The African Culture Fund is launching a call for applications, in partnership with the Institut Kôrè des Arts et Métiers (IKAM Ségou), with a view to selecting 16 female artists and cultural entrepreneurs from West Africa and Central Africa to take part in BOOT CAMP #3 scheduled in Ségou from March 2023.
Africa today is full of young artists and cultural entrepreneurs who evolve on the job, and very often in the informal sector. Among this batch, a large number is made up of women who find it even more difficult to make their voices heard on the continent.
The urgency today is to strengthen the leadership and empowerment of women in Africa, but also to create favorable conditions for their freedom of expression and their participation in public life. This will promote the emergence of women leaders and officials capable of claiming their rights. Women in leadership positions will thus become influencers and leaders of change in their respective societies.
For the emergence of our societies, we need to give women a voice to express themselves and assert themselves. It is in this logic that the African Culture Fund has chosen to launch the pan–African program LEWO (Leadership and Empowerment for Women), dedicated to the professionalization and capacity building of women artists and cultural entrepreneurs in Africa, with a view to strengthening their leadership and contributing to their empowerment, by providing them with the tools necessary for access to international markets.
LEWO is a continuation of the ACF ACADEMY program, launched in July 2021 and which has so far enabled the incubation and capacity building of 20 cultural managers from West Africa and 12 young visual artists from North Africa.
Which Countries are Eligible?
African countries
What Type of Award is This?
Entrepreneurship
Who is Eligible?
Applicants must meet the following criteria:
Be between 21 and 40 years old,
Be a female artist (regardless of discipline) or entrepreneur with at least five years of experience, practicing and residing in Africa,
Be a national of one of the West African or Central African countries (list below), Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea–Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo. Angola, Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Sao Tome and Principe, Chad.
Be available from March 2023 to participate in the various LEWO Program training and networking activities.
How are Applicants Selected?
The candidate selection procedure has five (05) steps:
Registration and filing of files
Administrative review of applications
Evaluation by the selection committee (Jury)
Approval of the list of candidates
Announcement of the list of successful candidates
Applications will be evaluated by an independent selection committee made up of experts and professionals working in the cultural sector and familiar with the artistic and cultural realities of West and Central Africa.
What is the Benefit of Award?
This third boot camp (training camp) of the ACF ACADEMY, will offer participants innovative educational content, coaching, and mentoring adapted and focused on specific leadership skills, during 2 weeks, in the creative city of Ségou (Mali).
In the program, there will be thematic workshops, practical case studies, and scenarios, but also one–to–one sessions with recognized African personalities in the field of culture and entrepreneurship.
This boot camp will provide young professional entrepreneurs in art and culture with tools and keys adapted to contribute to their empowerment.
At the end of the boot camp, the program will grant a scholarship of 2,000 euros to each of the winners and the monitoring of their development will be done for a year in the form of mentoring, provided by experienced professional men and women, great managers and leaders from all parts of Africa.
How to Apply:
Applicants are invited to send their file to the email address applications@africanculturefund.net, no later than November 25, 2022.
The file must be written in one of the following languages: French, English
The file should include:
Resume
Copy of your identity document or other equivalent documents (indicating Surname and First name, Nationality, Date of Birth)
Cover letter (350 words maximum)
Brief presentation of the artistic approach (for artists) or biography (for entrepreneurs)
Portfolio: presentation of works and/or photos of previous projects (12 pages maximum)
NB: Files submitted after the deadline or incomplete will not be accepted.
US health officials announced on Friday that the 2022-2023 flu season had already crossed its epidemic threshold, with cases, hospitalizations and deaths almost doubling compared to the previous week. The current outbreak of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) and multiple highly immune-evading subvariants of Omicron that are now dominant are only adding to the strain that is evolving into a severe health crisis across the country.
Many health systems, in particular pediatric hospitals, have reached or are exceeding capacity. California’s Orange County declared a health emergency on October 31 resulting from a record number of pediatric hospitalizations and flooded emergency rooms. Around 75 percent of children’s hospital beds in the country are currently occupied.
Percent of outpatient visits for respiratory illness to CDC by flu season. [Photo: CDC.gov]
Critical care physician Dr. Anita Patel at Children’s National Hospital in Washington D.C. told Fortunelast week: “I can honestly say that, unfortunately, with both RSV and the flu, we have had kids that needed to be intubated or have breathing tubes to help get through viral illness. I’ve been a practicing ICU [intensive care unit] doctor for a decade now, and I think I can safely say this is one of the worst surges I’ve ever seen.”
Federal health officials are outlining plans to deploy federal troops and FEMA personnel to severely affected areas across the country in response to health systems reaching their capacity to manage the influx of ill people. These discussions also include mobilizing resources such as ventilators to hard-hit regions. Yet there is hardly any mention of these crisis measures in the mainstream press, desensitized to the mass suffering and death that has characterized these last three years.
The number of jurisdictions reporting high or very high levels of Influenza-Like Illnesses (ILI) activity has surged across the Mid-Atlantic and the South-Central West Coast regions. The District of Columbia, Alabama, South Carolina and Kentucky have been designated with the color purple, signifying the highest level of ILI activity, for the week ending October 29, 2022.
Dr. Jose Romero, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said at Friday’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) briefing, “We’re seeing the highest influenza hospitalization rates going back a decade. We are also reporting the second influenza-related pediatric death of the season.”
The 2022-2023 flu season, officially inaugurated in the first week of October, is gaining incredible momentum straight out of the gate. Positivity rates on tests reported to the CDC by US clinical laboratories jumped from 1 percent in mid-September to 9 percent by the end of October and continue to climb.
Romero added, “In the southeast of the United States, nearly 20 percent of respiratory specimens are testing positive for influenza virus, mostly influenza A and H3 N2 viruses, which in the past have been associated with more severe seasons, especially for young children and older individuals.”
According to historical baseline data, visits to health care providers for upper respiratory infections and ILI at this point in the fall and winter months usually account for no more than 2 percent of all complaints. They presently account for more than 4.3 percent of all doctor visits, well over twice the average rate.
Putting this in context, the 4.3 percent figure is typical for the peaks seen during a moderate flu season in January and February. During severe flu seasons such as those experienced in 2002-2004, 2009-2010, 2017-2018 and 2019-2020, the peak in visits for ILI never exceeded 8 percent. This implies that the scale of the current flu season will most likely be unprecedented in recent memory.
US Map of flu intensity by state. [Photo: CDC.gov]
As of the week ending October 29, 2022 (week 43), 1.6 million cumulative illnesses were reported. The CDC said in its Weekly US Influenza Surveillance Report (FluView) that there had been 13,000 hospitalizations, with 4,326 admitted in the last week. The cumulative per capita hospital rate has already reached 3 per 100,000, which is considerable given that the country has concluded only the first month of the flu season.
To give perspective to these figures, federal officials have developed Intensity Threshold (IT) values to contextualize the outbreak of respiratory illnesses. These are values, calculated on the basis of historical data, that are used to assess if a system will reach certain critical thresholds. These values can inform emergency preparedness and response. For instance, IT values are used by the US Geological Survey and the National Flood Insurance Program to inform regions of potential flood risks.
For Influenza-Like Illnesses (ILI), the average historical baseline for hospitalizations, also known as IT50 for hospitalizations per 100,000 people, is 8.6. In other words, over 17 flu seasons, hospitalization rates infrequently exceeded the IT50 of 8.6 and only for a short period in the season.
There have also been 732 deaths thus far, with two pediatric deaths attributed to influenza. This was the ballpark figure for total mortality sustained during the 2020-2021 flu season, when mitigation measures were in place to check the spread of COVID, leading to the near elimination of the flu. With the end of all pandemic mitigation and social distancing, the flu has returned with a proverbial vengeance.
The rates of cases, hospitalizations and deaths are outpacing the 2017-2018 season, a particularly harsh season that killed upwards of 52,000 adults and 186 children. Those not receiving their vaccines died at significantly higher rates, with people over 65 accounting for nearly 60 percent of all deaths.
However, given the impact of previous COVID infections on population health and immunity after three years of the unrelenting “let-it-rip” policy, the effect of influenza may be much more severe. These early figures point to a harsh flu season under conditions where there has been a mass exodus of health care workers and the health infrastructure in the US is under tremendous strain.
The attempt to cover up the responsibility of policy makers in relation to the epidemic of respiratory illnesses by means of the pseudo-scientific term “immunity debt,” which puts forward the notion that lack of previous exposure to these viruses has made the population susceptible, has no foundation in fact or science.
The underlying premise—that it is exposure to these pathogens that confers health—is preposterous. These politically motivated ideas fail to consider recent experiences in which the number of influenza cases fell to historic lows. The normalization of death and illness, driven by the prioritization of profits over lives, is exacerbating the evolving flu epidemic in the US.
As immunologist, Dr. Anthony Leonardi, recently wrote: “We mustn’t delude ourselves into thinking infections confer a benefit or are a debt that must be paid. They are more like a tax we make the children [and everyone else] pay for our civilization not being developed enough to prevent viral illnesses that hospitalize thousands of children.”
Colin Furness, an epidemiologist and assistant professor of information at the University of Toronto, speaking on the mass student absences at Edmonton’s public schools, said: “We have increasing evidence that, like measles, COVID-19 hobbles the immune system. It impairs the immune system, which means that after COVID is done and gone, you are more susceptible to other kinds of infections, and that may well be a bigger problem in children. So, we’re seeing a lot of respiratory illness, far more that could be accounted for in any other way.”
US imperialism is sharply escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula as part of its military build-up throughout the Indo-Pacific in preparation for war against China.
Last week, the US and South Korea conducted large-scale joint air force drills, code-named Vigilant Storm, involving more than 240 military aircraft. This was the latest large-scale joint war games between Washington and Seoul this year, ending the previous de facto agreement between North Korea and the Trump administration to scale down such exercises in exchange for a moratorium on Pyongyang’s nuclear and long-range ballistic missile tests.
An Air Force B-1B Lancer prepares to land after a Bomber Task Force mission at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, Oct. 29, 2022. [Photo: US Department of Defense/Air Force Staff Sgt. Hannah Malone]
Pyongyang responded to the war games with a spate of missile tests, included a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch last Thursday.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-seop responded and announced plans at a joint press conference in Washington, also on Thursday, for the de facto permanent stationing of US nuclear-capable assets in South Korea for the first time since 1991.
While Austin described those deployments as rotations, Lee stated the US would send “strategic assets to the level equivalent to constant deployment through increasing the frequency and intensity of strategic asset deployment in and around the Korean peninsula [emphasis added].”
Washington and Seoul also extended last week’s exercises for an extra day to Saturday and underscored their decision by flying two B-1B strategic bombers, accompanied by South Korean and US fighters, over the Korean Peninsula for the first time since 2017.
While the US Air Force claims these bombers are no longer capable of carrying nuclear armaments, there is no reason to take the Pentagon at its word. The US previously flew a nuclear-capable B-52 bomber over the Osan Air Base, 50 km south of Seoul, in January 2016 following North Korea’s fourth nuclear test.
Washington bears primary responsibility for these tensions in the region. North Korea has been a target of US imperialism since before the 1950-1953 Korean War. Years of brutal US-led sanctions have strangled the North Korean economy and left it isolated internationally, turning the Korean Peninsula into a powder keg.
Far from seeking to ease tensions, Washington is intent on escalating them. The Biden administration stated in April 2021 that its policy on North Korea would “not focus on achieving a grand bargain, nor will it rely on strategic patience.” In other words, talks would only be held if Pyongyang effectively capitulates.
Last Thursday, Secretary Austin pointed to the US deployment of nuclear-capable F-35A fighter jets to South Korea in July for 10 days, the first such visit since December 2017. He also highlighted the visit of the nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier to South Korea at the end of September, also for the first time in five years. The vessel and its strike group took part in joint exercises with South Korea and Japan.
At their summit in May, Biden and newly elected South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol agreed to deploy US strategic assets to the region. They also agreed to restart the Extended Deterrence Strategy and Consultation Group for the first time since January 2018. The group provides Washington and Seoul with the opportunity to discuss strategic and policy issues regarding so-called extended deterrence, including the use of nuclear weapons.
Whether nuclear-capable US military assets deployed to South Korea will be armed with nuclear weapons or not is deliberately shrouded in secrecy. Under Washington’s “Neither Confirm nor Deny” policy drawn up in 1958, the US does not comment on the locations of its nuclear weapons at any given time, which will only add to uncertainty and instability in the region.
The US permanently based on the Korean Peninsula from 1958 to 1991, targeting the Soviet Union and China. In 1967, there were some 950 warheads in South Korea and both South Korea and Japan are still covered under the so-called US “nuclear umbrella,” which includes strategic bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarines.
South Korea also had nuclear ambitions. In late 1971, South Korean military dictator Park Chung-hee first instructed his staff to draw up plans to develop nuclear weapons. Despite treaties with the US to the contrary, the Park government worked in secret to develop a nuclear bomb and a ballistic missile delivery system. Only in 1976 did Park bow to US pressure to give up the program, though Seoul’s research into nuclear power continued.
The sheer scale of the US planned nuclear-capable deployments demonstrates that the target is not tiny, impoverished North Korea, but China. Each step Pyongyang takes provides the US with the pretext to flex its muscles while deepening trilateral cooperation with South Korea and Japan.
As a result, the US bases in South Korea and the country itself are the frontline of any conflict with China. The US Kunsan Air Base is just 198 kilometres from the North Korean border and 950 kilometres from Beijing. Osan Air Base is just 80 kilometres from the border and 976 kilometres to Beijing. Moreover, the headquarters of Russia’s Pacific Fleet near Vladivostok and nuclear facilities of both Russia and China are in easy range.
Significantly in time of war, Washington would take operational control (OPCON) of South Korea’s huge military, despite drawn-out negotiations to end the policy. By 2020 figures, the South Korean military has 550,000 active-duty personnel, the seventh largest in the world, 2,750,000 reservists, and is heavily armed with the latest armour, military aircraft and naval vessels.
Washington is also expanding its anti-ballistic missile system throughout the region including in South Korea. Far from being defensive, it is designed to protect US bases from counterattack in any war the US instigates. This includes a recently upgraded Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery in South Korea, which covers US military bases, but not densely populated cities like Seoul. A second THAAD battery is stationed in Guam. THAAD operates with the AN/TPY2 X-Band radar, with two additional X-band radars stationed in northern and southern Japan.
The de-stationing of nuclear-capable assets in South Korea makes clear that the US is rapidly preparing for nuclear war in conjunction with its military allies in the region. Even as it prepares to send such assets to South Korea, the US recently announced that it will station nuclear-capable B-52 bombers at Tindal air force base in northern Australia. It is also carrying out upgrades to airfields in northern Australia and on Guam, which is already home to nuclear-capable bombers.
Washington clearly wants to put US nuclear-capable assets in Japan as well but the government confronts broad public opposition, stemming from the criminal US dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Nevertheless, in February, former prime minister Shinzo Abe initiated a debate in Tokyo over Japan openly hosting US nuclear weapons.
Even as the US and its NATO allies wage war against Russia in Ukraine, the Biden administration is in the advanced stages of preparing for, and provoking, conflict with China. Under the fraudulent banner of defending democracy, US imperialism is seeking to subordinate the Eurasian landmass and its huge human and natural resources, halt its historic decline and consolidate its global hegemony.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Beijing on Friday, accompanied by a large business delegation, where he met with President Xi Jinping and head of government Li Keqiang.
It was the first trip of a G7 leader to China since the coronavirus pandemic broke out three years ago and since Xi cemented his power at the October Party Congress. It was met with fierce criticism both internationally and in Germany. The chancellor even came under attack from within the ranks of his own traffic light coalition, especially from the Greens.
Scholz is greeted by China's President Xi Jinping in the Great Hall of the People. [Photo by Bundesregierung/Imo]
For Scholz’s predecessor Angela Merkel, such journeys were routine. During her 16 years in office, the German chancellor visited China a total of 12 times, Germany and China held joint intergovernmental conferences, and high-ranking Chinese representatives regularly came to Germany. In 2014, Xi Jinping traveled personally to Duisburg to commission a regular freight train connection between China and Germany as part of the New Silk Road Initiative.
But China has now become the target of the US and its European allies. The US is increasing economic and military pressure on the nuclear-armed power and preparing for war. The Biden administration’s National Security Strategy describes the 2020s as the “decisive decade” in which the US will “win” the conflict with Russia and China. The European Union also describes China as a “strategic rival.”
The war against Russia in Ukraine, which NATO is systematically escalating and intends to continue until it achieves Russia’s military defeat, serves not least to deprive China of a potential ally. The fact that China is backing Russia in the Ukraine conflict with non-military support has provoked outrage in Washington and the European capitals. This is the context of the criticism of Scholz’s journey.
“Some allies are concerned that the trip plays to a longstanding divide-and-conquer argument by Beijing that Berlin should distance itself from the US,” writes the Wall Street Journal. The French daily Le Monde complained: “While the US plans to economically decouple itself from China and the European Union tries to distance itself from a regime whose development is worrying, Berlin still seems to be setting itself up as ‘business as usual.’”
European Commissioner for Industry and the Internal Market Thierry Breton, a Frenchman, warned Scholz: “The time for naivety is over. We must be on guard.” The behaviour of the individual EU members towards China must be coordinated and not decided alone, “as China apparently prefers.” French President Emmanuel Macron suggested that he and Scholz should fly to China together at a later date to demonstrate European unity, a suggestion which Scholz ignored.
Christian Democratic Union (CDU) foreign policy expert Norbert Röttgen also attacked Scholz sharply. He accused him of damaging Germany’s foreign policy during his trip, “because it costs us our partners’ trust. It does not even strengthen our reputation with the Chinese, because they only react to strength and despise weakness.”
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) warned the chancellor that he had to make it clear to Beijing “that the question of fair conditions of competition, the question of human rights and the question of the recognition of international law is our basis for international cooperation.” One must “no longer be so fundamentally dependent on a country that does not share our values that we can be blackmailed in the end.”
The falsity of this human rights propaganda is shown by the fact that Baerbock expressed it during a trip through Central Asia, where she courted the governments of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Both have this year bloodily crushed protests and abused and imprisoned opposition members, which apparently did not bother Baerbock much. She pursued the stated goal of breaking the two successor states of the Soviet Union, which have large deposits of raw materials, from the influence of Russia and China, and binding them more closely to Germany.
With his trip to China, Scholz represents the same imperialist interests as Baerbock. Unlike the Greens, however, he believes that Germany must not become completely dependent on the US and allow itself to be driven to an abrupt breakdown of economic relations with China. The sums of money involved are enormous.
The halt to gas imports from Russia, which Merkel and then Scholz had long resisted, has already had devastating consequences. Germany is now dependent on the import of expensive liquefied natural gas, including from the US. High energy prices are ruining many companies and exacerbating social tensions. The federal government has earmarked €200 billion to mitigate the consequences. But this is only a temporary measure, which will also exacerbate the financial crisis and lead to further social spending cuts.
A break with China would have even more serious consequences for the German economy, which is at the beginning of a recession. With 12.4 percent of imports and 7.4 percent of exports, China is Germany’s largest trading partner. More than a million jobs are directly and many more indirectly dependent on China’s trade. In addition, China is a supplier of important raw materials such as rare earths, intermediate products and goods for the energy transition, such as solar modules and car batteries.
The economic delegation accompanying Scholz to Beijing reflects the close economic interdependence of the two countries. The head of the Volkswagen and BMW car companies, which sold 40 percent and 33 percent of their cars in China last year, respectively, and maintain numerous plants there, were in the chancellor’s delegation. The chemical group BASF, which plans to invest €10 billion in China by 2030, the pharmaceutical company Bayer, the vaccine manufacturer Biontech and the electrical group Siemens were also represented. In the third quarter of 2022, Siemens generated an eighth of its worldwide turnover of €18 billion in China.
However, Germany cannot afford an open conflict with the US, which is bullying China with increasingly stringent sanctions. This would not only have similarly devastating economic consequences as a break with China, but would also result in the US using its influence and military power to isolate Germany in Europe.
Scholz therefore performed a careful balancing act. He tried to use German influence over the Chinese leadership to put pressure on Russia. After the meeting with Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, he said, “I told President Xi that it is important for China to use its influence over Russia.” Both governments agreed that Russian nuclear threats were unacceptable.
Xi also warned of nuclear threats and called for peace talks. “As influential states, China and Germany must work together in times of change and chaos to promote peace and development,” he said. Li distanced himself more clearly than before from the Russian policy. “We can’t afford another escalation,” he said. “We do not want regional stability to be shaken, international production and supply chains to be destabilised.”
At the same time, Scholz is trying to ease Germany’s economic dependence on China without any abrupt break.
Before his departure to China, he explained the purpose of his visit in a guest article for the FAZ. He flattered China by saying it would “play an important role on the world stage in the future” and “remain an important economic and trade partner for Germany and Europe.” At the same time, he accused China of unfair economic practices and threatened: “We will therefore reduce unilateral dependencies, in the sense of wise diversification.” It is necessary to examine Chinese investments in Germany to determine “whether such a business creates or strengthens risky dependencies,” Scholz continued.
Scholz has never left any doubt that Germany will side with the US and its allies in a further escalation of the conflict with China.
The German government already supported the right-wing coup in Ukraine in 2014, which ultimately led to the current war. At the same time, Berlin tried to maintain economic relations with Russia. When this was no longer possible, Germany became the most aggressive warmonger. It used the war as an excuse to triple military spending and to massively upgrade it in order to become Europe’s strongest military power again.
The German government has also indicated to China which side it is on if the war should take place. The German military (Bundeswehr) participates with warships and aircraft in military manoeuvres directed against China. During his visit, Scholz delivered the usual accusations and threats. He warned China against a military intervention in Taiwan, which is being massively upgraded by the US in a similar policy to that previously pursued in Ukraine. He called for the universal validity of human rights and accused the Chinese government of persecuting Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. This was “not interference in internal affairs,” Scholz claimed.
Application Deadline: 30th November 2022 at 23:59 GMT
About the Award: The Google.org Impact Challenge on Climate Innovation commits $30M to fund big bet projects that accelerate technological advances in climate information and action. Selected organizations may receive up to $5M in funding, along with access to Google’s technical expertise and products, to accelerate progress toward a more sustainable and resilient future.
At Google, we believe that when it comes to solving a problem as big and urgent as climate change, we get more done when we work together.
We want to support the work of nonprofits, experts, and organizations around the world that will accelerate advances in climate information and action. We are looking for solutions that help the global community illuminate previously opaque climate challenges and enable collective climate actions. Past Google.org supported initiatives help map emissions on a global scale, restore ecosystems, and enable small businesses to understand their carbon footprint.
Type: Grant
Eligibility:
Ambition: We are looking for transformational solutions that have potential for global impact. While your idea does not need to immediately reach millions of people globally, you should articulate how it could ultimately do so. We encourage collaboration between multiple organizations, as coalitions may be helpful for achieving the scale of solutions we’re hoping to support.
Impact: Projects should drive tangible, real world impact for both the climate and people. The proposal should explain how it will tackle climate change and/or the extent to which it will support others to do so too. Successful applications will be grounded in data and research.
Innovative use of technology: Ideas should apply technology by creating or enabling new solutions and approaches. Applications can also propose innovative applications of existing technology – solutions that apply AI and machine learning are encouraged!
Feasibility: Successful proposals will have well-developed and realistic execution plans supported with the resources and expertise needed for implementation. Taking on big, scalable ideas with technology at their core is difficult, and we look for teams that are equipped to implement the proposed project.
Eligible Countries: International
Number of Awards: Not specified
Value of Award: Each selected organization will receive between $300,000 and $2 million in funding and other support from Google.
Cop27 is to be held in the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt’s Sinai desert between November 6 and 18, far away from the noxious fumes and densely packed squalor of Cairo, Egypt’s capital, that is home to around 20 million largely impoverished Egyptians.
Some 90 heads of state and leaders of 190 countries, including US President Joe Biden—the first visit to Egypt of any US president since 2009—French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are slated to attend.
Demonstrators call for climate action on the African continent prior to the COP27 U.N. Climate Summit, Friday, November 4, 2022, which start on Nov. 6, and is scheduled to end on November 18, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. [AP Photo/Peter Dejong]
Egypt’s brutal dictator, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has organized a massive security operation to prevent demonstrators and protesters coming to Sharm el-Sheikh. The security forces have detained hundreds of people across the country, including environmental activists, for supposedly belonging to a terrorist group. This comes as calls have grown on social media for Egyptians to protest at Sharm el-Sheikh over the country’s deepening economic crisis on Friday, November 11, calling it the “Climate Revolution.”
Draconian security measures have transformed the resort into a “war zone” to “protect the event” in what UN human rights experts described as “a climate of fear for Egyptian civil society organizations to engage visibly at the Cop27.” Insofar as any demonstrations are permitted, they are likely to be confined to areas tucked away in the desert far away from the world leaders and their plush hotels.
These events alone expose the human rights propaganda and empty climate policy bromides espoused by the leaders of the imperialist powers that uphold the interests of the chief despoilers of the planet: the corporate and financial kleptocracy.
El-Sisi has seized the opportunity to bolster his international standing and promote Egypt’s position at the heart of gas geo-politics in the eastern Mediterranean, amid the US/NATO-led war against Russia that has reduced Russian energy supplies to Europe. Having seized power in a military coup with Western backing in 2013, overthrowing the elected president, the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Mohamed Mursi, el-Sisi heads a tyrannical regime that outlaws peaceful assembly and free speech. His suppression of all dissent is aimed at defending Egyptian and foreign capital against a social explosion of the working class who face mass poverty, social inequality and a military that controls at least 40 percent of Egypt’s economy.
Beginning with a bloodbath that killed more 1,000 people, his security forces have since then gunned down hundreds more. Others have been executed after kangaroo court trials and frame-ups. Egypt’s prisons, synonymous with torture and disappearances, are overflowing with more than 60,000 political prisoners, including some of the country’s most prominent politicians. Many are held without trial or charge. All strikes, protests and demonstrations are banned under Egypt’s draconian State of Emergency laws. The heavily censored media are mouthpieces for the state, while parties and organizations that criticize the regime are outlawed.
Although el-Sisi released a handful of detainees in the run up to Cop27, this is far outweighed by the number of new arrests. He has ignored the calls of some 200 organisations and individuals, including 13 Nobel literature laureates, to release journalists and political prisoners ahead of the conference, including activists Alaa Abdel Fattah and Ahmed Douma, human rights lawyer Mohamed el Baqer, blogger Mohamed “Oxygen” Ibrahim, former presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, Seif and Safwan Thabet, and environmentalist Ahmed Amasha.
The well-known blogger and political activist, Alaa Abdel Fattah, who holds dual British and Egyptian citizenship and was an early opponent of the Mubarak dictatorship, has spent much of the time since 2011 in jail on charges of inciting violence against the military and opposing laws banning protests. On Tuesday, he announced he would escalate the partial hunger strike he began in April and refuse all food or drink.
None of this prevents the world’s leaders attending Cop27 on Egyptian soil or giving el-Sisi a platform even as they cite the looming energy shortage—the product of their own actions against Russia—to bring in coal-fired power plants and increase gas and oil exploration to make good the shortfall.
The conference takes place as Egypt faces an increasingly desperate economic and financial crisis, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic that officially killed just 25,000 people (likely a huge underestimate in a country where only 39 percent of the 104 million people have been fully vaccinated). Remittances from Egyptians working in the Gulf fell and workers returned, swelling the ranks of the unemployed. Revenues plummeted while expenditure on health, social welfare and support for tourism and the industrial sector rose.
The war in Ukraine has hit Egypt hard, since it is the world’s largest importer of wheat, with around 80 percent of its supplies coming from Russia and Ukraine. Egypt’s tourism industry is heavily dependent on Russian and Ukrainian visitors and accounts for 12 percent of GDP, while higher interest rates in the US and the dollar’s surging value have compounded Egypt’s debt crisis and led to an outflow of foreign funding.
The Egyptian pound has fallen from 16 per US dollar to 23 after Egypt’s central bank announced it would abandon the pound’s peg to the dollar and allow it to float in accordance with market forces in return for a $3 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the fourth since 2016, making Egypt the second largest borrower after Argentina.
This borrowing is a drop in the ocean, with Goldman Sachs saying earlier this year that Cairo would need $15 billion from the IMF over the next three years to plug a financing gap of $40 billion to fund El-Sisi’s vanity projects. These include a $59 billion new administrative capital 28 miles out in the desert east of Cairo, a $25 billion nuclear reactor and an $8 billion expansion of the Suez Canal that has failed to bring in the vastly inflated, projected income. His massive arms purchases—largely from the US despite the Biden administration’s suspension of a few weapons deals in mock horror over his appalling human rights record—enable him to repress the masses not only in Egypt but throughout the region have also added to the deficit.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar have pledged about $22 billion in investments, buying up some of the country’s most profitable state-owned assets and companies at knock-down prices in a bid to stabilise the most populous country in the Arab world. This has drawn Cairo into Washington’s anti-Iran alliance, with el-Sisi attending the Jeddah meeting with Biden and leaders from the Gulf States, Jordan and Iraq in July.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi with US President Joe Biden at the GCC+3 summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, July 16 2022
Cairo has played a key role in maintaining Israel’s criminal 15-year long blockade of the Gaza Strip—ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated group Hamas, preventing any reconstruction after it has been rendered almost uninhabitable by Israel’s repeated assaults, and brokering a ceasefire between Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Israel on Tel Aviv’s terms in August.
At home, El-Sisi has slashed subsidies on basic domestic and agricultural commodities, raised fuel prices, imposed new taxes including a value added tax, cut the health and education budgets and fired government employees.
This has served to accelerate the government’s transfer of wealth from lower and middle classes to itself and the business elite, with devastating consequences for Egyptian workers and their families. Inflation is now running at 15 percent, although the prices of some foodstuffs have risen by 66 percent—ruining much of Egypt’s middle class and leading to soaring poverty rates. Some 30 percent of the population live below the poverty line, another 30 percent are close to poverty and nearly 70 percent depend on food rations.
The attendance by nearly all the major powers at Cop27 should constitute a warning to the international working class. The ruling elites’ embrace of el-Sisi signifies that they have no disagreements with his brutal methods. They will have no hesitation in taking a leaf out of his book when it comes to suppressing mass resistance to their own hated policies of war, profit-gouging, social austerity and profits before lives pandemic policy.
Former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan was shot and injured on Thursday while leading an anti-government “long march” to the capital, Islamabad. After the shooting, which killed one and injured at least 10 others, Khan was rushed to a hospital with four gunshot wounds to his leg and thigh.
On Friday evening, Khan, the country’s prime minister from August 2018 until last April, addressed the nation from a wheelchair in his hospital room. He called on his supporters—some of whom had clashed violently with police earlier in the day—to continue protesting until the senior government and military figures he has publicly accused of orchestrating his attempted assassination are removed or resign.
Thursday’s shooting is the latest expression of the thoroughly degenerate state of Pakistan’s bourgeois politics. Political leaders routinely incite communal violence and physical attacks on their opponents, while the US-backed military top brass, which has a long record of overthrowing elected governments, engages in countless intrigues.
Supporters of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan's party, 'Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf' throw stones at police officers in Rawalpindi during a protest against his attempted assassination, Nov. 4, 2022. [AP Photo/Mohammad Ramiz]
The attempt on Khan’s life comes just weeks after he managed to win six of the seven parliamentary seats he contested during by-elections held in October. The results confirmed that Khan, who is posturing as an opponent of IMF austerity and US bullying of Pakistan, retains a substantial base of popular support even after his ouster via a parliamentary no-confidence vote last April, held amid protests over soaring food and energy prices. In comparison, incumbent Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s Muslim League (PML-N), which is governing in alliance with the Pakistan People’s Party, failed to win any seats.
Khan, who condemned the no-confidence vote against him as a conspiracy between his political opponents and Washington, defied all government attempts to pre-empt his “march”—which is in fact a convoy of pick-up trucks and other vehicles that is moving from town to town, and mass rally to rally, on its way to Islamabad.
Prior to the gun attack, Khan was making increasingly aggressive demands that the interim government immediately call fresh elections, which are not due until August 2023.
Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) immediately denounced the attack as an “assassination attempt.” Accounts differ as to whether there was more than one gunman involved, the position maintained by the officials who arrested a man with a 9mm pistol at the scene. At least one PTI leader questioned the identity of the purported gunman. Others reported hearing automatic gunfire in a video clip that allegedly captured the shooting. Khan was mounted on a specially arranged container truck at the time of the shooting.
From his hospital bed, Khan accused Sharif, interior minister Rana Sanaullah and Major General Faisal Naseer, who heads a “wing” of the feared intelligence agency, ISI, of being behind the attack. PTI Secretary-General Asad Umar said that Khan “had the information beforehand that these people might be involved in the assassination attempt on him,” but did not elaborate if any actions were taken to enhance his security or if the details were imparted to any security agency prior to the incident.
Sharif and the military have condemned the attack and rejected Khan’s accusations as baseless. While calling for an immediate investigation, PML (N) leaders have attacked Khan for proceeding with his march/convoy if he knew an attack was imminent and thereby putting lives at risk. It is not clear what level of security was provided to Khan and whether the police or military had any prior knowledge of an impending threat to his life.
In December 2007, ahead of general elections scheduled for January 2008, two-time prime minister Benazir Bhutto was targeted by a combined attack, involving a suicide bomber and gunmen while she was addressing an election rally. Before her assassination, Bhutto identified in a letter to the country’s US-backed dictator-president, Pervez Musharraf, two top intelligence heads and two political leaders who were allegedly threatening to kill her. Despite widely known threats and a previous assassination attempt, an investigation by the UN concluded that she was not provided with “adequate security measures.”
Behind the current political crisis is a devastating socioeconomic crisis that the Islamabad elite fears could unleash mass upheavals akin to those that convulsed Sri Lanka this spring and summer and forced the then president, Gotabaya Rajapakse, to flee the country and resign.
Sections of the Pakistani elite are worried that by appealing to anti-government sentiments among the masses, Khan could inadvertently ignite a popular movement that comes to threaten the capitalist order. Under constant threat of economic default, the servile Islamabad elite is enforcing brutal austerity measures on the population as prescribed by the International Monetary Fund to pay back $130 billion of foreign debt.
Mass resentment and anger against the government are being fueled by the skyrocketing cost of living. The annual inflation rate rose to 26.6 percent in October. Rising prices for food and energy are being compounded by the ongoing devaluation of Pakistan’s currency. The government’s disastrous response to the unprecedented flooding from June through October, which directly affected 33 million people and caused damages exceeding $40 billion, has further exacerbated social tensions.
Speaking to the London-based Financial Times, Sharif, who assumed office after Khan’s ouster, pondered over the precarious situation of his government in the face of Khan’s challenge following the by-election results. “We are obviously concerned because if there is dissatisfaction leading to deeper political instability and we are not able to achieve our basic requirements and goals, this can obviously lead to serious problems,” Sharif told the FT. “I’m not saying it in terms of any kind of threat, but I’m saying there’s a real possibility.” Sharif did not elaborate on the kind of threats he is worried about.
Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan at the Kremlin on February 24, 2022. Khan narrowly escaped an assassination attempt on his life on November 3, 2022 when a gunman fired multiple shots and wounded him in the leg during a rally. [Photo by www.kremlin.ru / CC BY-SA 4.0]
A right-wing Islamic populist, Khan presents himself as a born-again Muslim and anti-corruption campaigner. Having no significant association with Islamabad’s role as a satrap for Washington prior to his 2018 election victory, Khan was able to present himself as an opponent of the imperialist powers’ occupation of Afghanistan and the CIA-led, Islamabad-sanctioned drone war that devastated Pakistan’s tribal regions in the northwest.
After assuming office, Khan implicated almost every significant opposition leader in corruption cases, which they claimed were “politically motivated.” Khan himself was on the receiving end of similar treatment this summer when the new government brought corruption charges against him. Citing these charges, a court recently issued an order disqualifying Khan from taking up any of the seats he won in last month’s by-elections. Khan is appealing that decision.
Khan was widely criticized within powerful sections of the Islamabad elite for his attempt to expand ties with Russia at the cost of Pakistan’s relations with Washington, which have become increasingly strained. A major factor in the cooling of Islamabad-Washington relations is Washington’s aggressive courting of Pakistan’s arch-rival, India, with the aim of transforming New Delhi into a frontline state in US imperialism’s diplomatic, economic and military-strategic offensive against China.
But what sealed Khan’s fate was when he reintroduced government subsidies for energy in February, in defiance of his government’s IMF commitments. After he was removed from office via a no-confidence vote in parliament and the Sharif-led coalition of PML-N and PPP government took office, Khan became a nuisance for the Islamabad elite. The editorialists of major news outlets have frequently joined the government in chastising him for his populist rhetoric, warning that it could impede, even help derail, implementation of the IMF agenda.
Khan and his PTI are no opponents of the IMF’s hated austerity, privatization and other “pro-investor” policies. Quite the contrary, Khan oversaw the implementation of two rounds of some of the “toughest” IMF-dictated austerity packages and “structural reforms” in Pakistan’s history. The first came shortly after coming to power in August 2018, and the second last January.
However, Khan has been able to exploit and channel mass anger against PML-N and PPP policies, particularly among sections of the middle class, behind his right-wing Islamist agenda. He has also exploited popular anger over Washington’s bullying of Pakistan and revulsion against US imperialism’s devastating intervention in Pakistan and Afghanistan through his persistent claims that Washington was behind his ouster as prime minister.
At the same time, he continues to venerate Pakistan’s military, which has always been and remains the pivot and anchor of the Pakistani bourgeoisie’s reactionary partnership with Washington. Khan has never suggested that the military participated in the “conspiracy” to oust him.
On October 31 Khan boasted that he is in discussions with the military. Despite being widely considered to have played the key role behind the scenes in bringing Khan to power in 2018, the military fell out with him earlier this year and cast, as the World Socialist Web Site commented at the time, “the most important ‘non-confidence vote’” during his ouster.
In his October 31 remarks, Khan declared his support for the military once again, despite his criticism of a “few officers.” During his time in office, Khan allowed the military to vastly expand its direct control of the economy, including by granting it a top role in the $60 billion strategic China-Pakistan Economic Corridor initiative.
