Another warning on US Treasury market instability

Nick Beams

The Bank for International Settlements has warned that the $22 trillion US Treasury market could be headed for another episode of major turbulence because of highly leveraged hedge fund bets.

“Speculative positions by leveraged investors are back,” it said. Bets by hedge funds were creating conditions similar to those which led to turbulence in September 2019 and a major crisis in March 2020.

Bank for International Settlements (BIZ) in Basel, Switzerland [Photo by Wladyslaw Sojka (Free Art License 1.3)]

The warning, set out in the BIS quarterly review issued on Tuesday, is the third to come from a major regulatory body in the past weeks.

In a report last month, the US Federal Reserve said there had been a build-up in the so-called “basis trade” which seeks to exploit the very small differences between the price of Treasury bonds and their price in futures markets.

The Financial Stability Board, a global watchdog consisting of the world’s major finance ministers and central bankers, issued a report to the recent G20 meeting. It warned that hedge funds with large levels of debt created using derivatives had the potential to create market instability.

Adding its voice to these warnings, the BIS said: “The current build-up of leveraged short positions in US Treasury is a financial vulnerability worth monitoring because of the margin spirals it could potentially trigger.”

This refers to a situation in which lenders call for an increase in cash from the hedge funds to which they have lent money—a margin call—because the value of the underlying asset on which the loan is based has fallen. This can trigger a sell-off of assets to meet the call, and a downward spiral, as borrowers seek to meet the demand for additional cash.

“Margin deleveraging, if disorderly, has the potential to dislocate core fixed income markets,” it said.

The source of the potential turbulence lies not in the periphery but at the very centre of the global financial system. The US Treasury market forms the foundation of the global financial system.

In September 2019 there was major turbulence in the repurchase or repo market in which traders receive money, sometimes merely overnight, on the basis of bonds which they agree to repurchase. Repo interest rates underwent wild swings, sometimes reaching record highs, forcing to the Federal Reserve to intervene to restore stability.

This was the prelude to a much bigger crisis in March 2020, at the start of the pandemic. The Treasury market froze. For several days no buyers could be found for US government debt, supposedly the safest financial asset in the world. As a result, the Fed had to intervene to the tune of trillions of dollars.

The potential for extreme market volatility lies in the nature of the trades being carried out. The difference in the price of Treasury bonds and their price in futures markets is miniscule and so large amounts of money must be outlaid to make a profit.

The hedge funds do not spend their own money but borrow heavily in order to leverage their profits.

However, if market conditions turn in an unanticipated way, then highly leveraged funds can be forced to liquidate their positions and trigger a broad market sell-off.

Adding to the potential market instability is uncertainty over the direction of the Fed’s interest rate policy. After hiking interest rates by 5.25 percentage points over the past year and a half, the question is whether it will continue to increase or announce a pause, possibly at the meeting scheduled today.

So far this year investors have put $1 trillion into short-term money market funds, where they receive a return of around 5 percent because they are unsure of where the Fed is heading.

According to analysts at the Bank of America, the flood of cash into lower-risk market funds is an expression of “one trillion dollars of doubt.”

“The inflows to cash reflect a tremendous amount of doubt as to whether it’s a soft or hard landing, whether the Fed’s done or not done, whether it’s a bull market or still a bear market,” Michael Hartnett, a BofA investment strategist wrote.

The uncertainty means that even more attention than usual will be paid to the Fed’s summary projections of its members—the so-called dot plot—that will be released when it announces its interest rate decision today.

Apart from the immediate market movements, there are deeper processes at work.

Writing in the Financial Times earlier this month, Vinod Thomas, a former vice-president at the World Bank, likened the global financial system to the Titanic, which was assumed to be unsinkable.

“A similar assumption underpins today’s international financial architecture in the face of a polycrisis: runway climate change, financial faultlines, the health pandemic, geopolitical dangers, the next generation of artificial intelligence and global water and food shortages.”

He warned that the interplay of the climate crisis with financial fragility alone threatened “potentially insurmountable dangers unless immediate action is taken.” As a result of the effects of climate change, “insurance companies would face unprecedented claims and a decimated investment portfolio, wiping out their capital bases.”

Banks would then be “knocking on central bank doors to fend off the impact of insurance company defaults.”

Thomas noted that global debt had reached “unprecedented levels” under conditions where, following the global financial crisis of 2008, a shadow banking system of non-bank financial intermediaries (NBFI) dominates about half of global financing. The amount of unregulated financing attributable to NBFIs is about $240 trillion.

Moreover, financial authorities, as has been made clear in numerous reports, including from the International Monetary Fund, have little or no idea about the connections of much of the NBFI operations with the broader banking system.

Highlighting the mounting debt crisis of the global capitalist system, was the announcement on Tuesday that US national debt had gone over $33 trillion. A little more than a year and a half ago when it passed $30 trillion the New York Times characterised it as an “ominous fiscal milestone” that underscored the fragility of the long-term health of the US economy.

Now it has zoomed past that milestone and is set to go further, above all because of increased military spending.

After protests in flood-hit Derna, Libyan officials order journalists to leave

Alex Lantier

Protests erupted in Derna on Monday, as anger exploded among workers in the city against authorities who failed to take critical measures to protect it from flooding. When Storm Daniel hit the region, Derna’s poorly maintained dams burst, and a massive wall of water descended on the city, killing an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 people. 

Rescuers and relatives sit in front of collapsed buildings after recent flooding caused by Mediterranean storm Daniel, in Derna, Libya, Monday, Sept. 18, 2023. [AP Photo/Muhammad J. Elalwany]

The response to the protests of officials in eastern Libya, where Derna is located, underscores the complete contempt of the Libyan authorities and their NATO backers for the population. They have ordered journalists to leave the area and are blocking access to foreign search-and-rescue teams. The few reports available from the area speak of mounting fear that the eastern Libyan authorities, which have longstanding ties to NATO, are preparing a bloody crackdown in Derna. 

The protest revealed the growing mass opposition to the corrupt patchwork of militias and local warlords put in power by the NATO war in Libya in 2011 that destroyed the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. 

On Monday, protesters gathered in front of Derna’s Al Sahaba mosque and denounced the eastern Libyan regime led by former CIA asset General Khalifa Haftar, and especially the speaker of the eastern Libyan parliament, Aguilah Saleh. They chanted slogans like: “The people want parliament to fall,” “Aguila is the enemy of God,” “Thieves and betrayers must hang” and “The bloody of martyrs must not be shed in vain.”

They also chanted slogans against the decade-long civil war in Libya that followed the NATO victory in the 2011 war: “Aguila we don’t want you, all Libyans are brothers.”

Aguila had provoked outrage last week by declaring that Libyans should not “exchange accusations” over who is responsible for the deaths, as “The disaster that struck the country is a natural one. … It is in God’s hand.”

Protesters in Derna also read out a statement listing their demands against the Haftar-Aguilah regime. They called for “a speedy investigation and legal action against those responsible for the disaster.” They also called for a probe of Derna’s present and previous budgets, the opening of a UN office in the city, and the launching of its “reconstruction, with compensation for affected residents.”

Later, on Monday night, protesters gathered outside the house of Derna Mayor Abdulmenam al-Ghaithi, stormed it and burned it down.

At 1:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning, mobile phone networks in Derna all suddenly shut off. The Libyan Post Telecommunications & Information Technology Company (LIPTIC), which operates these networks, attributed it to a “rupture in the optical fiber” link in Derna. LIPTIC added that it “could be the result of a deliberate act of sabotage” and added: “our teams are working to repair it as quickly as possible.”

Throughout the day Tuesday, eastern Libyan authorities took sweeping measures to prevent reports of events in Derna from reaching the outside world and limit the number of foreign rescue teams working in the city.

Initially, the eastern Libyan government declared that “health reasons” meant it was dangerous for journalists to remain in Derna. After Libyan health authorities confirmed that there were no health advisories currently in effect for Derna, the government changed its reason for telling journalists to leave. It said the large number of reporters was “hindering the work of the rescue teams.”

As it claimed to be doing everything it could to help the rescue teams to justify making reporters leave, however, the eastern Libyan government asked a number of international rescue teams to leave Derna and blocked others from arriving. 

Spanish and Maltese rescue teams have already left the city, and UN officials have said that the eastern Libyan authorities are blocking their teams from reaching Derna. “We can confirm that search and rescue teams, emergency medical teams and UN colleagues who are already in Derna continue to operate,” UN spokesperson Najwa Mekki told Reuters. “However, a UN team was due to travel from Benghazi to Derna today but were not authorized to proceed.”

This has led to a number of reports on social media, largely from diplomatic or security personnel working for think-tanks with connections to Libya, that a crackdown is being prepared, and that Derna is bracing for an attack from Haftar’s forces.

On Twitter/X, Emadeddin Badi of the Atlantic Council wrote: “Media blackout on Derna now in place, (communications) off since dawn. Make no mistake about it, this isn’t about health or safety, but punishing the Dernawis for protesting. Turkey and Algeria’s Search and Rescue teams, journalists and Tripolitania’s medical teams have been given orders to leave” by the Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF), Haftar’s military force.

Similarly, Tarek Magrisi of the European Council on Foreign Relations tweeted: “Extremely dark news from a Derna still reeling from horrific floods. The city’s communications are shut down with Libyan and international aid teams kicked out. Locals are now terrified of an impending military crackdown as collective punishment for yesterday’s protests and demands.”

The catastrophe in Derna is a devastating exposure of the consequences of the 2011 NATO war and of the subsequent decade of civil war into which it plunged Libya. NATO countries’ banks and oil companies were able to loot Libya, which was once Africa’s wealthiest country per capita and with its longest life expectancy. The local administrations that emerged after 2011 under the neo-colonial regime in Libya rule with utter contempt for working people. 

Significantly, among the many pseudo-left academics who agitated for the NATO war in Libya 12 years ago, one particularly popular argument was that NATO intervention was necessary to keep Gaddafi from possibly massacring protesters in eastern Libya. 

Professor Gilbert Achcar, a member of France’s Pabloite New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) who has now been exposed as a paid adviser to the British army, denounced left-wing opposition to NATO’s imperialist war in Libya, asserting: “Here is a case where a population is truly in danger, and where there is no plausible alternative that could protect it. The attack by Gaddafi’s forces was hours or at most days away. You can’t in the name of anti-imperialist principles oppose an action that will prevent the massacre of civilians.”

This potential massacre by Gaddafi’s forces in 2011 did not materialize. Now, however, there is mounting evidence that the eastern Libyan regime set up by the NATO war is preparing a very real crackdown in Derna. In its latest report on Libya, Amnesty International explained how Haftar’s regime treats protesters who challenge its authority, writing:

Militias and armed groups used unlawful force to repress peaceful protests across the country. Dozens of people were arrested, prosecuted and/or sentenced to lengthy imprisonment or death. … Militias and armed groups systematically tortured and otherwise ill-treated detainees with impunity. Beatings, electric shocks, mock executions, flogging, waterboarding, suspension in contorted positions and sexual violence were reported by relatives and prisoners...

Amelia Earhart Fellowship 2024

Application deadline: 15th November 2023

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Women from Any Country

To be taken at (country): Any University or College offering Accredited Degrees in any country.

Subject Areas: PhD/Doctoral degrees in Aerospace-related Sciences and Aerospace-related Engineering

About the Award: Zonta International established the Amelia Earhart Fellowship in 1938 in honor of legendary pilot and Zontian, Amelia Earhart. Today, the Fellowship of US$10,000 is awarded annually to 35 talented women, pursuing Ph.D./doctoral degrees in aerospace-related sciences or aerospace-related engineering around the globe.

Offered Since: 1938

Type: PhD/Doctoral

Eligibility

• Women of any nationality pursuing a Ph.D./doctoral degree who demonstrate a superior academic record in the field of aerospace-applied sciences or aerospace-applied engineering are eligible.
• Students must be registered in a full-time Ph.D./doctoral program and completed at least one year of that program or have received a master’s degree in an aerospace-applied field at the time the application is submitted.
• Applicants must not graduate from their Ph.D. or doctoral program before April 2024.
• Please note that post-doctoral research programs are not eligible for the Fellowship.
• Members and employees of Zonta International or the Zonta International Foundation are also not eligible to apply for the Fellowship.
• Note that previous Amelia Earhart Fellows are not eligible to apply to renew the Fellowship for a second year.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Benefits of Fellowship:

• Fellowship of US$10,000 is awarded annually
• The Fellowship enables these women to invest in state-of-the-art computers to conduct their research, purchase expensive books and resource materials, and participate in specialized studies around the globe.
• Amelia Earhart Fellows have gone on to become astronauts, aerospace engineers, astronomers, professors, geologists, business owners, heads of companies, even Secretary of the US Air Force.

Duration of Fellowship: One year (current fellows can reapply to renew the fellowship each year)

How to Apply: The Zonta International Amelia Earhart Fellowship Committee reviews the applications and recommends recipients to the Zonta International Board of Directors. All applicants will be notified of their status by the end of April.

Apply Now

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Important Note: Please note that post-doctoral research programs are not eligible for the Fellowship. Members and employees of Zonta International or the Zonta International Foundation are also not eligible to apply for the Fellowship.

Excess deaths due to the COVID-19 pandemic reach 26 million

Evan Blake

On Sunday, the Economist’s tracker of excess deaths attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic reached a staggering 26 million globally, nearly four times the official COVID death toll of 6.9 million. According to this tracker, an average of 7,000 people continue to die each day above the pre-pandemic baseline, with the overwhelming majority either directly from COVID-19 or due to the myriad negative long-term health impacts caused by the virus.

The 26 million excess death milestone was reached exactly one year after US President Joe Biden falsely declared that “the pandemic is over” during an interview with CNN at the Detroit auto show on September 18, 2022.

While Biden’s claim was widely denounced by scientists and public health advocates at the time, it set the stage for the complete unwinding of all official pandemic response in the US and globally. It is worthwhile to examine what has actually happened with the pandemic over the past year, as well as the present situation as we head into the fourth fall and winter seasons of the pandemic.

According to official figures tallied on Worldometer, known to be vast undercounts, there have been 92,883 deaths from COVID-19 in the US and 360,852 globally in the year since Biden’s statement. According to the Economist, there have been 161,741 excess deaths in the US and 4.5 million globally over the past year.

Just three months after Biden’s comments, after an unrelenting campaign that included threats by major corporations such as Nike to move production elsewhere, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) lifted its Zero COVID elimination policy. This unleashed a catastrophic wave of mass infection and death, which multiple scientific studies have since estimated caused at least 1–2 million deaths in China from COVID-19 as virtually the entire population of 1.4 billion people were infected.

At the same time, Biden’s lie was seized upon by the corporate media and virtually every world government to deepen their propaganda campaign aimed at forcing the population to accept unending waves of mass infection, death and debilitation from COVID-19. This culminated in the unscientific ending of the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) declarations by the World Health Organization (WHO) on May 5, 2023, and the Biden administration on May 11, 2023.

Just six weeks later, in late June, the latest wave of the pandemic began to sweep across the United States. Due to the complete ending of testing, case reporting and other surveillance by the Centers for Disease Control and Transmission (CDC), it has only been detectable through wastewater sampling, which shows that viral transmission has rapidly increased more than four-fold in the past three months.

Extrapolating from the wastewater data, infectious disease modeler JP Weiland estimates that 10–12 percent of the US population has been infected or reinfected with COVID-19 during the present surge, a staggering 33–40 million people. He projects that in the next six weeks another 23–33 million people will be infected, meaning that in total this wave will likely have infected 56–73 million Americans, or 17–22 percent of the US population.

At the same time, COVID-19 hospitalizations have more than tripled across the US, with 20,538 hospitalized from COVID during the week ending September 9, the most recent data available. As this is a lagging indicator, it will continue to rise in the weeks ahead.

According to Weiland, the average American has now been infected with COVID at least twice, and by this winter likely three times. Similar rates exist in virtually every country except China, where the majority of the population has only been infected once since the lifting of Zero COVID.

There is nothing like this scale of infection with any virus or pathogen in human history, in which a population of 8 billion people is being subjected to repeated waves of global mass infection in such a concentrated time frame.

The current global wave is being fueled by multiple Omicron variants, including the immune-evasive EG.5 (nicknamed “Eris”), and a number of variants referred to as “FLip” because they contain a combination of mutations that flip the positions of two amino acids, labeled F and L.

The highly-mutated Omicron BA.2.86 subvariant (nicknamed “Pirola”) continues to concern scientists globally. Initial studies have produced contradictory results on Pirola’s level of immune escape and infectiousness, but it continues to spread globally at an alarming rate.

Noted variant tracker and molecular biologist Marc Johnson tweeted Sunday, “BA.2.86 has remained the fastest growing lineage in the world since it emerged, with sequence numbers doubling about every week. If the advantage is not coming from immune evasion, it must have something else going for it.”

Most leading variant trackers have warned that the descendants of Pirola could pick up mutations which make it more transmissible, potentially causing an Omicron-type event of global mass infection in the weeks or months ahead.

The very evolution of this variant is a sign of the continued fitness of SARS-CoV-2 (its ability to reproduce efficiently) and thus its ability to mutate further. It highlights the ongoing danger that a variant could evolve that combines greater immune escape, infectivity and lethality, rendering existing vaccines totally ineffective and causing far greater levels of death. This very real danger is completely ignored by every world government and corporate media outlet.

Furthermore, SARS-CoV-2 is evolving under conditions in which genomic surveillance has collapsed alongside aspects of pandemic surveillance, particularly since the ending of the PHE declarations in May.

Contrary to the lies and propaganda of Biden and the corporate media, the pandemic is not going away. All principled scientists understand that we remain in the beginning stages of the pandemic and that under existing policies COVID-19 will remain a dangerous pathogen for the foreseeable future.

Trevor Bedford, one of the world’s top evolutionary biologists, recently told the Seattle Times, “I’m generally very concerned about the overall rate of evolution for SARS-CoV-2. No single [Omicron] variant has been that impactful, but the overall accumulation of these mutations is having significant impact.”

At the American Society of Virology conference in June, Bedford said that SARS-CoV-2 is “evolving just as fast as it was in 2021, evolving about two-and-a-half times faster than influenza H3N2 … and is not really showing signs of slowing down.”

Biologist Arijit Chakravarty, who heads a research team that has made some of the most prescient analyses throughout the pandemic, made similar statements in a July interview with the World Socialist Web Site. He stressed that the very policies now in place only accelerate the process of viral evolution, creating a high likelihood that at a certain point a variant will evolve that causes existing vaccines to be unable to protect against severe disease and death, essentially putting mankind back at square one or even worse.

Arijit Chakravarty [Photo: Arijit Chakravarty]

In the interview, Chakravarty said,

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.

Characterizing the ending the PHE declarations as “Orwellian Newspeak” which leave society with nothing in place to protect against a more dangerous variant, he commented,

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.

Finally, Chakravarty stressed that this is only the beginning of the pandemic, saying,

The path that we are on with respect to the pandemic is unsustainable, meaning neither is it inevitable, nor is it something that can continue indefinitely… This is Act One of a three-act play, and in Act Two things could really get ugly, to be honest. Things look dark now because what we have done from a public health standpoint is we’ve declared the war over unilaterally.

Alongside the dangers of viral evolution, the breadth of Long COVID continues to expand into what is now undeniably a “mass disabling event” throughout the world.

Multiple comprehensive studies indicate that at least 10 percent of people infected with COVID-19 go on to develop Long COVID. This risk is only slightly reduced by vaccination and is compounded with each reinfection. Recent studies have indicated that even asymptomatic cases can lead to SARS-CoV-2 persisting in the body, potentially causing long-term damage without the patient even being aware of it.

Due to the criminal response of world capitalism, no treatments for Long COVID are yet available and it is unclear when such treatments will be available. Multiple scientists have predicted that in the years ahead potentially billions of people could be suffering from one or multiple Long COVID symptoms, placing ever greater strains on healthcare systems and the basic functioning of society.

In a recent report published in Nature, the authors wrote,

The oncoming burden of long COVID faced by patients, health-care providers, governments and economies is so large as to be unfathomable, which is possibly why minimal high-level planning is currently allocated to it. If 10% of acute infections lead to persistent symptoms, it could be predicted that ~400 million individuals globally are in need of support for long COVID.

Again, this scale of mass debilitation is unprecedented in human history. The horrific reality now confronting hundreds of millions of people, many of whom suffer debilitating symptoms such as extreme fatigue, evidently does not factor into the calculations of Biden or any other politician who pretend that the pandemic is over.

United Nations UNHCR Fellowship 2024

APPLICATION DEADLINE:

30th Dec 2023

Tell Me About United Nations UNHCR Fellowship:

Are you passionate about international relations, refugee issues, and humanitarian response? Do you have a degree in international relations, political sciences, law, or a related field? If so, the UNHCR Fellowship in New York might be the perfect opportunity for you. This fellowship offers recent graduates or 2024-degree candidates the chance to work closely with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and contribute to global humanitarian efforts.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a leading international organization dedicated to protecting the rights and well-being of refugees and displaced persons around the world. UNHCR provides essential support to those forced to flee their homes due to conflict, persecution, or other crises.

As a UNHCR Fellow, you will have the unique opportunity to work in New York and play a vital role in advancing UNHCR’s mission. Here are some of the key responsibilities and activities you will be involved in:

Responsibilities:

• Attend and report on assigned meetings promptly.
• Support UNHCR’s engagement with humanitarian, development, and other UN bodies and processes.
• Monitor, analyze, and report on key developments related to issues affecting UNHCR’s operations.
• Stay informed about UNHCR’s global operations and policies, facilitating smooth information flow.
• Promote UNHCR’s objectives through participation in briefings and inter-agency meetings.
• Advocate for the inclusion of UNHCR positions in UN policies.
• Follow and report on relevant negotiations and high-level events.
• Conduct research on topics of relevance and interest.
• Support UNHCR’s participation in international and bilateral forums in New York.
• Assist in planning and organizing public events.

TYPE:

Fellowship

Who Can Apply For United Nations UNHCR Fellowship?

To be eligible for this fellowship, you must meet the following criteria:

• Be a 2024-degree candidate or recent graduate from a UNESCO-accredited university.
• Hold a degree in international relations, political sciences, law, or a related field.
• Demonstrate a strong commitment to international relations, refugee issues, and humanitarian response.
• Possess fluency in English with excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Be proficient in PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, Excel, and Teams.

Funding and Medical Insurance:

Selected candidates are required to demonstrate a guaranteed funding source for the one-year period of the fellowship. Additionally, candidates must arrange and provide proof of valid medical insurance covering the fellowship period.

Equal Opportunity Employer:

UNHCR is committed to diversity and welcomes applications from qualified candidates regardless of disability, gender identity, marital or civil partnership status, race, color, ethnic and national origins, religion or belief, or sexual orientation.

COVID-19 Vaccination Requirement:

Recruitment as a UNHCR staff member or engagement under a UNHCR affiliate scheme is subject to proof of vaccination against COVID-19.

WHICH COUNTRIES ARE ELIGIBLE?

Any

WHERE WILL AWARD BE TAKEN?

New York, USA

HOW MANY AWARDS?

Not specified

What Is The Benefit Of United Nations UNHCR Fellowship?

Training and Learning Components:

During your fellowship, you will have access to a range of training courses, including security, prevention of harassment, protection, and more. You will also have regular meetings with your supervisor to reflect on your experiences and learning opportunities.

Through your daily work, you will gain valuable insights into UNHCR and UNHQ structure and processes, develop drafting and analytical skills, and engage in professional networking at an international level. You will also have the opportunity to work on research projects related to UNHCR’s mandate.

HOW LONG WILL AWARD LAST?

6 months beginning January 2, 2024

How To Apply:

UNHCR does not charge a fee at any stage of its recruitment process, and applications are encouraged from all qualified candidates without distinction on grounds of race, color, sex, national origin, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

We especially welcome applications from candidates with a refugee or stateless background who can bring unique perspectives to our team.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Epidemic or Revolution: The Other Side of the West Africa Upheaval

Ramzy Baroud

Image of a dirt road in West Africa.

Image by Annie Spratt.

What if the “epidemic of coups” in West and Central Africa is not that at all, but a direct outcome of outright revolutionary movements, similar to the anti-colonial movements that liberated most African nations from the yoke of Western colonialism throughout the 20th century?

Whether this is the case or not, we are unlikely to find out anytime soon, simply because the voices of these African nations are largely and deliberately muted.

In order for us to understand the real motives behind the spate of military takeovers in West and Central Africa – eight since 2020 – we are, sadly, compelled to read about it in Western media.

And that is a major part of the problem. Simply put, Western media has failed to convey the deeper social and economic contexts behind the political upheaval in various African regions.

The near-complete control over the narrative, however, is deliberate.

In a relatively comprehensive description of Oligue Nguema, the new leader of Gabon, the BBC website offered nothing of substance in terms of familiarizing us with the motives behind the military’s move against the corrupt, long-time leader of Gabon, Ali Bongo.

Of course, the voice of Nguema himself was almost completely absent in the piece.

It is difficult and time-consuming to find a cohesive, non-filtered political discourse emanating from Gabon – or Mali, Burkina Faso or the rest of the African countries undergoing political transitions now.

What we find instead is news, information and opinions, almost all filtered through Western news agencies, politicians, academics and ‘experts’. Even those who may appear to speak non-conformist language tend to feed the stereotype, perpetuating the mainstream perception of Africa.

A quick examination of recent articles on West Africa in the French media reveals an obvious truth. The language used in deconstructing the recent upheaval demonstrates that no true awakening is underway among the French intelligentsia, even by those who purportedly speak as part of the country’s mainstream ‘left’.

In an interview, published on August 30 in Le Point, French author and expert in African Studies, Antoine Glaser, blames the French government for failing to see how Africa has ‘gone global’.

The article appeared shortly after the Gabon coup. But Glaser’s ideas are not new. He has made several references in the past to such failure, including an article in L’Opinion early in August.

The gist of his argument is that France has failed to understand the changing political dynamics in and around Africa, and that the once tightly French-controlled African markets have been largely occupied by China, Turkey and others.

But the subtle message is this: Africa revolves or should always revolve in France’s orbit, and an alternative understanding must be developed by policymakers in Paris to cope with, or catch up to the new, globalized African politics.

The same sense of entitlement was conveyed in Le Figaro.

Isabelle Lasserre, in her article entitled ‘Gabon: la diplomatie française désarçonnée par l’«épidémie» de coups d’État en Afrique’, speaks of “bathtub torture” of French diplomats.

“They barely believe they can get their heads out of the water when a new putsch plunges it back into them, even more brutally,” she writes.

The ‘brutality’ referenced here is not that suffered by African nations in the painful periods of colonialism, post-colonialism and decolonization, but that of French diplomats.

Lasserre references Macron’s use of the phrase “epidemic of putschs” – “putschs’ being another word for ‘coups’ in German.

It was Macron who popularized the term. It makes Africans appear unruly, sick even. French journalists are now blaming their government for failing to diagnose, let alone remedy, the pan-African disease.

No alternative understanding is possible when the problem is coined in such a way, where the blame is squarely on Africans, and the lesser blame – of simply failing to understand – is placed on France and other Western governments.

“In Africa, one coup does not drive out another but adds to the previous one,” Lasserre writes.

In other words, it is an African-induced chaos, and Europe is suffering and shouldering its consequences – ‘a white man’s burden’ of sorts.

Little attention has been paid to the possibility that perhaps African countries are fed up with the old apparatus, that of Western-supported wealthy and violent dictators – and supposed ‘democrats’ – who squander their country’s wealth to remain in power.

Gabon is a very rich country in terms of energy resources, lumber, manganese and iron. But its tiny population of 2.3 million is very poor.

This racket of exploitation has been sustained for decades simply because it served the interests of the local rulers and their multinational partners.

What other means of protests do the people of Gabon – or Mali, or all the rest – have, when mass rallies are violently crushed and the media is tightly controlled? – aside, of course, from military coups.

This does not seem to be the heart of the matter to many in the French media, who are mostly concerned about losing their stronghold in Africa to China, Russia and others.

Instead, some in the media are even flouting the theory that Africans are impressed with the persona of ‘strongmen‘ of non-democratic regimes – a direct reference to Russia and China.

Although the ‘strongman theory’ has long been discounted, or at least lost its appeal in academic circles, it is often applied in its old form and ugly insinuations in Western understanding of Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

It would make no sense for Africans to reject democracy, one that is based on true equality, fair distribution of wealth, ample opportunities, freedom of expression and the press, and all the rest. The only explanation, though often communicated indirectly, is that they all suffered from collective malaise, which complicates the supposedly noble mission of Western countries.

In truth, many African nations – as demonstrated by the latest popular military takeovers – deeply resent Western governments for the right reasons: their military interventions, economic exploitation, political meddling and a lingering sense of superiority.

Rarely do we hear such alternative views because we are not meant to. The political discourse emanating from West Africa, although largely inaccessible, speaks of a collective desire for a paradigm shift.

“It is necessary for this fight to go through arms, but also through our values, our behavior, and the recovery of our economy”, said Ibrahim Traoré, the transitional President of Burkina Faso.

In his speech, late last year, he declared that “the fight for total independence has begun.”

A similar sentiment was conveyed by Assimi Goita, President of the Transition in Mali when he spoke about the need to ‘regain’ the nation’s dignity in the context of ‘colonial domination’.

France’s and other Western countries’ ‘experts’ should fundamentally reconsider their understanding of Africa.

They should also diversify their political lexicon, to include ‘dignity’, ‘values’, ‘liberation’ and ‘total independence,’ because, clearly, the language of ‘epidemic of coups’ and other self-serving, convenient phraseology has completely failed.

UK retail chain Wilko collapses, threatening 12,500 jobs

Ioan Petrescu

Hundreds of stores of the retail giant Wilko will close in the coming weeks, after talks to rescue the bankrupt company failed.

Administrators at PwC confirmed on Monday that nearly 300 Wilko stores and its distribution centers will cease operations in the coming weeks. The company collapsed owing £410.9 million to landlords, suppliers, HM Revenue & Customs and others.

Since the bankruptcy announcement August 10, last-ditch efforts by HMV owner Doug Putman to strike a rescue deal aimed at taking over 200 stores took place, only to fall through. Administrators at PwC explained, “no aspect of the retail chain could be salvaged in its current configuration”.

Wilko closing down sale, Wood Green, north London [Photo by Philafrenzy - Own work / CC BY-SA 4.0]

At the beginning of the year, Wilko borrowed £40 million from Hilco Capital, a financial services holding company that specialises in restructuring distressed companies. Hilco has been separately advising the administrators (PwC) on the possible liquidation of assets, suggesting plans for the bankruptcy of Wilko were made as long as nine months ago. Hilco’s deal will reap rewards with the Sunday Times noting, “Hilco also stands to rake in fees from the liquidation of Wilko’s stock, valued at £117.6 million when the discount chain collapsed.”

In recent months, Wilko also considered entering a “company voluntary agreement” (CVA, in which an insolvent business proposes a repayment plan for its debts over a specified period) with some of its landlords, in return for reduced rents. Management eventually decided against it, for undisclosed reasons.

PwC had already offloaded 51 sites out of Wilko’s total of 408 to its competitor, B&M, for £13 million, while announcing the closure of 52 others. On Tuesday, rival retailer Poundland announced that it will take over another 71 Wilko stores and rebrand them under its name. The following day, another retailer, The Range, bought Wilko’s brand for £5 million, including its online operations.

The collapse of Wilko will mean job losses for most of its 12,500 employees, with as many as 1,300 being dismissed as soon as next week, when the first stores begin to close. The rest of the stores are set to close by early October. Employees will be asked to work two extra days after closure.

Workers in stores that have been acquired by competitors are not safe either, with Poundland only saying it will give “priority” to former Wilko workers when hiring new staff for the shops.

Another 300 jobs were lost last week when Wilko’s two big warehouses in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, and Newport, Wales, were closed. Most of the redundancies take place in poorer areas of the UK, where the affected workers will have a hard time finding alternative employment, amid a biting cost-of-living crisis.

The failure of Wilko is another in a mounting string of bankruptcies of traditional “brick-and-mortar” retailers, such as Debenhams and Arcadia in the UK, and Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof in Germany. In terms of the numbers of staff and stores, this is the largest retail failure since Woolworths in 2008, and the second largest in terms of turnover (£1.2 billion compared to Debenhams’ £1.3 billion in 2020).

High street retailers face increasing pressure from online retailers such as Amazon, ballooning rents, especially in prime locations in city centers, as well as declining demand with mounting inflation and falling real-terms wages leaving workers unable to afford to buy as much as they used to.

Wilko was one of the oldest retailers in Britain. It was founded as a shop (then named Wilkinson) in Leicester in 1930 by James Kemsey Wilkinson. It expanded across the Midlands initially and by the 1990s became one of Britain’s fastest-growing retailers. It rebranded as Wilko in 2012. The chain benefited from the collapse of Woolworths in 2008 but its failure to adapt to the switch to online shopping meant that its sales started falling below those of its lower-cost competitors such as Poundland, Home Bargains and The Range.

According to the Financial Time (FT), “a combination of supply-side problems and not enough liquidity to get those supplies back in again, has meant shrinking sales”. Wilko reported sales of £1.3 billion in the year to January 29, 2022, down from £1.6 billion in 2018. The group plunged to a £36.7 million loss before tax that year, from a £4.3 million profit the year before.

Some big suppliers, including Unilever and Procter & Gamble, which provide many staple household cleaning and food products, refused to supply the store until their debts were repaid, which led to empty shelves compounding the drop in sales. By August 10, Wilko owed about £70 million to suppliers and would have needed at least this amount to continue trading.

This proved a major stumbling block for any investors looking to acquire Wilko on a “going concern” basis. HMV owner Doug Putman was initially interested in an acquisition but pulled out after learning the extent of Wilko’s debts. As a result, a veritable vultures’ feast is taking place, with rival retailers cherry-picking the most profitable parts from Wilko’s corpse to add to their own businesses.

Despite its worsening financial situation, the retailer continued to pay its owners £2.25 million in dividends during 2021 and a further £750,000 in February 2022. Over the past decade, Wilko shareholders, most prominently the Wilkinson family, extracted £77 million in dividends from the company—more than the amount owed to suppliers by the end. Over the last 20 years the family took out more than £100 million in dividends from Wilko.

In a final kick in the teeth, “Members of Wilko’s pension scheme face a cut to their savings after the collapsed retailer’s defined benefit scheme fell into the Pension Protection Fund (PPF),” reported the Sunday Times. The newspaper added, “The deficit in the scheme, with some 2,000 members, has swelled to £76 million on a buyout basis, according to the latest estimates from administrators at PwC, greater than the £50 million initially thought.” While the “PPF, an industry-backed lifeboat, stands ready to plug much of the shortfall,” the result is that “members of the scheme at retirement age will receive their full pension; those under that age face a 10 per cent cut to benefits.”

The trade union representing Wilko workers, the GMB, has played its usual role during the entire affair, supporting the owners over the workers. Even though it was aware of the retailer’s dire financial straits, the union did not warn workers of the threat to their jobs, nor did it mount any struggle in their defence. Throughout the bankruptcy proceedings, the union acted as a partner to the company, aiming to make the store closures as smooth as possible, while merely “pushing” for any prospective new owners to retain as many Wilko staff as possible.

The GMB were complicit in attacks against the workers, as was tacitly admitted by Nadine Houghton, national officer of the union, when she said “GMB members have remained loyal and committed to Wilko, accepting pay cuts and cuts to terms and conditions to help the business stay afloat”.

The union betrayed struggles by Wilko workers in 2019 (calling off a strike against the introduction of a seven-day schedule described as “brutal”) and in 2021, when the retail chain cut workers’ sick pay. This, while Wilko stores remained open during the entire COVID-19 pandemic with its workers on the frontline. In 2017, the GMB collaborated with management to cut 1,000 jobs after the retail chain recorded an 80 percent drop in profits the previous year.