty.

Last month, he claimed that Omicron was a blessing because it gave “natural immunity to our people.”

The council’s task, while dressed up in concern with public health, unsurprisingly, is a further doubling down on ending the “pandemic mindset”—the understandable public concern over a scientifically proven fact of an ongoing and uncontrolled pandemic.

A key step is ending the state of the public health emergency declared by Duterte in 2020. It is set to expire in September, unless prolonged by Marcos Jr. That would remove the legal basis of any government measures against the pandemic. It would mean dismantling the anti-pandemic task force, rolling back regulations against the pandemic and ending the government’s power to impose lockdowns and quarantines.

Critically, it would also end free vaccinations and the limited testing funded by local governments, available to those with symptoms or close contacts of COVID-19 victims.

The end of testing alone would be a massive blow to the ability of most workers to shoulder any responsibility for their own health amidst a raging pandemic. RT-PCR testing costs a minimum of PHP2,500, equivalent to a week’s pay for a daily wage worker. The cheaper but less effective alternative, the rapid tests, cost as much PHP900, nearly twice the minimum daily wage of a worker in Metro Manila.

The class interests being advanced by Concepcion and his cohorts are clear. According to Forbes, the wealth of Philippine tycoons surged by 30 percent in 2021. The heirs of the late SM Group founder Henry T. Sy Sr., with a $US16.6 billion fortune, gained a further $2.7 billion. Real estate tycoon and former Senate president Manuel B. Villar Jr. increased his worth by $1.7 billion to $6.7 billion.

Overall, the collective wealth of the 50 richest families and individuals in the Philippines surged by 30 percent to $79 billion, even as millions of workers lost their jobs and income, and many thousands got sick or died.

Australia’s COVID hospitalisations at record levels as Labor government rejects safety measures

Oscar Grenfell

It is now undeniable that the COVID pandemic is the worst it has ever been in Australia. Yet all of the country’s governments, led by the federal Labor administration, are rejecting even minimal safety measures, effectively consigning tens of thousands to serious illness and hundreds upon hundreds to death.

A man receives a COVID-19 test in the eastern suburbs of Sydney last September [Credit: AP Photo/Mark Baker]

The response takes to a new level the criminal reopening drive of last December, when the entire political establishment abandoned successful suppression measures and let the virus rip. Then, they peddled misinformation that Omicron was “mild” and that greater levels of infection would result in “herd immunity.”

Now those lies are in tatters. The new BA.5 variant results in rapid reinfections, provides no lasting immunity and is claiming lives more rapidly than the deadly Delta strain did in Australia. All that remains is the policy of mass illness and death, a pandemic in perpetuity and the naked subordination of public health to a corporate elite which rejects any measures that would impact on profits.

National hospitalisations on Tuesday reached 5,360, just 30 short of the record of 5,390 reached on January 25. They declined slightly yesterday, but will likely exceed the previous peak sometime this week. The number of COVID patients has increased by more than 2,000 in the first few weeks of July, and have doubled since the beginning of June when there were 2,570 receiving hospital treatment for a coronavirus infection.

Roughly half of the states and territories are at record COVID admissions, while the other half will exceed their previous peaks during the current surge.

Deaths are also increasing markedly. The past three days, including Friday, fatalities have stood at 89, 85 and 75. Over the past seven days, there have been 450 deaths, or an average of more than 64 every single day. That compares with average daily deaths of just over 40 throughout June.

Globally, Australia has gone from having one of the lowest per capita death tolls in the first two years of the pandemic, to now consistently being near the top of the seven-day rolling average of COVID fatalities per million people. Currently, Australia is sixth by that measure. The only advanced capitalist countries experiencing greater per capita losses are New Zealand and Taiwan.

The weekly fatalities are now well over double the death toll from the 2002 Bali bombings, the worst terrorist attack involving Australian citizens in modern history. Daily average fatalities are almost twice the number of those killed in the horrific Port Arthur massacre of 1996, when a crazed gunman opened fire on a crowd of defenseless civilians.

Those events, and others like them, were treated as major turning points in society. Now, however, far higher levels of death from the pandemic are minimised and downplayed, or simply ignored.

One needs to search aggregator websites, such as covidlive.com.au, to have any sense of the scale of death underway. Most days, the fatalities are not mentioned by the official politicians or even reported in the press. If they are, they are consigned to a line or two, with no sense of tragedy or loss.

There is a strong element of social eugenics in this response, dovetailing with previous complaints in ruling circles over the “aging population” and the costs associated with it. Almost 100 people are dying a week in aged-care homes according to official data, while there are some 700 active outbreaks in facilities across the country. Both are nearing record levels.

It is not only the elderly, however, who are becoming grievously ill. In comments to the Age this morning, Dr Marion Kainer, infectious diseases head at Melbourne’s Western Health, said that more people in their 30s, 40s and 50s were presenting to emergency departments with acute symptoms.

“What we are noticing is that they are sicker on the wards this time around and they are staying longer than they were during the last Omicron wave,” Kainer said. Like other medical professionals, she noted that some BA.5 symptomology resembled that of Delta, rather than earlier Omicron variants. The new strain, in addition to being the most infectious yet, appears to affect the lungs more severely than earlier iterations of Omicron, which primarily hit the upper bronchial tract.

The virus is spreading unchecked throughout hospitals, with well over 10,000 workers in the sector off sick at any one time. At some major Melbourne hospitals, a third of midwives are off sick or isolating, while growing numbers of pregnant women are contracting the virus, according to the Age.

The hospitalisations and deaths indicate that as in December–January, the virus is virtually everywhere. Official national case numbers exceeded 50,000 on Tuesday for the first time since May 19.

Government and health spokespeople have acknowledged that real infections are at least double the recorded data or more. Given the dismantling of the testing system and the absence of any, even nominal contact tracing, even that is likely a substantial underestimate. It is entirely possible that real infections are near or at the peak of 150,000 per day reached in December.

The response of government leaders to the unfolding disaster recalls a criminal who cuts a hose during a blazing inferno. Labor and Liberal-National alike, state and federal, none of them have announced a single measure aimed at cutting down transmission. Over the past two months, moreover, they have withdrawn the limited restrictions that were in place during the December–January wave, including virtually all indoor mask mandates.

A press conference on Tuesday by federal Labor Health Minister Mark Butler and the country’s Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly summed up the official criminality. They declared that “millions” more Australians would be infected over the coming weeks. Even though hospitalisations are already at record levels, a peak in the outbreak would not be reached for four weeks, or maybe more.

Kelly stated: “In every state and territory, the number of cases according to those predictions are continuing to rise. So, we’re at the start of this wave, not the end. We know that that is associated with hospitalisations, and that what happens in the future really, very much depends on what we do today.”

And so what were the esteemed health bureaucrat and Labor minister proposing to do? Butler and Kelly “strongly recommended” masks, but dismissed out of hand suggestions of any reintroduced mandates. Corporate chiefs have laid down the law, declaring that widespread mask-wearing is unacceptable, because it is a reminder of the ongoing pandemic and could result in decreased economic activity, such as less retail shopping.

The schools would remain fully open, despite being key vectors of the virus, not a cent would be spent on bolstering the hospital systems. The essential elimination measures, such as lockdowns and the closure of non-essential businesses, were not mentioned by either. Nor were they brought up by representatives of a press corp that has uncritically cheered on the policy of mass infection.

That Kelly continues to dispense his pompous evasions as chief medical officer, rather than before a disciplinary board, is itself extraordinary. When the global Omicron wave began in December, he described the new variant as a “Christmas present” and publicly urged governments to allow its spread. As a consequence more than eight million people have been infected and almost 9,000 have lost their lives.

Labor’s retention of Kelly sums up the complete bipartisanship of the criminal pandemic response. Butler and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese are responding to the present crisis exactly as conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison would have.

Dr David Berger (Image: Supplied)

Meanwhile, Dr David Berger is currently under disciplinary sanction from the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA). His offence has been to warn of the dangers of COVID, stridently condemn the “let it rip” policies and advocate the scientifically-grounded elimination measures that can end the pandemic.

AHPRA has declared that this principled service to the population risks undermining public health messaging.

Wikipedia AfroCreatives WikiProject + Film 2022

Application Deadline:

4th August 2022

Tell Me About Award:

The AfroCreatives WikiProject +film is a campaign to mobilize African film creatives, professionals and film enthusiasts to enhance information on Wikipedia about the art and industry of African film. Its first effort is a 4-country edit-a-thon campaign from 16 July – 6 August aimed at generating a landmark number of contributions on the film industries of Egypt, Nigeria, Rwanda and Senegal. The campaign will kick off with an online local training session in each of these countries on 16th July for individuals who are new to contributing to Wikipedia.

Which Fields are Eligible?

AfroCreatives WikiProject +film is the inaugural effort of AfroCreatives WikiProject. By mobilizing African film creatives, professionals and film enthusiasts, the campaign aims to measurably enhance information on Wikipedia about the art and industry of African film, including:

• Biographies of notable African creatives and professionals that span the industry, from financing to pre-and post-production.
• African studios, streaming platforms, awards, festivals, guilds, film schools and other institutions that form part of the industry ecosystem
• Movies and television programs that have shaped Africa’s cinematic history and that are defining the current industry
• Developments in African animation, AR, and VR and other technologies.
• Film financing, movie production incentives, government policies, and training and workforce development programs that are advancing the state of the African film industry.

What Type of Scholarship is this?

Volunteer

Who can apply?

1. Film Industry Creatives and Professional
2. Film Enthusiasts

Campaign Rules

• All participants must create a Wikipedia account and be signed in before making any edits.
• Make sure you are registered on your country’s dashboard, so your edits can be tracked as part of the campaign.
• All contributions as part of the campaign must follow or be related to the theme of the campaign, African cinema, with a particular focus on Egypt, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Senegal. Editing Articles outside this scope will not count.
• Edits should focus on fixing typos, adding categories, adding references, wikilinking, and creating stubs or articles. Any edits outside this such as adding infoboxes, images, etc. are welcome and may earn you additional points.
• Double/multiple performances of one task as several edits on an article count as one edit. For example, fixing two different typos over two different edits on an article counts as one edit, not two.
• Points are not given when an edit is made to correct a previous edit by the same participant.
• Responses to messages on talk pages and reverted edits do not count as an edit.

Which Countries are Eligible?

Egypt, Nigeria, Rwanda and Senegal

Where will Award be Taken?

Online

How Many Scholarships will be Given?

Numerous

What is the Benefit of Scholarship?

The AfroCreatives WikiProject +film campaign is offering a series of country-specific awards in Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, and Rwanda, as well as international awards. All campaign participants will receive virtual certificates issued by the Wikimedia Foundation and be eligible to add a campaign userbox to their userpage.

Local Awards

• Outstanding Contributor Award Prize: $1,750 Amazon Gift Card
• Outstanding Contributor – Runner-Up Prize: $1,250 Amazon Gift Card  
• Newbie Award Prize: $1,000 Amazon Gift Card 

International Awards

• Star Performer  Prize: $2,500 Amazon Gift Card  
• Quality of Content Award  Prize: $2,000 Amazon Gift Card
• Content Creator Award  Prize: $2,000 Amazon Gift Card            
• Gender Award  Prize: $2,000 Amazon Gift Card

Also,

1. Your contributions will increase African-generated content about the continent’s film sector on Wikipedia and on the web.
2. You will help create awareness and interest among the general public about the project and create visibility of the African film industries of Egypt, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Senegal on Wikipedia and its sister projects.
3. You will help build the capacity within the film industry in Egypt, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Senegal to contribute knowledge to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.
4. Help propagate the need to create more content about the film industry in Africa that promotes culture, history and the heritage of our people.

How Long will Program Last?

16 July – 6 August

How to Apply for Scholarship?

Register

Select your country to continue.

Visit Award Webpage for Details + Here

World Bank Africa Fellowship Programme 2023

Application Deadline: 25th August, 2022

Eligible Countries: Sub-Saharan African countries

To be taken at (country): World Bank offices in Washington, D.C. or in a Sub-Saharan country

About World Bank Africa Fellowship Programme: Launched in 2013, the World Bank Group (WBG) Africa Fellowship Program targets young talented African nationals who are completing or recently completed a Ph.D. in an area relevant to the World Bank’s work. The fellowship program has been very successful since its inception, building a strong pipeline of young African talent interested in a career in development, in international institutions, African governments, think tanks, and academia.

The program offers chosen fellows a six-month assignment at World Bank Group (WBG) offices in Washington D.C. or in country offices to gain hands-on experience in the operations of the WBG. This includes knowledge generation and dissemination, design of global and country policies, and the building of institutions to achieve inclusive growth in developing countries. While benefitting from research and innovation in multiple sectors, fellows will also work on research, economic policy, technical assistance, and lending operations that contribute to the World Bank’s goal of eliminating poverty and increasing shared prosperity. Through the fellowship, we aim to build the capacity of the next generation of African change makers in development, policymaking and promote the goals of reducing poverty in the region.

The 2023 WBG Africa Fellowship Program expects to host up to 15 fellows. This year, with the support of the Think Africa Partnership, a private sector window provides support for 10 additional fellowship positions with a special focus on private sector development and finance. The additional 10 fellows will work on improving the macroeconomic, business and financial frameworks to enhance private sector investment, strengthen economic policy making and ultimately promote economic growth across the region.

Type: PhD, Fellowship

Eligibility: A candidate of the World Bank Africa Fellowship must:

• Be a recent Ph.D. graduate (within three years of completion) or be enrolled in the last year of the Ph.D. program.
• Have an excellent command of English, both written and verbal 
• Possess strong quantitative and analytical skills 
• Be under the age of 32 by the closing of the application period

Selection Criteria: The following additional attributes are highly desirable:

• a command of an additional World Bank official language
• national from fragile and conflict-affected countries
• candidates from refugee and internally displaced communities and/or with proven experience on forced displacement

The selection process consists of two phases: 

In the first phase, a short-list of candidates will be made available for hire for the different units of the WBG depending on applicants’ specialization. Applicants will be notified of about the status of their application or whether they have been shortlisted or not.

In the second phase, the final list of fellows will be selected in consultation with the various units of the WBG. When the selection is complete, all shortlisted candidates will be informed of their selection status. 

Number of Awardees: 25

Value of World Bank Africa Fellowship Programme: Selected candidates will then be notified and, upon acceptance, will be hired as short-term consultants for six months starting January 2023. Fellows are eligible to receive consultant fees, round-trip economy class air travel to Washington, D.C. or a WBG country office from their university or institution, and worker’s compensation insurance.  

Duration of Fellowship: Fellows will spend a minimum of six months. The fellowship period of engagement is January-June 2023.

How to Apply for World Bank Africa Fellowship Programme: Apply for the Africa Fellowship Program now

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Commonwealth Professional Fellowships 2022/2023

Application Deadline: September 2022

About the Award: Commonwealth Professional Fellowships are for mid-career professionals from low- and middle-income countries to spend a period of time at a UK Host organisation working in their sector for a programme of professional development.

Purpose: To provide professionals with the opportunity to enhance knowledge and skills in their given sector, and to have catalytic effects on their workplaces.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility:

To be eligible for these Fellowships, prospective fellows must:

• Be a citizen of or have been granted refugee status by an eligible Commonwealth country, or be a British Protected Person
• Be permanently resident in an eligible Commonwealth country
• Have at least five years’ full-time, or equivalent part-time, relevant work experience, in a profession related to the subject of the Fellowship programme, by the proposed start of the fellowship – voluntary work experience will not be counted towards this minimum
• Be in employment at the time of application at an organisation that they will return to upon completion of the Fellowship
•  If nominated for a Professional Fellowship, prospective Fellows will be required to provide at least two references, (one of which must be from their current employer). Prospective Fellows will be contacted directly by the CSC if required to submit references. The Host organisation Fellows are applying to might also contact them to request a reference when considering their application
• Not have undertaken a Commonwealth Professional Fellowship within the last five years (at the time of taking up the award)
• Not be seeking to undertake an academic programme of research or study. Academics are eligible to apply for the scheme, but only to undertake programmes of academic management, not research or courses relevant to their research subject
• Be available to start and complete their fellowship within prescribed dates

In addition to the above, prospective fellows must ensure they meet any eligibility criteria set out by each individual host organisation.

Eligible Countries: Developing countries

Number of Awards: Up to 25 fellows (in total)

Value & Duration of Award:

Each Fellowship provides:

• Approved return airfare from the fellow’s home country to the UK
• Reimbursement of the standard visa application fee
• Stipend (living allowance) payable monthly (or pro rata) for the duration of the award at the rate of £1,782 per month, or £2,197 per month for those at organisations in the London metropolitan area (rates quoted at 2021/22 levels)
• If a fellow declares a disability, a full assessment of needs and eligibility for additional financial support will be offered by the CSC. See the CSC disability support statement for more information
• Arrival allowance of up to £972.59 (rates quoted at 2021/22 levels), including an element for warm clothing
• For the Clean Energy, Air and Oceans programme a £1,000 travel allowance per fellow to facilitate attendance at events (administered by host organisations)
• A maximum of £3,000 per fellow can be agreed by host organisations for short courses/conferences as well as travel to visit other UK organisations where this forms an integral part of the programme. Host organisations should bear in mind the restrictions set out in our guidance on claimable costs.

All fellowships in this round will be tenable for three months from 22nd February 2023

How to Apply: Applications for prospective Fellows are now open. Please click here to visit our online application system and submit your application.

In the application form, prospective fellows will be asked to:

• List all undergraduate and postgraduate university qualifications obtained (where applicable)
• List up to 10 publications and prizes (if applicable)
• Provide details of your employment history and explain how each job is relevant to the programme you wish to undertake in the UK (up to 100 words per employment)
• Provide a statement on the relevance of your previous work experience to the proposed fellowship (up to 300 words)
• Provide a Development Impact statement in 4 parts.

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

French Politics Since Its Presidential Election

Kenneth Surin

Photograph Source: The White House – Public Domain

After the presidential election in April which returned the incumbent Emmanuel Macron to power, France held elections on 12 and 19 June 2022 to elect the 577 members of its National Assembly.

The results turned out to be somewhat inconclusive.

Macron is the first president not have an absolute majority in Parliament since 1977, and since none of the 4 main alliances won a majority, France has a hung parliament for the first time since 1988.

There were 4 main alliances contesting the parliamentary elections:

+ the centrist presidential majority Ensemble coalition, including Macron’s Renaissance, the Democratic Movement, Horizons, and their allies;

+ the left-wing New Ecologic and Social People’s Union (NUPES), comprising La France Insoumise, the Socialist Party, Ecologist Pole, and the French Communist Party, plus smaller groups;

+the Union of the Right and Centre (UDC), including the Republicans, the Union of Democrats and Independents, and their allies;

+ the far-right National Rally (RN).

The NUPES alliance was formed in the 2 months following the presidential election, where the left-wing vote had been fragmented.

The elections were held over 2 rounds.

In the second round, Macron’s centrist Ensemble coalition obtained the most seats (245) but fell 44 seats short of an absolute majority.

NUPES won 131 seats, while the far-right RN became the single largest parliamentary opposition party (89). UDC suffered losses, but received enough seats (64) to be a kingmaker in the next government.

Political commentators said the outcome was a blow for Macron, and had the potential for parliamentary gridlock.

Macron announced that only parties that have already been in government, together or separately – the Parti Communiste (PC), the green party Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV), the Parti Socialiste (PS), Macron’s Ensemble! and the conservative Les Républicains (LR) – can be part of a “coalition of action”.

As a result, the left-wing La France Insoumise (LFI) and the far-right Rassemblement National (RN), which have never governed, are excluded. The patchwork “government of action” is headed by the prime minister Élisabeth Borne.

The war in Ukraine is potentially a decisive factor in determining this coalition’s future.

The economist Jean Pisani-Ferry says that putting maximum pressure on Russia is likely to reduce France’s national income by 20%, with personal income falling by 2%. It is hardly surprising therefore that Macron prefers to play “the statesman” when dealing with Putin.

The pressure from the Ukraine war on the French economy is reflected in the government’s decision to renationalize the country’s main electricity and nuclear company Électricité de France (EDF)—prime minister Borne said the decision was made in large part because France, though less dependent than its neighbour Germany on Russian oil and gas, could no longer rely on Russia for these.

France gets about 70% of its electricity from nuclear sources, a larger share than any other country in the world. In order to safeguard energy sovereignty the government decided to raise its holding in EDF from the current 84% to 100%– EDF is France’s largest electricity producer and operates all its nuclear-powered plants.

The government is planning to upgrade France’s nuclear capacity to compensate for energy shortfalls stemming from the cessation of Russian oil and gas imports. A badly-needed new generation nuclear reactors is part of the plan, not just to deal with this energy deficit, but also because the previous generation of atomic reactors, constructed mainly in the 1980s, is now facing progressively severe maintenance issues.

Reactors are having to be closed down in increasing numbers for repairs to be performed, thereby impacting the nation’s power output at a time when rising inflation is driving up energy costs. At present half of EDF’s existing nuclear reactors are offline.

The government has capped energy prices by forcing French energy companies to keep household electricity price rises to no more than 4% this year.

The government will also increase welfare benefits, place a moratorium on rent increases, and provide subsidies for less well-off households to buy vital food products.

The European parliament recently reclassified gas and nuclear power as “green”, a step requested by the French government. This decision, called “greenwashing” by its critics, will enable the government to tap into subsidies provided by the EU’s so-called green initiatives. The French government has already agreed to inject €2.1bn/$2.1bn into EDF’s budget.

EDF is also Britain’s 4^th largest household energy supplier and is building the UK’s first new (and long-delayed) nuclear power station in a generation.

The main UK energy generation companies are:

+ British Gas (market share:18.23%; UK owned)

+ OVO (market share:15.34%; UK owned)

+ E.ON (market share:12.04%; German owned)

+ EDF (market share:10.74%; French owned)

+ Scottish Power (market share: 9.11%; owned by Spanish energy company Iberdrola Group)

+ Npower (market share: 6.53%; owned by German energy companies Innogy and E.ON)

The UK government has agreed to prolong the life of a coal-fired power station owned by EDF in Nottingham, a move hailed as “hypocritical” by its green critics, given that coal is the most polluting form of power generation.

The UK, unlike France, has not imposed a cap on energy prices, so it remains to be seen if these electricity suppliers (almost 40% foreign-owned), a sector currently enjoying record profits, will take advantage of this lack of action on the part of the Tory government.

Nothing will happen soon. The UK government has been in a state of paralysis since “BoJo” Johnson’s resignation earlier this month.

BoJo’s successor is expected to take office on 5^th September, as the Tories undertake a cumbersome process for electing their next leader, who will also be the new prime minister.

This person, chosen from a pool of patently unqualified individuals, will be the UK’s 4^thprime minister in 6 years.

It is thus hardly surprising that Ukania, tumbling from one clownish crisis to another, is the laughing stock of the world. France has its problems, but laughing stock it isn’t.