The OPEN Energy fund 2023

Application Deadline:

31st March 2023

Tell Me About Award:

We invest in women-led businesses within the energy sector in Africa, growing their business by providing access to funds and expertise to maximize their impact and profitability.

We are looking for women-led businesses operating in Africa, with an annual turnover of more than USD 25,000 per year and with at least 3 employees.

Type:

Entrepreneurship

What Countries are Eligible?

African countries

Who is Eligible?

About You

• You are fully dedicated to the company.
• You are business focused
• You are open to coaching
• You want a strategic investor to help grow your business

About your company:

• Your company is generating consistent revenues over 12 months from an established customer base – at least USD 25,000 and have at least 3 employees.
• Your service or product can be scaled or replicated
• Your company is up and running with all administrative documents up to date
• Your company is a registered limited company with well-kept records of accounts, permits & licenses allowing you to operate
• You have a team with complimentary skills in place.
• You have a positive impact on the economy, the environment, and the society.
• Your company has a meaningful women representation across the board, leadership positions and supply chain
• Your company must be located and operating in Africa. Although we have a preference for companies located in the geographies that we operate in including Tanzania, Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Burundi, Uganda, Zambia, Mauritius and Rwanda, if your business fits our criteria and is located in other African country we would be happy to hear from you.

How many Awards?

Not specified

What is Value of Award?

We offer companies in the energy sector across Africa individual tailored advisory services & operational support specifically designed around their needs. Our investees have OPEN access to

• Investment
• Expertise
• Networks

How to Apply?

If you and your business fit the criteria above, download our Application form

here and submit below with requested relevant documents.

For any other queries, please email us at open@csi.energy

Visit Application Webpage for Details

Huwara offensive against Palestinians fuels anti-Netanyahu protests in Israel

Jean Shaoul

Ongoing attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank make it clear that the pogrom-like rampage by hundreds of Israeli settlers on the town of Huwara on February 26, while Israeli troops stood by, is part of a broader campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Waged by Zionist settlers, it proceeds under the protection of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and is led politically by the newly installed government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which includes fascistic, racist and ultra-religious parties. Their declared aim is to annex the Palestinian territories and implement apartheid rule, as embodied in the “Nation-State Law” enshrining Jewish supremacy as the legal foundation of the state.

Vigilante mobs attacked Huwara, beating residents with metal rods and rocks, killing one person and injuring 400 more, as well as setting fire to scores of homes and shops and hundreds of vehicles in a four-to-five-hour orgy of violence. They also attacked Burin and Einbus in the northern West Bank. All are in a part of the West Bank under Israeli security control and just minutes away from an army brigade headquarters. But Israeli soldiers stood by during the rampage. Not a single government minister condemned the atrocity. Just 10 people were arrested, of whom all but one were released.

A Palestinian man walks between scorched cars in a scrapyard, in the town of Hawara, near the West Bank city of Nablus, Monday, Feb. 27, 2023. [AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg]

Itamar Ben-Gvir, national security minister and fascistic leader of Jewish Power, declared, “The government of Israel, the state of Israel, the IDF, the security forces—they are the ones who have to crush our enemies,” not the settlers. On Wednesday, Finance Minister and Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich, responsible for the settlements in the West Bank, said that Israel should “wipe out” Huwara, a demand tantamount to the horrors inflicted on the Palestinians when more than 700,000 were driven out in 1948-49 at the hands of Zionist militias.

The town’s stores have only just reopened, following orders by the IDF to keep their doors shuttered that left storekeepers without an income. Settlers have issued threats on social media that they will return to the town in a repeat of their rampage. They plastered the area with posters demanding the army “crush” its enemies. One declared, “The intifada is here. We demand to crush! We demand to respond with war!”

Yesterday, Israeli forces stormed the Umm Said area, southeast of Beit Lahm, and demolished a Palestinian mosque, claiming it had been built without a building permit, which the Israeli authorities never grant. On January 23, soldiers stormed the Palestinian town of Isawiyyeh and the Khan Al-Ahmar community in East Jerusalem, where they demolished a greenhouse.

The United Nations’ Office of the High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR) recently called on the major powers to take action against Israel’s systemic and arbitrary demolition of Palestinian buildings. Israel demolished 132 Palestinian structures, including 34 residential and 15 donor-funded structures, across 38 West Bank communities in January alone, a 135 percent increase on 2022.

On Monday, Ben-Gvir demanded that police continue demolishing Palestinian homes during Ramadan, set to begin on March 23, overturning the past practice that has seen Israel refrain from doing so to avoid inflaming tensions further. The attempted expulsion of families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem during Ramadan in 2021 was one of the factors that precipitated the firing of rockets by Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated group that controls Gaza, followed by Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and riots in Israel’s mixed Palestinian-Jewish cities in May of that year.

Israel’s escalating violence and criminality has killed at least 67 Palestinians so far in 2023, more than one per day, a rate far higher than last year when at least 171 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem—the highest death toll since 2005. It is setting the stage in the run-up to Ramadan and Passover for a violent conflagration that threatens to engulf not just the occupied Palestinian territories, but Israel and its neighbours.

This growing threat has led increasing numbers of Israelis to take to the streets in protest. Last Saturday evening, around 160,000 rallied in Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial capital and largest city. An even greater number took part in pro-democracy demonstrations across Jerusalem, Herzliya, Netanya, Beersheba, Haifa, Ashdod and scores of other towns, with organisers claiming that there were some 400,000 protesters in all.

This is particularly significant given that the organisers have sought to restrict the demonstrations’ focus to opposition to Netanyahu’s plans to trim the powers of the judiciary. The main speakers at the rallies have been former generals, heads of the intelligence services and government ministers. Most of them were members of the misnamed “government of change” headed by Naftali Bennett, Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz, had served under Netanyahu in the past, and have few substantive political differences with him.

They have deliberately ignored or downplayed growing social inequality and poverty and the worsening suppression of the Palestinians, ensuring that very few of Israel’s Palestinian citizens have participated in the rallies. Their sole concern is to protect the Israeli state in the interests of the plutocrats.

In marked contrast to the hands-off approach taken by the military and border police during the raid by Israeli settlers on Huwara, Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai readied 1,000 police officers for the demonstrations, particularly in Tel Aviv. He was determined to stop them blocking the Ayalon Highway, the city’s chief highway, which has become a symbol of resistance in demonstrations in recent years.

Until last Wednesday’s “National Disruption Day,” the police had largely refrained from interfering in the rallies. Their intervention followed Ben-Gvir’s provocative demand that the police chief stop the protesters, whom he branded “anarchists,” from “disturbing the order.”

Saturday saw a second eruption of violence after the authorities in Tel Aviv deployed mounted police, special forces and water cannons against demonstrators who had broken through the barriers leading to the Ayalon Highway and halted traffic. They chanted “Shame!” and “Where were you in Hawara?” at police officers making arrests. Following the rallies, Ben-Gvir said that he had no intention of apologizing to anyone, “certainly not to the anarchists who seek to set the State of Tel Aviv on fire.”

The protest organisers announced that they would hold another “day of disruption” around the country on Thursday, March 9.

But it is impossible for Israeli workers to halt the government’s plans for dictatorship or prevent all-out war with the Palestinians without rejecting nationalism and allying themselves directly with the Palestinians. This means rejecting the Zionist project of a Jewish state based on the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population and unifying their struggles with those of their Arab class brothers and sisters for the overthrow of the capitalist profit system and the nation-state framework on which it is based—for the socialist reorganization of the economy of the entire Middle East region so that its vast resources can be utilised for the benefit of all its peoples.

Mass teachers strikes erupt across Portugal

Santiago Guillen & Alejandro López

Barely a year after the Socialist Party (PS) won a majority in the Portuguese parliament, strikes and protests are erupting across the country. Workers are mobilizing as rampant inflation slashes real wages after years of austerity, amid a global economic crisis intensified by the pandemic and NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine. It is part of a mass strike movement drawing in millions of workers from across Europe.

Portuguese teachers protest in the streets of Lisbon. [Photo: @anamargaridacr4]

Inflation last year stood at 7.8 percent, the highest in 30 years in Portugal. Food prices have increased by a staggering 20 percent. Sleeping under a roof is also becoming increasingly impossible. In 2022 housing prices rose 18.7 percent, while rent in cities like Lisbon rose by up to 36.9 percent.

Wage increases have fallen far behind inflation. In the private sector, wages rose 2.3 percent last year and are forecast to rise 2.8 percent this year. This is below the voluntary wage increase benchmark agreed between big business, the government and the General Labor Union (UGT) bureaucracy of 5 percent—which, again, was below inflation. The average wage increase for civil servants was only 3.6 percent. Retirees will also see their pensions’ value fall, with increases of a mere 4 percent—more than 3 percent below inflation.

Meanwhile, the Portuguese capitalist class is massively enriching itself from inflation. Fifteen large companies listed on the Lisbon stock exchange paid out €2.5 billion in dividends to their owners, the highest ever.

Opposition is mounting, however. Portuguese teachers have been at the forefront of strikes, which are at a ten-year high. For over two months, they have been striking over wages and working conditions. As in other countries, they are demanding salary increases in line with inflation, payment of overtime and improvements to the promotion system, which currently makes it difficult to obtain a permanent job.

Their anger erupted in the mass march on February 11, which brought 150,000 people to the streets of Lisbon. It was even larger than the two previous ones in January attended by more than 100,000 demonstrators—marches already considered the largest since the Carnation Revolution toppled the far-right Salazar regime in 1974.

Antonio Costa’s PS government is reacting to growing opposition by imposing draconian minimum service requirements targeting teachers’ strikes. Teachers who are striking—some of them since December—must provide a minimum of three hours of lessons per day, even when they are on strike.

The union bureaucracy is trying to force teachers to comply with these requirements. The National Federation of Teachers called the minimum service requirement “illegal” and pledged to challenge it in court, but called on its members to obey the government’s order in the meantime.

The PS is terrified that concessions to the teachers will galvanise the rest of the working class, as it diverts billions to the military and to pay the debt. Finance Minister Fernando Medina said: “When we talk about the teachers and their demands, we must take into account the general situation in the country: not only the teachers, but also the nurses and doctors.”

Meanwhile, the union bureaucracies are blocking a broader struggle, preventing united action by teachers and other layers of workers, and cutting them off from millions of workers striking and protesting across Europe—from Britain, to the Netherlands, France and Germany.

Portugal’s nine education unions are calling strikes on different days and in different districts in order to divide this powerful movement as much as possible. Last week, schools in districts north of Coimbra were paralysed on Thursday; the next day was the south—that is, from Leiria to the Algarve.

The STOP union has continued the indefinite strike but refuses to broaden the struggle. This split-off union emerged after decades of union collaboration with successive governments to impose education cuts. Created in 2018, STOP calls itself an “apolitical”, “non-sectarian, non-partisan and truly democratic union,” committed to “never signing important commitments-agreements with the government without democratically listening to the teaching class first.”

STOP, however, is not an alternative to the old union bureaucracies. Like them, it does not link the strike to the necessary struggle against the NATO-Russia war in Ukraine. It has also isolated teachers, rejecting unifying their struggles with recent strikes by doctors, nurses, autoworkers at Volkswagen’s Autoeuropa plant, railworkers, port workers and cabin crew at state-owned airline TAP into a struggle against the PS government.

The strike movement is continuing to grow. Last week, workers at state-owned rail company Comboios de Portugal (CP) began a three-day strike against a below-inflation pay offer. During the same week, workers at the public rail infrastructure company Infraestruturas de Portugal also walked out for three days over pay. The strike cancelled a large majority of rail services. This week, Portugal’s National Federation of Doctors (FNAM) called its members to strike after what it called an “unacceptable step backwards in negotiations with the government.”

The strikes demonstrate the determination of masses of workers to fight back against big business and the PS government that is funneling money to the major corporations, the super-rich and the military machine. Workers must be warned, however: the union bureaucracies and their political allies, the petty-bourgeois Left Bloc (BE) and the Stalinist Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) have a long history of working with the PS to strangle workers struggles.

These forces are working to channel growing opposition to the PS government into one-day protests without any perspective. On February 25, several thousand people marched in Lisbon in a protest against rising living costs under the slogan “Por uma Vida Justa” (For a Fair Life), organised by PCP and BE. The aim of the march, which received widespread live coverage by mainstream media and the press, was to appeal to the PS government for better wages.

Similarly, these forces are also campaigning for a referendum on housing in Lisbon, aiming to limit how many buildings are dedicated to tourist accommodation, with the prospect of holding a larger rally on April 1.

Workers cannot fight the financial markets and the PS government under the political control of the PCP or BE, or on an apolitical, trade-union basis, like STOP. Significantly, in 2019, the PCP and BE backed the PS government’s deployment of the army to break a nationwide truckers strike, as fuel stations ran dry. BE leader Catarina Martins backed the crackdown, stating: “In certain fundamental sectors, it is understandable that there are minimum levels of service… The government will have to do whatever is essential for the country to function.”

In the autumn of 2021, the PCP and BE reacted to mass strikes—by rail workers, teachers, pharmacists, subway workers, nurses, firefighters and civil servants—not by seeking to mobilize workers against the minority PS government, which they were supporting in parliament. Instead, they sought to prop up the PS by forcing new elections.

They suddenly voted against the PS budget, which they had previously supported—as they had loyally supported all PS austerity budgets since the PS took power in 2015. Their vote against the PS budget triggered a government crisis and new elections, in which the PS won an absolute majority. The support for the PS has now sunk to 27 percent, from 41 percent a year ago.

South Korean government demands “normalization” of labor unions

Ben McGrath

The South Korean government of President Yoon Suk-yeol is stepping up repressive measures against the country’s labor unions and opposition political figures. Dressed up as a “law-and-order” campaign, the administration is concerned above all about the growth of unrest and opposition in the working class as social and economic conditions sharply decline.

Members of the Cargo Truckers Solidarity union stage a rally against the government's return-to-work order on cement truckers in Uiwang, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2022. [AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon]

The government has declared it is necessary to “normalize” trade unions, increase their financial transparency and put an end to “illegal acts.” Last Thursday, the Ministry of Employment and Labor stated it will push for a revision of the country’s trade union law, formally called the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act, in collaboration with the ruling People Power Party (PPP).

The proposed changes would give the government more control over unions. Labor Minister Lee Jeong-sik stated, “[Through the revision] the ministry will regulate what can be deemed as clear irregularities by labor unions within a scope that does not compromise labor activities.”

In pushing for these changes, the government has accused unions of hiding their finances from public view, including money received from the government. In February, government inspectors demanded that 327 labor unions with more than 1,000 members open their accounting books for inspection—207 unions refused.

Kim Dong-myeong, head of the yellow Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU), called for the government to recognize the unions as “dialogue partners.” The so-called “militant” Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) stated that it did not receive any money from the government except for some 3 billion won ($US2.3 million) on office space it rents, which is guaranteed by law. 

The Yoon administration has also accused unions of conducting illegal activities, such as demanding bribes and hindering work at construction sites. Conditions for construction workers are so poor that courts have previously ruled bribes are a part of doing business. The Gwangju Higher Court ruling on February 21 that they constitute “a decades-long practice and have virtually become a part of the wage.”

However, this campaign has nothing to do with upholding the law but is about boosting the profitability of big business and suppressing political opposition to the government’s policies, including its strengthening of South Korea’s military alliance with the US.

“If labor unions are normalized, our capital market will also be greatly developed,” Yoon said during a cabinet meeting on February 21. “Should labor unions, which shout opposition to (South) Korea-US military exercises or peddle employment opportunities, be normalized, the value of companies will rise automatically and jobs will be produced greatly.”

Any legal changes would limit workers’ democratic rights by essentially barring them from taking part in political rallies or demonstrations. Anything other than narrowly defined “labor activities” would be deemed illegal, which could include taking time off to attend demonstrations or using union funds for things like placards or transportation to rallies.

This also lies behind the government’s campaign against the leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DP), Lee Jae-myung. On February 27, a request submitted for Lee’s arrest was narrowly defeated in the National Assembly by a vote of 139 to 138, with nine abstentions and 11 invalid votes. Two other lawmakers were not present and one seat is vacant in the 300-seat assembly. Parliamentary approval is required for the arrest of a sitting lawmaker. Majority approval of those present, or 149 votes, was needed to approve the arrest warrant.

Government prosecutors have accused Lee of corruption in a number of cases from his time as mayor of Seongnam, a city in Gyeonggi Province just south of Seoul, and then later as Gyeonggi governor. Lee ran against President Yoon in last year’s presidential election. Corruption charges in South Korea are regularly utilized to settle political scores.

The Yoon administration is reviving old police-state measures in preparation for social conflict. For three decades, the South Korean bourgeoisie has relied on the unions and the Democrats to block a movement of the working class against capitalism. Neither the FKTU nor the KCTU, regardless of the latter’s phony “militant” rhetoric, represent the interests of the working class, but instead orbit the DP, which defends capitalism no less than the PPP. The unions call strikes as safety valves on workers’ anger while working to isolate them, preventing the growth of the class struggle, and shutting down job actions on management’s terms.

However, with the growing social crisis, the ruling class increasingly feels it can no longer allow even this, lest a workers’ movement grow outside the control of the DP and the unions. This became apparent following the truck drivers’ strike in November and December of last year, which President Yoon likened it to a “threat” from North Korea.

The economic crisis in South Korea is worsening. According to the Bank of Korea, the economy is only expected to grow 1.6 percent this year after expanding by just 2.6 percent last year. The export-reliant country recorded a trade deficit in February for the 12th month in a row, the first time this has happened since 1997, just prior to the Asian Financial Crisis.

While the official unemployment rate stands at 3.6 percent, this is an underestimate of the true situation facing workers. It does not take into account the growth of low quality and poor-paying positions that exploded throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Statistics Korea, at the end of October the number of full-time jobs had fallen by 8.7 million from the previous year, the biggest drop in 11 years. Full-time workers now make up just 43.3 percent of the entire workforce. Many workers have taken jobs in the gig economy, working as delivery drivers. In other cases, jobs in manufacturing and the tourism industry offer little more than minimum hourly wage, which is only 9,620 won ($US7.42) this year.

Furthermore, inflation grew to 5.2 percent in January. This has in part been led by rising utility costs for electricity, water, and gas. These combined costs have grown by 28.3 percent over the same period last year. The rise in consumer prices has resulted in a drop in real wages for workers.

Poland Government Banach Scholarship Programme 2023

Application Deadline:

31st March 2023 3:00:00 pm of the local time (Warsaw)

Tell Me About Poland Government Banach Scholarship:

The objective of the Programme is to promote socio-economic progress of developing countries by raising the level of knowledge and education of their citizens in the form of scholarships for second-degree studies in Polish or in English at Polish universities supervised by the Minister of Education and Science in the field of engineering and technical sciences, agricultural sciences, exact sciences, and life sciences.

The NAWA scholarship may be applied for by citizens of the following countries: Albania, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Colombia, Ethiopia, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, Lebanon, Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Palestine, Peru, the Philippines, Senegal, Serbia, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

In addition, the citizens of Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Montenegro, Moldova, North Macedonia, Serbia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan can complete second-degree studies in the fields of humanities and social sciences under the Programme, with the exception of philological studies in the field of the beneficiary’s native language.

The Programme is a joint initiative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange in the form of Polish development aid.

In 2021, the existing scholarship programmes that are a joint initiative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Agency for Academic Exchange NAWA in the form of Polish development aid, i.e. the Banach Scholarship Programme and the Lukasiewicz Scholarship Programme, had merged into one scholarship programme for young people from developing countries who wish to take up studies in Poland.

Which Fields are Eligible?

Engineering and technical sciences, agricultural sciences, exact sciences, and life sciences.

It shall not be possible to participate in the Programme within other fields of science.

What Type of Scholarship is this?

Masters

Who can apply for Poland Government Banach Scholarship Programme?

Foreigners who meet all of the following criteria at the time of the call for proposals may apply for a scholarship under the Programme:

1. are citizens of one of the following countries: Albania, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Montenegro, Ethiopia, Philippines, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Colombia , Kosovo, Lebanon, North Macedonia, Mexico, Moldova, Nigeria, Palestine, Peru, South Africa, Senegal, Serbia, Tanzania, Tunisia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam;

2. do not have Polish citizenship and have not applied for Polish citizenship;

3. are planning to start second-cycle studies or a preparatory course in the academic year 2022/23;

4. at the time of submitting the application to the Programme are students of the last year of first-cycle studies in the field of engineering and technical sciences, agricultural sciences as well as exact and natural sciences, or have a first-cycle studies diploma in the above-mentioned fields obtained in a country covered by the Programme not earlier than in 2020. For candidates from Europe, Central Asia and the South Caucasus, first-cycle studies diplomas obtained in the field of social sciences and humanities shall also be allowed;

5. have not obtained a diploma of completion of second-cycle studies or long-cycle  master’s studies; If there is no system of two-cycle studies commonly applied in the candidate’s country of origin, candidates with a diploma of master’s studies or equivalent shall be admitted;

6.  have a documented knowledge of the

a)      Polish language:

·        minimum at the A2 level in case if applicant is planning firstly start the one-year preparatory course and after course continuing education at the second-cycle degree studies in Polish language;

·        minimum at the B1 in case if applicant is planning to start the second-cycle studies in Polish language without one-year preparatory course;

or

b)     English language minimum at the B2 level in case if applicant is planning to start studies in English language.

How are Applicants Selected?

• Recommendation by a diplomatic and consular mission, non-governmental organization or university = 40%
• The arithmetic average of grades for the first-cycle studies on the diploma of completion of the first-cycle studies or on the certificate confirming the arithmetic average of grades = 60%

Which Countries are Eligible?

The NAWA scholarship may be applied for by citizens of the following countries: Albania, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Colombia, Ethiopia, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, Lebanon, Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Palestine, Peru, the Philippines, Senegal, Serbia, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

Where will Award be Taken?

Poland

How Many Scholarships will be Given?

Not specified

What is the Benefit of Poland Government Banach Scholarship Programme?

The scholarship shall amount to:

1. PLN 1700 per month during the preparatory course (the scholarship holder shall not have the status of a student, which shall prevent him/her from taking advantage of discounts applicable to students, e.g. in public transport);

2. PLN 1,500 per month during second-cycle studies.

During their studies, the scholarship holders shall also receive:

1. in the first year of studies, the first monthly scholarship increased by PLN 500,

2. in the last year of studies, the last monthly scholarship increased by PLN 500.

In the event of a documented fortuitous event, the NAWA Director may, upon a written request of the Scholarship Holder, increase the scholarship by PLN 500 once.

The NAWA Director’s scholarship shall be paid through the centre which conducts the course or the university where the Scholarship Holder is studying.

How to Apply for Poland Government Banach Scholarship Programme:

• Only in electronic form in the Agency’s ICT system, // FILL IN THE APPLICATION //
• The application shall be prepared in Polish or in English
• It is important to go through all application requirements before applying.
• The results of the call for proposals shall be announced by 15 July 2023

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Study finds people suffering Long COVID have higher rates of cardiovascular events and excess deaths

Benjamin Mateus

As the Biden administration attempts to rapidly draw the curtains on the COVID pandemic, a critical study published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association has only offered further confirmation that infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has dire long-term implications.

The study in JAMA Health Forum conducted by Dr. Andrea DeVries and colleagues from Elevance Health, Inc. Indianapolis, Indiana, utilizing a large commercial insurance database, found that people who developed the post-acute phase of COVID-19 (Long COVID) suffered increased risk of “cardiovascular events and excess all-cause mortality.”

To conduct their study, the authors compared and contrasted two groups. One comprised 13,435 individuals who had experienced post-COVID conditions and the other 26,870 without evidence of COVID-19. Additional analyses were performed on a subgroup of persons who had experienced Long COVID after severe acute infections that required them to be hospitalized within a month of their infection.

What is significant about their study is how well its subjects matched the US population, allowing one to generalize its findings to the US population.

The compelling investigation conducted by Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly and his team at Washington University in St. Louis last year among veterans highlighted the increased risk of heart attacks associated with COVID infections but had been criticized for the predominance of an older male population (median age 60 and 90 percent male), inevitable given the population from which the data was drawn.

Supporters of the Long Covid awareness organization demonstrate at the White House, Monday, September 19, 2022. [Photo: Kate Travis]

In the latest study, all adult age groups (mean age of 50) are well represented from every region of the country. Women account for 58 percent of the study population. 

The largest age-group is represented by those who are 45 to 64 years-old, comprising nearly 52 percent. More than 40 percent were in the lower socioeconomic indices and over half the subjects had two or more health co-morbidities. Also, approximately 27 percent of those with post-COVID syndrome had been hospitalized after their infection.

The findings were staggering. Among those with Long COVID one month after their infection up to twelve months from first testing positive, rates of cardiac arrhythmias were 2.35-fold higher. Pulmonary embolism, which is a blood clot that travels to the lungs, occurred in eight percent of the Long COVID patients, a rate that was 3.64 times higher than purportedly non-infected individuals. Ischemic strokes occurred at nearly twice the rate, affecting almost 4 percent. Coronary artery disease affected 17 percent of the Long COVID group, nearly twice the rate. Rates of heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and asthma had all doubled.

Beside the morbidity associated with Long COVID and higher utilization of medical care, there was a pronounced jump in mortality associated with COVID 30 days after the acute phase of infection, with the curves diverging more slowly after day 90 from first infection. One year later, among the Long COVID group, 2.8 percent had died, compared to 1.2 percent in the non-COVID group. This translates to an excess death rate of 16.4 per 1,000 or a rate, more than 2.3 times higher than those that remained uninfected.

Some of the most prevalent symptoms of Long COVID [Photo: WSWS]

The authors note in their summary, “Results from this study [indicate] a statistically significant increased risk for a range of cardiovascular conditions as well as mortality. While these risks were heightened for individuals who experienced a more severe acute episode of COVID-19, it is essential to note that most individuals (72.5 percent) in the cohort did not experience hospitalization during the acute phase. Many of these conditions will have lasting effects on quality of life.” 

Many who died from complications associated with their post-acute COVID syndrome initially were either asymptomatic or had only mild to moderate COVID. It also becomes clear that their death although not characterized by the health system and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a “COVID” death, when it actually was directly related to complications caused by COVID infection.

Arguably, the alarming findings from this study alone should compel the government and the entire public health structure to resume population-based testing and tracking, including the critical variant sequencing to detect viral evolution. Such information is vital for researchers, epidemiologists, and the medical community as a whole such that they can continue quantifying the impact of COVID. More than funding Long COVID studies, long-term observational studies on the impact of the pandemic over the next several decades will be instructive. 

In light of the present discussion, the relevance of the Al-Aly et al., study in November 2022 on the impact of COVID reinfection has particular significance. A second infection with SARS-CoV-2 caused more harm to organ systems and in the post-acute phase, was more lethal than the first infection, regardless of vaccination status. The accumulating evidence bears out the warnings made by principled scientists early in the course of the pandemic to observe the precautionary principle.

Most egregious and criminal is the part played by the Trump and Biden administrations to dismiss and minimize the conclusions of these evidence-based studies. They sought to ensure business operations and schools returned to normal operations as expeditiously as possible regardless of the dangers it posed to the public. 

In a recent study published in Nature Cardiovascular Research that reviewed excess cardiovascular (CVD) deaths in the US from March 2020 to March 2022, the authors wrote, “That the COVID-19 pandemic indirectly led to increased CVD deaths has been reported in many countries during the initial phase of the pandemic … After more than two years of living with the pandemic we found that, nationwide, increased CVD deaths have persisted throughout the two years and the trajectory of excess CVD deaths was almost coincident with the COVID-19 death waves in the United States.”

Cardiologist and researcher at Scripps Research Translational Institute Dr. Eric Topol recently reviewed the evidence behind heart attacks and strokes following after COVID. In a table format, he summarized six large population-based studies that, when combined, conclusively demonstrate the late impact COVID has on the heart, well after the initial phase of the infection has cleared.

According to a Kaiser Family Foundation report published on January 26, 2023, on the latest Long COVID figures, the number of people currently suffering from Long COVID has declined in the last seven months from 19 percent to 11 percent. Among those who have ever had Long COVID, over half are no longer reporting symptoms. 

Still, if we assume that the vast majority of the population has been previously infected, this roughly amounts to possibly more than 20 million of whom 27 percent characterize their symptoms as “significantly limiting.” This remains on par with the estimates provided by the Brookings Institution in August 2022 that as many as four million people are out of work due to their long-term COVID condition. 

In an opinion piece published in early February in the New York Times, David Wallace-Wells asked why so many Americans were still dying. After taking account that about 1.1 million had officially died during the pandemic, he remarked that the CDC estimated “more than 300,000 additional Americans [had] died over the past three years whom we would not have expected to in more normal times.”

He added, “Over the last three years, the country’s large excess mortality has been mostly attributed to COVID-19. But perhaps a quarter of the total, and at times a larger share than that, has been chalked up to other causes.” This gap Wallace-Wells call the “excess” excess mortality or extra “unexpected deaths.” After explaining that although COVID-19 death tolls have declined due in part to immunity acquired from vaccination and even “natural” immunity from surviving COVID infections, he notes, “But the gap between COVID-19 mortality and overall excess mortality has proved remarkable, and mystifyingly, persistent.”

Although Wallace-Wells offers multiple hypotheses and favors undiagnosed COVID deaths as the most likely cause, the evidence cited by these ongoing studies suggest that the COVID pandemic as a mass-debilitating event destroyed even more lives than publicly acknowledged.

That is why the Biden administration is shutting down all metrics to track COVID infections and ending any mitigation measures against its spread. Having declared COVID a “forever” disease, they now proceed to pretend it no longer exists.

Financial parasitism and the war drive against China

Nick Beams

A recent publication on the Institute for New Economic Thinking web site has provided some important information on how financial parasitism in the high-tech sector of the US economy is a key driving force for the developing war of US imperialism against China.

A worker assembles electronic devices at an Alco Electronics factory in Houjie Town, Dongguan City, in the Guangdong province of China. [AP Photo/Ng Han Guan]

The political establishment, both the Democrat and Republican parties, as well as state intelligence agencies and numerous imperialist think tanks have made it clear that high-tech development in China is an existential threat to the position of the US and must be countered by all means necessary, including war.

The question which immediately arises is why the US is in danger of falling behind?

The article by Marie Carpenter and William Lazonik on the history of the major US corporation, Cisco Systems, described by the authors as “once the global leader in telecommunications systems and the Internet,” provides some answers to this question.

They note that the US has fallen behind global competitors in mobile communication infrastructure and what they call this “national failure” has created socio-economic and geopolitical tensions.

Lazonick has long carried out research into the way in which giant US corporations have engaged in financial operations to boost the profits of shareholders and investors, starving their industries of the necessary funds for research and development.

His basic perspective is that if this process can be slowed or even reversed, then US industry can resume the dominant economic position it held in the past. However, notwithstanding this outlook, based on the conception that the wheel of capitalism development can be turned back so that the US recovers its glory days, the article provides significant information.

The authors maintain the key reason the US has fallen behind is the “dereliction of key US-based corporations to take the lead in making the investments in organizational learning required to generate cutting edge communication-infrastructure products.”

No company in the US “exemplifies this deficiency more than Cisco Systems, founded in 1984 and which had explosive growth in the 1990s” to become “the foremost global enterprise networking vendor in the Internet revolution.”

In the last 20 years, however, the modus operandi of the company has changed significantly.

“Since 2001, Cisco’s top management has chosen to allocate corporate cash to open-market share repurchases—aka stock buybacks—for the purpose of giving manipulative boosts to the company’s stock price rather than make the investments in organizational learning required to become a world leader in communication equipment for the era of 5G and IoT (Internet of Things).”

From October 2001 to October 2022, Cisco spent $152 billion, some 95 percent of its net income over the period, on stock buybacks to prop up its share price.

In addition to the funds spent on “maximizing shareholder value,” Cisco paid out $55.5 billion in dividends to shareholders, representing another 35 percent of net income. Such were the extent of these operations that the company had to sometimes go into debt to finance them.

The boosting of the company’s stock price after 2001 became an important means through which it could take over other companies and pay its top employees and executives.

The article noted that Cisco has not been the only communication-based technology company to go down the road of financialization. Lucent Technologies, at one time an industry leader, went in that direction but failed and was acquired by the French-based firm Alcatel in 2006.

There was a significant incident in the development of high-tech financial parasitism in March 2018 when president Trump issued an executive order on the grounds of “national security” that banned the takeover of the tech giant Qualcomm by Broadcom.

The objection to Broadcom was not that it was a foreign company—it had started operations in Singapore but then relocated to the US—but its record showed that it would further “financialise” Qualcomm operations and drastically reduce spending on research and development.

The authors conclude that “the impact of financialization in the sector has left the United States without the capacity to innovate in the development of a communication infrastructure network.” US policymakers “have chosen to respond to the US loss of competitiveness with aggressive protectionist measures against Chinese competitors.”

These measures started under Trump but have been considerably accelerated under the Biden administration The strategy centres on the banning of vital chip technologies aimed at crippling companies such as Huawei as well as seeking to impose global industry standards favouring US, Japanese and Korean companies.

The authors maintain, however, that this mounting confrontation could have been avoided, saying: “Given its trajectory at the turn of the century, Cisco could have played a central role in an industry policy aimed at maintaining and enhancing US global strength in this critical sector.”

US policymakers “could have recognised the need to develop these innovative capabilities in an era that one might now call America’s ‘lost decades.’ A company such as Huawei did not impose this loss of global leadership on the United States. Hundreds of billions of dollars wasted on stock buybacks did.”

The basic flaw in this analysis, which presents the issue of share buybacks as the result of bad “choices” made by top company officials, is that it ignores the dynamic forces operating in the US economy and its financial system as a whole.

As Lazonick in particular knows well, because he has documented it, the type of parasitic operations carried by Cisco go across broad sections of the US corporate world. This cannot be put down to choices, just as a cancer cluster in any area cannot be ascribed to the health problems of individuals.

Parasitism is the outcome of the domination of finance capital over all sections of the US economy. Corporations are faced with the “choice” that unless they meet its demands for increased shareholder value, they will be the subject of hostile takeovers or restructuring operations.

These parasitic activities express at the highest level the essential logic of the capitalist system which, as Marx drew out, is the transformation of money into still greater quantities of money, not the development of the productive forces or new technologies per se.

This predatory activity, lodged within the very DNA of the capitalist system and the drive for private profit, has consequences as can be seen in the further erosion of the economic position of the US—a decline which it seeks to overcome through military means against what it sees as potentially its greatest rival, China.