Thailand to hold joint parliamentary session to install next government

Robert Campion

Two parliamentary sessions were held in Thailand on Monday and Tuesday—the first since the May general election in which the Move Forward Party (MFP) won the most seats. The opening of parliament was brought forward by three weeks despite no party or coalition having a majority in both houses, setting the stage for a politically volatile period.

Pita Limjaroenrat, leader of Move Forward Party at press conference in Bangkok, Thailand, Thursday, May 18, 2023. [AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit]

The MFP won 151 seats and currently leads a tentative coalition with the Pheu Thai party possessing 141 seats. With the support of minor parties, the MFP leads a coalition totaling 312 seats, a clear majority of the 500-seat lower House of Representatives, but still far short of the 376 needed to elect a prime minister in a joint session of parliament with the 250-seat Senate, all of which are appointed by the military.

The election was held under the anti-democratic constitution imposed by the military after it seized power in a coup in 2014.

The coalition will put forward MFP leader and wealthy businessman Pita Limjaroenrat as candidate for prime minister in a vote on July 13. However, there has been little response in obtaining the extra 64 seats required, despite the MFP’s appeals to the military-backed upper house. Senator Kittisak Rattanawaraha told the Bangkok Post on June 28 that Pita would be unlikely to gain even five senate votes, with most senators likely to vote against the MFP leader or abstain.

One senator who indicated he will vote for the MFP coalition is 45-year-old academic Zakee Phithakkumpol, who previously backed 2014 coup leader and outgoing Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha in 2019. In an indication of the fighting taking place behind the scenes, he told Bloomberg, “I’m not taking Pita’s side but the way [senators] are carrying on may not be good in the long term, especially if we want the monarchy to endure in Thai society.”

Separately, on July 4, after weeks of being wrangling, Pheu Thai and the MFP agreed to concede the position of House Speaker to fellow coalition member Wan Muhamad Noor Matha from the Prachachat Party, which holds nine seats. As there were no other candidates for the position, no vote was required.

Wan Muhamad had previously been a member of Pheu Thai until he left the party in 2018. The first deputy speaker position was filled by MFP candidate Padipat Suntiphada and Pheu Thai’s Pichet Chuamuangphan was chosen as second deputy speaker.

The push to resolve the political situation in Thailand arises from the concerns of big business that a prolonged election period is damaging the economy. Thailand’s stock market is the worst performer in Asia this year with a minus equity index of around 10 percent as some $US2.9 billion have been pulled from Thai stocks by foreign investors.

The early opening of parliament may be an attempt by the conservative, military-backed elites including the monarchy and state bureaucracy to force the MFP’s hand and sideline Pita. He faces two investigations seeking to disqualify him as prime minister. The Election Commission is investigating his shareholdings in a media company, which is illegal for a member of parliament to possess, despite the company being defunct since 2007. Another investigation is into Pita’s recent sale of land and his relations with a deeply indebted oil company.

A direct military intervention is always a possibility in a country where there have been 13 successful coups since 1932. The Straits Times reported on June 26 that the military and Royal Thai Police are on standby in preparation for social unrest. All foreign trips by military and police leaders have been cancelled and social media is being closely monitored.

The last general elections in 2019, rigged by the military, were followed by widespread protests led by students and youth, which is undoubtedly giving the ruling class pause, which fears above all the intervention of the working class. Protesters in 2020 and 2021 called for the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut and his cabinet, the abolition of anti-democratic laws, and the reform of the monarchy. In the election, Pita and the MFP gained the support of young voters by promising limited constitutional and other reforms.

The MFP’s predecessor, the newly formed Future Forward Party (FFP), won an unexpected 81 seats in the 2019 general election. In the following months, the military-appointed Constitutional Court disqualified FFP leader, the billionaire Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, for seeking office while holding shares in a media company. The court dissolved the FFP on the same spurious grounds in 2020, contributing to the protests that began that year.

The MFP is a capitalist party, representing sections of the ruling class that has been marginalized by the military and its traditional backers. The party uses democratic slogans such as the “3D’s” of Demilitarization, Demonopolization, and Decentralization both to advance the material interests of this dissident section of the bourgeoisie and cynically contain the struggles of youth and workers within the safe channels of military-dominated politics.

Furthermore, Pita is seeking to curry favor with the US, having pledged at his victory press conference in May to play by “international rules”—a reference to Washington’s constant refrain that Beijing must uphold the “international rules-based order, that is one in which the US sets the rules. He has compared himself to former US President Barack Obama, who came to power while Pita studied at Harvard in 2008. “That really shaped me as a politician,” he said in an interview with Foreign Policy.

It should be recalled that Obama urged voters to “look forwards, not backwards” in order to pass over the criminal record of the Bush administration at home and abroad, in the invasion of Iraq. Pita is proposing to do the same for the widely-detested Thai military.

Upon winning the election, Pita stated in an interview with the New York Times, “This is another historic moment that shows we can transform the government to democracy peacefully.” In other words, Pita is offering his services to bring about transition from military rule and maintain the stability of capitalism.

If Pita is allowed to form the next government, it will be primarily because significant layers of the ruling class fear the prospect of further social unrest as the economy continues to stagnate amid global economic uncertainty and the intensifying US-led confrontation with China throughout the Indo-Pacific region.

Devastating COVID-19 surge in Okinawa exposes lies that the pandemic is over

Evan Blake

A devastating surge of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations is now ripping through the island of Okinawa in Japan. It is the worst COVID-19 wave that the island has experienced, with hospitalization rates now at 48.39 per hospital, surpassing the previous peak reached in January 2023.

One hospital worker recently told the Okinawa Times, “Even after contacting seven or eight hospitals, we are still unable to find a place to admit patients. The situation is not so much a medical crisis as a collapse of the system.”

This alarming development, which raises the possibility that a new and far more dangerous variant could be spreading in Okinawa, has gone entirely unreported by all media outlets outside of Japan. It was only brought to the world’s attention through a series of widely-shared tweets by Dr. Hiroshi Yasuda, a professor at the University of Hiroshima’s Research Institute for Radiation Biology and Medicine.

Extrapolating on Okinawa’s latest COVID-19 data report, which found that there were an estimated 12,260 infections for the week of June 26 to July 2, Dr. Yasuda noted, “As the population of Okinawa is about 1.4M, the weekly number above is equivalent to about 1 million patients in Japan and nearly 3 million patients in United States.”

The same data report shows that 1,130 people are presently hospitalized with COVID-19 in Okinawa. Extrapolated to the US population, this would be the equivalent of roughly 257,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations, dwarfing the US peak of roughly 155,000 reached on January 19, 2022, during the first Omicron surge.

Okinawa is Japan’s poorest island and home to a largely working class population. It is also the site of most of US imperialism’s military bases in Japan, which are widely resented by locals and were previously linked to major COVID-19 outbreaks in Okinawa.

There is almost no COVID-19 genomic sequencing done in Okinawa, and therefore it is unclear which variant or variants are fueling the ongoing wave. The only available data on variants is a June 24 tweet from an unverified source, believed to be from a doctor who works in the COVID-19 ward of one of Okinawa’s largest hospitals. The data showed the following as the dominant Omicron subvariants in Okinawa for the week of June 5-12: XBB.1.9.1 (31.1 percent), XBB.1.5 (24.4 percent), XBB.1.16 (15.6 percent) and XBB.2.3 (11.1 percent).

According to the most recent nationwide data, the dominant variants in Japan as a whole from June 5-19 were Omicron XBB, XBB.1.5 and XBB.1.16, which collectively accounted for 87 percent of sequenced cases.

Given this limited available data, one cannot know for certain whether the present surge in Okinawa is the product of a new variant that is either more infectious, immune-evasive, pathogenic or some combination of the three. However, this is entirely possible, and the precautionary principle dictates that a globally coordinated response to address this crisis must begin immediately. Massive resources must be allocated to investigate the medical situation in Okinawa, genetically sequence as many cases as possible and safely treat all affected patients.

The objective developments in Okinawa and their broader global context expose the premature and unscientific character of the announcement by the World Health Organization (WHO) ending the public health emergency (PHE) for COVID-19 on May 5, as well as the unrelenting propaganda from capitalist politicians and the corporate media falsely claiming that the pandemic is over.

In fact, the ongoing COVID-19 surge in Okinawa takes place two months after the Japanese government of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida officially downgraded COVID-19 from a Class 5 to a Class 2 disease, equivalent to the seasonal flu. This decision was made on May 8, three days after the WHO ended the PHE (Public Health Emergency). It prompted the ending of all remaining mitigation measures in Japan, including five-day isolation requirements for infected patients, undoubtedly contributing to the present surge in Okinawa. While many people still wear masks in Japan, they are often surgical masks, which are largely ineffective in protecting against airborne transmission.

The same process has unfolded globally, with virtually every world government seizing upon the WHO’s decision to end their own PHEs and lift whatever limited mitigation measures and data tracking were still in place. As a result, global society is now wholly unprepared for the evolution of more dangerous variants and future waves of the pandemic.

The Biden administration in the US, which behind the scenes undoubtedly pressured the WHO to lift the PHE, has epitomized this process. After Biden ended the PHE in the US on May 11, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) abruptly stopped reporting COVID-19 infections altogether. The White House COVID-19 Response Team headed by Ashish Jha was quietly disbanded, and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky resigned from her position, following in the footsteps of Anthony Fauci, who resigned last December.

Throughout the past two months, the American corporate media—the most subservient in the world—has dutifully accepted the lies of the Biden administration that COVID-19 has magically disappeared. They have played the most instrumental role in this propaganda campaign by dropping all reporting on the pandemic, effectively disarming the population to the ongoing dangers. Any articles that do appear in the New York Times, Washington Post or other outlets typically refer to the pandemic in the past tense.

Due to the scrapping of COVID-19 testing and data reporting in the US and throughout most of the world, global society is now flying blind into an ongoing pandemic.

Despite their limitations, estimates of excess deaths and wastewater surveillance prove that COVID-19 continues to spread at a high level and cause thousands of needless deaths each day, while likely debilitating millions more with Long COVID each week.

The US wastewater tracker Biobot indicates that while viral transmission has declined since January, it remains far higher than troughs between waves in 2020 and 2021. Using this data, infectious disease modeler @JPWeiland calculated that at present a staggering roughly 200,000 people are being infected with COVID-19 in the US each day, or roughly one in every 1,650 Americans.

The only reliable global tracker of excess deaths from The Economist estimated that in the first week of July there were still 11,300 daily excess deaths attributable to the pandemic. Their cumulative total now estimates that there have been 24 million excess deaths globally, more than triple the official COVID-19 death toll of 6.9 million.

In a recent talk at the annual American Society for Virology conference, evolutionary biologist Trevor Bedford spoke on the rapid clip at which SARS-CoV-2 continues to evolve. He stated that the virus is “evolving just as fast as it was in 2021, evolving about two-and-a-half times faster than influenza H3N2, which we need to update our vaccines to every year or two, and is not really showing signs of slowing down.”

In the coming weeks, it will become apparent whether or not the variant causing the surge in Okinawa marks a qualitatively more dangerous variant which reverberates globally. Whether or not this transpires, this experience must be taken as a sharp warning. The way this has unfolded is precisely how such a scenario would unfold, with virtually no reporting whatsoever and people left to fend for themselves as billions are infected, hospitals inundated and morgues unable to process the deceased.

In a highly significant interview with the World Socialist Web Site last month, biologist Arijit Chakravarty outlined these very dangers. Throughout the pandemic, the research team led by Chakravarty has continuously been proven correct in its analyses and projections. Characterizing the present policy as essentially having “no plan” and being entirely reactive, Chakravarty stressed:

In that kind of reactive strategy what will happen is billions will be infected before we realize something is wrong. And that’s too late to do anything about it. So not only is the pandemic very much not over, but by creating the impression that the pandemic is over in the face of rampant viral spread and continuing rapid viral evolution, we are essentially sticking our chin out and asking the virus to do its worst.

He then made the following stark warning:

I can’t predict the outcome of the next wave. I can’t predict the outcome of the next five waves. But, at the rate that we are going, a prediction can be made with a high degree of certainty that something bad will happen sooner than later along these lines. Keep this pandemic running for another five years, and you’ll face a debacle on a scale that you haven’t yet seen. That’s a given. It can only get worse if you don’t want to do anything about it.

It is essential that the international working class understand the continued threat posed by COVID-19 and build a global movement, in unity with scientists and progressive layers of the middle class, fighting for the principles of public health.

China retaliates against US with export restrictions on strategic metals

Peter Symonds

In the lead-up to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s visit to Beijing this weekend, the Chinese government hit back at unilateral US economic bans and sanctions. It announced restrictions on Monday on the export of two critical metals—gallium and germanium. The metals are vital in a wide range of applications, including for specialised semi-conductors, solar panels, LEDs and fibre optic cables, to name a few.

Mining and production of rare earths in China. [Photo: Foreign Policy Research Institute]

The restrictions, which China justified on the grounds of “national security,” will come into force from August 1 and will require companies to apply for an export permit. No details have been released as to the requirements for a permit. Beijing has defended the move, insisting it was imposing export restrictions, not bans, and that they were not targeted at particular countries.

There is no doubt, however, that the Chinese announcement is in retaliation for US trade war measures, especially bans on the export of the most advanced computer chips and the equipment needed for their manufacture. The US also has been pressuring its allies to follow suit. Both Japan and the Netherlands have done so.

China announced the restrictions just days after the Netherlands announced plans to apply new controls to limit the export of high-end chipmaking equipment from September 1. The Dutch company ASML produces the most advanced equipment in the world for the manufacture of semiconductors and the move is another blow to Chinese hi-tech corporations.

The US and Japan had already announced similar measures. The Biden administration imposed bans last October on the export of advanced chips and chip-making equipment to China on “national security” grounds in a bid to cripple China’s hi-tech industries.

Further measures are reportedly now under discussion in Washington, including further limits on advanced chips made by US firms Nvidia and AMD used for Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the White House is also considering prohibiting Chinese companies from accessing the cloud-computing services of US tech corporations like Amazon and Microsoft.

Beijing has repeatedly criticised the US bans. In the wake of its own restrictions, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin this week reiterated: “We oppose the overstretch of national security concept and abuse of export control by a handful of countries and bullying practices of going all out to suppress and contain specific countries.”

In an interview with China Daily, former vice-minister of commerce Wei Jianguo warned: “This is just the beginning of China’s countermeasures, and China’s tool box has many more types of measures available. If the high-tech restrictions on China become tougher in the future, China’s countermeasures will also escalate.”

In May, the Chinese government banned the use of memory chips made by the US company Micron products in “critical national infrastructure,” citing national security risks. The move echoed measures taken by the US and its allies to block the Chinese tech giant Huawei from any involvement in the construction of 5G networks.

The latest restrictions imposed on the two strategic metals points to even tougher measures that China could impose across a range of critical minerals, including rare earths. China dominates the production and supply of these products, which are vital to a broad range of industries, with both commercial and military applications. According to one estimate, China produces more than 95 percent of gallium output and 67 percent of germanium.

According to Caixin, China’s business website, the top importers of China’s gallium products in 2022 were Japan, Germany and the Netherlands and of germanium products were Japan, France, Germany and the US.

Speaking of China’s announcement, Paul Triolo, a senior vice president at global strategy firm Albright Stonebridge, told Reuters: “It’s clearly timed to send a not-so-subtle message to the Biden administration that China holds significant cards when it comes to inputs to the semiconductor, aerospace, and automobile industries, and can and will increasingly be willing to inflict pain on US companies.”

Peter Arkell, chairman of the Global Mining Association of China, explained to Reuters: “Gallium and germanium are just a couple of the minor metals that are so important for the range of tech products and China is the dominant producer of most of these metals. It is a fantasy to suggest that another country can replace China in the short or even medium term.”

China’s announcement has provoked concerns in related corporations internationally about acute shortages of gallium and germanium and rising prices not only for the two metals but for a vast array of goods that incorporate them. The European Commission expressed its concern and German economy minister Robert Habeck warned that any expansion of the restrictions to materials like lithium would be “problematic.”

The Biden administration has lashed out at China’s announcement, declaring hypocritically that it “firmly opposes” the export restrictions on the strategic metals. A US Commerce Department spokesman told the South China Morning Post in an email that China’s actions “underscore the need to diversify supply chains.” The email added that Washington would “engage with our allies and partners to address this and to build resilience in critical supply chains.”

As it escalates its confrontation with China and prepares for conflict, the US is already engaged in intense discussions at home and with its allies to establish alternative supply chains for critical minerals to replace China in the time of war. For some of the rare earths, China is at present virtually the sole source.

The vulnerability of the US was underscored by a Pentagon spokesman who explained on Thursday that the Pentagon holds a strategic US stockpile for germanium but currently has no inventory reserves for gallium.

China’s announcement was clearly timed to coincide with the visit of Yellen, who is now in China. Yellen’s trip, following that of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month, is supposedly part of a US charm offensive aimed at easing tensions between the two countries. Yellen, however, like Blinken, is not coming with any olive branch or offerings, but rather with a set of demands and ultimatums.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen testifies before the House Appropriations Committee on Budget and Oversight hearing on March 23, 2023, in Washington. [AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana]

At an event yesterday in Beijing organised by the American Chamber of Commerce, Yellen declared that she intended to raise a series of concerns with her Chinese counterparts, “including China’s use of nonmarket tools like expanded subsidies for its state-owned enterprises and domestic firms, as well as barriers to market access for foreign firms.”

In a brazen display of hypocrisy, while justifying escalating US punitive measures against China on the basis of “national security,” Yellen told her audience of corporate representatives: “I’ve been particularly troubled by punitive actions that have been taken against US firms in recent months.”

Far from healing the rift, Yellen’s visit will only add to the mounting tensions between the two countries.

United Nations – Nippon Foundation Fellowship Program 2024

Application Deadline: 8th September 2023

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International

To be Taken at (Organisation): Participating host institutions and the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

About the Fellowship: The United Nations – Nippon Foundation Fellowship provides Government officials and other mid-level professionals from developing States with advanced training on ocean affairs and the law of the sea, as well as related disciplines, including marine science in support of management frameworks. Fellows will learn about international legal frameworks, key issues and best practices in ocean affairs, become familiar with the work of the United Nations, and develop professional skills. Fellows will also conduct individual research, under academic supervision, and develop a written thesis on a topic selected by them.

Upon completion of the Fellowship, Fellows are expected to return to their home countries and use their in-depth knowledge and extended experience to assist in formulating comprehensive ocean policy and in implementing the legal regime set out in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and related instruments, including through designing, implementing and/or evaluating specific improvement projects. For further details on the Fellowship objectives see this documentPDF

Type: Fellowship

Offered Since: 2004

Who is qualified to apply? Candidates must meet all the following criteria:

• You must be between the ages of 25 and 40;
• You must have successfully completed a first university degree, and demonstrate a capacity to undertake independent advanced academic research and study;
• You must be a mid-level professional from a national government organ of a developing State, or another governmental or non-governmental agency in such a State, which deals directly with ocean affairs issues, and your professional position must allow you to directly assist your nation in the formulation and/or implementation of policy in this area. This includes marine sciences and the science-policy linkage. Your “Nomination and Recommendation Form” should be completed by a Government official or other official who can attest to the nature of your work with respect to the Government’s ocean affairs and law of the sea related activities, and indicate how an Award would directly contribute to these activities;
• Your proposed research and study programme must contribute directly to your nation’s formulation and/or implementation of ocean affairs and law of the sea policies and programmes; and
• You must be free of all non-Fellowship obligations during the entire Fellowship period unless otherwise authorized by the Division.

Women candidates are strongly invited to apply, with a view to achieving gender balance in the selection process.

Selection Criteria: Satisfaction of the above criteria must be clearly demonstrated by the candidate through the application forms.

Number of Awards: 12

Value of Nippon Award: Fully-funded. Fellows will receive a stipend in accordance with the cost of living in the country in which he/she will be studying; travel costs and other support.

Programme Structure: The 9-month UN Nippon Fellowship Programme is composed of two consecutive phases which provide Fellows with advanced and customized research and training opportunities in their chose fields:

• Phase One: 3-month Research and Training, which is normally undertaken between March/April and June at DOALOS at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
• Phase Two: 6-month Advanced Academic Research and Study, which is normally undertaken between July and December at one of the prestigious participating Host Institutions and under the guidance of subject matter expert(s) who have recognized in-depth expertise in the Fellows’ chosen field of study.

The deliverables of the Fellowship Programme are:

• A 100-page written thesis
• A presentation of the research
• An ocean governance matrix

In addition, a number of assignments will be completed in the context of the training curriculum delivered during phase one of the programme.

How to Apply: The Fellowship application package consists of the following forms. To apply, please complete these forms:

The Online Form

For further details on the curriculum of the programme, please see this documentPDF and for full details of the programme requirements, please see this documentPDF.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for Details

Commonwealth Professional Fellowships 2024/2025

Application Deadline: 10th August 2023 by 4pm BST

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

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

Intended beneficiaries: Mid-career professionals (with five years’ relevant work experience) working organisations in low and middle income Commonwealth countries.

These fellowships are offered under six development themes:

• Science and technology for development
• Strengthening health systems and capacity
• Promoting global prosperity
• Strengthening global peace, security and governance
• Strengthening resilience and response to crises
• Access, inclusion and opportunity

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: To be eligible for these Fellowships, prospective fellows must:

• Be a citizen of or have been granted refugee status by an eligible Commonwealth country, or be a British Protected Person
• Be permanently resident in an eligible Commonwealth country
• Have at least five years’ full-time, or equivalent part-time, relevant work experience, in a profession related to the subject of the fellowship programme, by the proposed start of the fellowship – voluntary work experience will not be counted towards this minimum
• Be in employment at the time of application at an organisation that they will return to upon completion of the fellowship
• Provide at least two references, one of which must be from their current employer. Any applications for which references are not received by the reference closing date will be considered ineligible.
• Not have undertaken a Commonwealth Professional Fellowship within the last five years (at the time of taking up the award)
• Not be seeking to undertake an academic programme of research or study. Academics are eligible to apply for the scheme, but only to undertake programmes of academic management, not research or courses relevant to their research subject
• Be available to undertake their fellowship from the prescribed start date

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

Eligible Countries: Developing countries

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

Value & Duration of Award: Each Fellowship provides:

• Approved return airfare from the Fellow’s home country to the UK
• Reimbursement of the standard visa application fee
• Stipend (living allowance) payable monthly (or pro rata) for the duration of the award at the rate of £1,944 per month, or £2,397 per month for those at organisations in the London metropolitan area (rates quoted at 2022/23 levels
• If a Fellow declares a disability, a full assessment of needs and eligibility for additional financial support will be offered by the CSC. See the CSC disability support statement for more information
• Arrival allowance of up to £1,061.10 (rates quoted at 2021/22 levels), including an element for warm clothing
• A maximum of £3,000 per fellow can be agreed by host organisations for short courses/conferences as well as travel to visit other UK organisations where this forms an integral part of the programme. Host organisations should bear in mind the restrictions set out in our guidance on claimable costs.

How to Apply: Applications for prospective Fellows are now open. 

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

• List all undergraduate and postgraduate university qualifications obtained (where applicable)
• List up to 10 publications and prizes (if applicable)
• Provide details of your employment history and explain how each job is relevant to the programme you wish to undertake in the UK (up to 100 words per employment)
• Provide a statement on the relevance of your previous work experience to the proposed fellowship (up to 300 words)
• List names and positions of up to three referees who are qualified to comment on both your capacity to benefit from your proposed fellowship in the UK and your ability to deliver development impact afterwards. One of your referees must be your current employer

Provide a development impact statement in 4 parts.

• Part 1: (up to 200 words) Explain how participation on your selected fellowship relates to:
  • one of the six CSC development themes
  • development issues at the global, national and local level
• Part 2 (up to 100 words) Explain how you intend to apply your new skills once your Fellowship ends.

• Part 3 (up to 250 words) Outline what you expect will change in development terms following your fellowship including:
  • the outcomes that you aim to achieve
  • the timeframe for their implementation
  • who the beneficiaries will be
• Part 4: (up to 100 words) Write about how the impact of your work could be best measured.
• Confirm what your award objectives are and how each of them will be met by the fellowship programme
• Confirm what your objectives are for the next two years and how each of them will be met by the fellowship programme
• Confirm what your objectives are in the longer term and how each of them will be met by the fellowship programme
• Provide a personal statement to summarise the ways in which your personal background has encouraged you to want to make an impact in your home country. You should indicate areas in which you have already contributed, such as having overcome any personal or community barriers to your chosen career (up to 500 words)
• Summarise the ways in which you have engaged in voluntary activities and the opportunities you have had to demonstrate leadership (up to 500 words)
• Provide a scan of your passport or national identity card

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

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Thames Water brought to near collapse by private looting

Paul Mitchell

Thames Water, the largest water company in the UK, is on the verge of collapse. Both the chairman and CEO have resigned as the company’s board, investors and UK government claim that all is under control and a “turnaround plan” will be implemented under the auspices of new chairman Sir Adrian Montague.

Montague is currently Chairman of Cadent Gas Limited, Britain’s biggest gas network. Cadent Gas is run by the Australian banking group Macquarie, which owned Thames Water from 2006 to 2016 and is largely responsible for its current crisis, tripling its debts from £3.2 billion to £10.5 billion. Macquarie borrowed at a time of cheap interest rates against the company’s assets and paid out £2.8 billion in dividends to shareholders.

Thames Water HQ by the Thames In Reading, Berkshire [Photo by Jim Linwood / CC BY 2.0]

The banking group has carried out the same rapacious policy at Cadent, saddling the company with debts of £7.4 billion. Cadent made a record £945 million profit in the 2022-23 financial year and paid a £350 million dividend to shareholders, while announcing plans to close its defined benefit pension scheme.

The immediate cause of Thames Water’s demise is soaring inflation which has increased the cost of repaying the now more than £14 billion of debt its owners have saddled it with. Inflation has also increased the price of energy and chemicals, which are a huge cost for water companies.

Other water companies including Yorkshire Water, SES, Southern and Portsmouth Water also lack “financial resilience” according to the regulator Ofwat.

The debacle is an ignominious turning point for a company that originated in the New River Company, founded in 1617, to bring fresh water along a 28-mile aqueduct to London. Its successor, the Metropolitan Water Board, undertook huge water and sewerage infrastructure projects to advance public health in the Victorian era.

By the time the Board was privatised by the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher in 1989 it was renowned internationally for its operational skill and scientific research. Its workers could retire on full pay at the age of 55.

[Photo by Bit Cloud / CC BY 1.0]

If the company goes under, the government will likely temporarily nationalise it in the hopes of cobbling together a rescue package. However, Susannah Streeter, head of money and market at Hargreaves Lansdown, said selling Thames Water would be difficult given its indebtedness. “Pouring more money into the financial black hole Thames Water appears to have dug is clearly an unwelcome prospect, with little hope of future returns given the huge infrastructure work needed to mend leaks and sewage discharges.”

When the Tory government privatised the water industry, it claimed there was gross bureaucratism and inefficiency which would be done away with through the introduction of competition, providing a massive injection of cash for investment. The sale would benefit consumers and deliver funds to the government and an independent regulator would defend against potentially abusive monopolies.

The opposite occurred. A Wild West-style rampage took place in which the previously state-owned water assets fell into the hands of bank consortiums, private equity firms and sovereign wealth funds committed to extracting every last penny from customers and workers and building up debts while splashing out on dividends.

Recent research by The Times newspaper has borne out the World Socialist Web Site’s contemporary analysis of this process. It explains that by 2021 nine of the 15 English water and sewage companies were owned by “special purpose companies” under the control of financial institutions, which “were then able to use water company revenue to generate significant returns to shareholders. And one way this happens is by hiking up company debts.” Zero debt at the time of privatisation has soared to £60.6 billion.

According to The Times, Thames Water was “the archetype of this model”. After it was taken over by Macquarie, debts rocketed over the next 10 years from £3.2 billion to £10.7 billion, while dividends of £2.5 billion were paid out. The company paid next to no corporation tax.

At the same time, as the Consumer Council for Water (CCW) which represents water customers has recently explained, “Nearly one in four households say they are currently struggling to pay their water bill amid the cost-of-living crisis and this will add to their worries.” Water bills have more than doubled in real terms to an average £448 this year.

While money has been sucked out of the company it has become notorious for polluting rivers and failing to stem leakage from its pipe network. It leaks more water than any other water company in the UK and was fined a record £20 million for pumping 1.9 billion litres of untreated sewage into the Thames in 2017. This week Thames Water was in court yet again for pumping, “unnoticed”, a roughly estimated “millions of litres” of raw sewage into rivers near Gatwick Airport, causing them to turn “black” and kill more than 1,000 fish.

The government claims the Environment Agency (EA) is being “empowered” to tackle sewage pollution and “is conducting its largest ever criminal investigation into potential widespread breaches of environmental permit conditions at wastewater treatment works by all water and sewerage companies.”

The EA declared, “Our initial assessment indicates that there may have been widespread and serious non-compliance of environmental permit conditions by all companies. We take the implications of this extremely seriously and are committed to understanding the scale and impact of any alleged offending.” It said inspectors might go and visit the guilty sites.

The same empty rhetoric has been trotted out year after year since privatisation. The EA is powerless to do anything as Parliament acknowledged last year when it declared that the agency had been “systematically defunded and disempowered to act.” EA whistleblowers have told the environmental ENDS magazine that they were powerless to do their jobs and the regulator was no longer a deterrent to polluters.

A major share of the responsibility for the crisis lies with the Labour Party and the trade unions.

The Labour government of Tony Blair (1997-2007) denounced opposition to Tory privatisation as “rigid dogma”. Current Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer ditched proposals to renationalise the water sector last year.

During privatisation the unions sabotaged overwhelming votes for industrial action. Since then, they have pursued a “partnership” agreement with the employers, claiming it was the best way to achieve job security, better wages and conditions. Instead workers have faced constant reorganisations, job cuts, declining wages and reduced pension schemes. The unions will now help impose anything that is demanded of them in the proposed “turnaround plan” to rescue the bankrupt Thames Water.

Israel warns more to come after withdrawal from Jenin

Jean Shaoul

Israel Defence Forces (IDF) pulled out of the northern West Bank city of Jenin Wednesday morning, ending its two-day invasion and bombardment of the city and the densely populated refugee camp.

Itamar Yaar, a former deputy head of Israel’s National Security Council and a colonel in the reserves, insisted the withdrawal was not the end and threatened more action to come. “It doesn’t mean we’ve done what we’ve done, we’re out and that’s it,” he said. “The operation was relatively short and limited. That means we might see similar activities” that could take place in Jenin “even tomorrow.”

Palestinians walk on a destroyed road following two days of Israeli military raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, July 5, 2023 [AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed]

This threat echoed the earlier remarks of the IDF chief of central command and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It flows inexorably from the agenda of Netanyahu’s far-right coalition, which is committed to the annexation of the West Bank in defiance of international law—preferably “cleansed” of Palestinians or failing that, crowded into isolated and blockaded enclaves—in pursuit of its aim of establishing a Jewish Supremacist state in both Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. These fascistic forces have encouraged and incited their supporters to carry out vigilante attacks in the West Bank to terrorise and drive out the Palestinians, while demanding that the IDF take ever more aggressive action against the Palestinians.

The entire Jenin operation, planned over months and conducted with the full knowledge and consent of US imperialism—that never ceases to justify its own military aggression in the name of “humanitarian intervention”—was in flagrant violation of the international conventions on war and human rights outlawing military action against civilians.

The 1,000 plus troops, replete with massive firepower, had entered Jenin in armoured vehicles and bulldozers under cover of armed drones and helicopters. Their declared objective was to root out a few hundred Palestinian militants, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Lions’ Den, the Jenin Brigades, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and others that Israel designates as “terrorists,” and seize their arms and explosives. Israel’s security forces claimed that more than 50 shooting attacks have been carried out by militants from the Jenin area since the start of the year.

An IDF spokesperson insisted, “We didn’t come to conquer the refugee camp [in Jenin]. This isn’t an operation against the Palestinian Authority, it’s an operation against terror organizations in Jenin that are making the lives of the civilian population in Jenin miserable.” The operation would continue indefinitely, he added. “This will be a continuum of operations that aren’t necessarily limited in time throughout northern Samaria [the occupied West Bank], as intelligence and operational timing dictate.”

This was the pretext for soldiers to go on a planned rampage, ploughing up streets, destroying the utility networks, smashing up many of the refugee camp’s buildings—homes, residential buildings, medical facilities and mosques and destroying all the vehicles in their path—traumatizing the population and forcing around one quarter of the 14,000 residents of the refugee camp to flee their homes. They went on house-to-house searches, interrogated several hundred Palestinians of whom around 30 were detained for further questioning and seizing arms caches and explosives.

The IDF troops left behind whole areas of the city a war zone, with little or nothing for the fugitive families to return to—some 80 percent of the homes were damaged or destroyed—and no prospect of ever acquiring the financial and material resources to make good the damage as the Palestinians’ experience in Gaza has shown. This comes after decades of Israeli military control over Area C, some 60 percent of the West Bank, that has prevented the construction and rehabilitation of the water, sewerage, electricity and transport infrastructure, devastating the economy, wrecking livelihoods and causing untold suffering.

Israeli forces killed twelve Palestinians, including four minors. Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed eight as its fighters. Israel injured more than 100, of whom 20 are in a critical condition, preventing many of the wounded from receiving medical treatment. It brings the total number of West Bank Palestinians killed by Israeli forces to nearly 150, while several dozen more have been killed in Gaza.

So one-sided was this week’s operation that just one Israeli soldier was killed—and as the troops withdrew—which the IDF said this was likely due to “friendly fire.” The IDF admitted that there were few armed clashes with the militants because the 300 wanted gunmen had fled the area.

On Wednesday, the Palestinians held mass funeral processions for the dead, with angry crowds expelling Palestinian Authority officials who had come to pay their respects, denouncing them as “traitors” for doing nothing to protect them from Israel’s attack and calling their actions “shameful.” Militants in the besieged Palestinian enclave of Gaza fired five rockets towards southern Israel in a token show of solidarity with Jenin that were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome system.

On Thursday afternoon, a Palestinian shot dead an Israeli soldier near the West Bank settlement of Kedumim. Israeli security forces gave chase to a car driver and killed him. The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, the clerical group that controls Gaza, claimed him as a member and said his action was a response to Israel’s assault on Jenin.

On Thursday, the IDF carried out artillery strikes against southern Lebanon after an anti-tank guided missile fired from Lebanon exploded on the border fence close to the village of Ghajar that straddles the border. It comes amid rising tensions on the border. Last week, Hezbollah, the Lebanese clerical party allied with Iran that has provided vital support for President Bashar al-Assad during the 12-year long proxy war financed and supported by the Gulf States, Turkey and the CIA—and aimed at toppling his regime—said it shot down an Israeli drone flying over a village in southern Lebanon.

Israeli jets also carried out airstrikes against targets near the Syrian capital of Damascus on Wednesday night, the second Israeli strike on Syria this week, likely targeting warehouses storing “advanced Iranian weapons,” according to a report on the Ynet news site. The strikes came as Syria and Russia were holding joint air exercises, scheduled to last for several days, focusing “on joint air, air defense and electronic warfare operations to counter airstrikes,” according to the Russian military.

Early on Sunday, the IDF said that its fighter jets had struck a Syrian air defense battery after a Syrian anti-aircraft missile launched from the system had exploded in Israeli airspace. This was apparently in response to several Israeli strikes near the city of Homs that Syria’s state news agency reported had caused “material losses.”