In cooperation with the German Federal Foreign Office the World Cinema Fund launched a special funding opportunity for projects from sub-Saharan Africa in 2016. All WCF submissions with projects from sub-Saharan Africa will automatically also be considered for special funding by the WCF Africa program.
The WCF aims to support films in the WCF regions/countries by developing active cooperation between producers and directors from these regions and German partners. Therefore, German film companies play an important role in the structure of the WCF – in a cultural-political and in economic way.
TYPE:
Grants
Who Can Apply?
Eligible to apply are:
film production companies from sub-Saharan African regions, that can confirm their collaboration with a director from a sub-Saharan Africa region/country or
registered film production companies based in Germany (in the commercial register or registered trade) that can prove a working relationship with a director from a sub-Saharan Africa region/country or
registered film production companies from other EU member states provided they have a branch or place of business in Germany and can prove a working relationship with a director from a sub-Saharan Africa region.
HOW MANY AWARDS?
Not specified
What Is The Benefit Of Award?
Maximum funding: 40,000 Euros for post-production funding.
The total production costs of the supported projects should range between 200,000 Euros and 1,400,000 Euros.
The funding must be spent on the post-production of the film in the aforementioned regions.
How To Apply:
There are two submission processes per year.
The deadline for the first submission process is the end of February/beginning of March. The jury meetings in which decisions are made on these submissions are usually held at the end of June/beginning of July.
The deadline for the second submission process is in July and jury meetings to decide on these submissions are usually held in early November.
The following documents must be attached to the online Submission Form (in English or French):
Financing information:
Financing Plan in Euros and in the respective local currency (if available). A model financing plan can be downloaded here. The financing plan must contain the following information: names of the companies/partners involved, type of financing (funds, own investment, in-kind contributions, Sales/MG, etc.), shares (in percentage) of the respective partners, broken down by country in each case. Please also indicate which amounts are already secured and which are still open (as well as the estimated date on which a response/decision is expected).
Budget (detailed): in Euros and local currency (if available).
Contracts and agreements: all financing agreements and/or letters of intent from financing partners that have already been confirmed.
Signed co-production contracts/cooperation agreements or deal memos.
Rights transfer: The transfer of rights is a document or contract that transfers the rights of the screenwriter to the producer and officially authorizes the latter to use the screenplay for a film project. If the author and the producer are the same person, it is not necessary to attach the statement.
An artistic/visual concept with a mood board, casting, locations, editing, narrative concept, etc.
A password-protected link to the rough cut, including English or French subtitles (in case the original language is none of these).
Application Deadline: 29th March 2024 11:59 PM SAST.
About the Google DeepMind AI Scholarships: We invite students from across Africa to apply to be part of the September 2024 cohort and become one of our 40 Google DeepMind Scholars for the 2024-25 academic year!
A Google DeepMind donation funds 40 scholars per year for the four years starting September 2023. The funding covers full scholarships, equipment and computation costs for students. Our scholars are Google DeepMind scholars, and have opportunities to connect with Google DeepMind’s researchers and engineers for mentoring and support.
Increasing representation in AI offers a huge opportunity to bring diverse values, hopes, and concerns into conversations about the design and deployment of AI – and this is critical if AI is going to be a technology that benefits everyone. We also believe this is key to the potential for AI being one of the most important technologies ever invented.
We established the scholarship programme in an effort to help build a stronger and more inclusive AI community, who can bring a wider range of experiences to the fields of AI and computer science. The scholarships provide financial support to students from underrepresented groups seeking to study graduate courses relating to AI and adjacent fields. Scholars are also offered support from a DeepMind mentor, and have opportunities to attend leading AI academic conferences and DeepMind events.
AI for Science is a stream in AIMS South Africa‘s Master’s degree in Mathematical Science, made possible through a partnership with Google DeepMind. The program sits at the exciting intersection of AI and the Sciences. This exciting program started with its first intake of students in September 2023. It is a fully residential one-year taught masters with a research component. Applications are open to students from across Africa who are passionate about mathematics, artificial intelligence and machine learning. We are looking for students who gaze at the stars and the world around them in wonder, and who want to use their talents to accelerate scientific discovery.
Type: Masters’
Eligibility:
Applications are open to students from across Africa who are passionate about mathematics, artificial intelligence and machine learning.
We are looking for students who gaze at the stars and the world around them in wonder, and who want to use their talents to accelerate scientific discovery.
The initial focus areas of the program is AI and machine learning in cosmology, epidemiology and ecology.
Selection Criteria: Universities offer scholarships to promising students from underrepresented groups who need funding to take up a place on a postgraduate course relating to AI.
Eligible Countries: International
Number of Awards: 40
Value of Google DeepMind AI Scholarships: The scholarships aim to ensure that scholars receive full financial support (tuition, stipend or living costs, and a grant for necessary equipment and attendance at an academic conference). Scholars are generally supported financially for the duration of their study, from the year they join their course. In a few cases, where graduate funding is already available through the university or department, DeepMind scholarships serve to enhance the existing funding, support the educational experience, and give the scholar the opportunity to focus more fully on their studies.
How to Apply: Scholarships are offered by participating universities directly to applicants for specific AI-related courses. Universities make information about upcoming DeepMind scholarships available when these opportunities are open.
It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.
A central feature of the campaign for Indonesia’s upcoming presidential election, due to be held on February 14, is the candidates’ response to the worsening economic situation and social crisis. The Indonesian economy has suffered major impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent rampant global inflation.
Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto, left, with his running mate Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the eldest son of Indonesian President Joko Widodo, at a televised vice presidential candidates' debate in Jakarta, Jan. 21, 2024. [AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana]
The outgoing administration of President Joko Widodo has imposed the burden of the economic shocks on the vast Indonesian working class and rural masses, with poverty, unemployment and wealth inequality figures climbing since 2020.
Economic growth in 2023 reached 4.9 percent in the third quarter, the slowest in two years. The slowdown is largely attributed to domestic interest rate hikes over the past two years, along with weakening global demand and falling commodity prices. According to the IMF, GDP growth in 2024 is forecast at just 5.0 percent.
The World Bank states that Indonesia has yet to fully recover to its pre-2020 economic trajectory. The global economic shock brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic led to a recession in 2020, Indonesia’s first since the 1998 Asian financial crisis. Before this, however, the country was already confronting economic stagnation in the 2010s.
In 2022, the resource-rich nation experienced a relative expansion, riding a global commodities boom, while the government worked to rapidly reopen the tourism industry even as COVID-19 continued to spread. Economic commentators are now warning that the incoming government will face major economic challenges.
In January 2023, Tempo magazine reported that the KAHMI Entrepreneurs Association chairman, Kamrussamad, told stakeholders in a Jakarta meeting titled Economic Outlook 2023: “We all know that the unemployment and poverty rates have not experienced any significant decline in the past five years, even though economic growth has started to improve.”
The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) recorded Indonesia’s unemployment rate in August 2023 at 5.3 percent, or 7.86 million people. BPS said that, although this marked a 0.54 decrease from the same month last year, the labour market had not returned to the pre-pandemic level.
This official rate, however, only gives an indication of the real social crisis facing workers and youth. Unemployment is underestimated as there is no government data for underemployment, referring to part-timers and casuals who cannot find full-time work or skilled workers in low-skill jobs. This continues to be a major issue in rural areas and among urban poor, especially after the wave of job losses since the pandemic began.
BPS noted an explosion of young people working informally in hospitality, including accommodation and food and beverages. Of the total number of working individuals, 23 percent are self-employed while 14 percent are in businesses assisted by non-permanent labour.
According to the World Bank, 9.5 percent of Indonesians, or 26.2 million people, are living below the poverty line, with a greater proportion of poor living in cities than in rural areas. However, as with unemployment figures, this only provides part of the full picture.
Over 40 percent of the Indonesian population is deemed “economically insecure” by the World Bank, with a “high risk” of falling back into poverty in the event of economic shocks and downturns, or events such as pandemics and natural disasters, whose frequency and severity are increasing due to climate change.
University of Indonesia economist Fithra Faisal Hastiadi said that inflation continues to be a major concern for lower income earners. “For people in the bottom 40 percent of income earners … this [inflation] rate is not affordable … [therefore] jobs and prices are viewed as their top priorities,” Fithra told Al Jazeera.
In the capital, Jakarta, a rapidly growing megacity of over 32 million residents, the cost of living has soared over the past four years. The city’s average monthly household consumption rose to IDR14.88 million ($US950) last year, a major increase from pre-pandemic surveys.
The Indonesian rupiah is ranking among the worst-performing currencies in Asia. In response to an interest rate hike last October, car loans and housing mortgages have skyrocketed. Food insecurity was also on the rise last year with the price of rice, Indonesia’s main staple, surging into the new year.
Many workers have posted on social media that 2023 was the worst year they had ever experienced. According to the Straits Times, a Jakarta copywriter, Adhin Ardhana, wrote on Twitter/X: “All prices rose. ... Equity stock prices down, [financial] wars, a lot of businesses collapsed, widespread job cuts ... Everyone is trying to deal with his own problems. No one is helping you except yourself. Be ready.”
Jakarta State University (UNJ) economist Dianta Sebayang told Jakarta Post last August, “The poor’s income vulnerability is highly correlated to fuel, electricity and food prices, all of which depend on energy and agricultural subsidies.” This was demonstrated in 2022, when a wave of price hikes in basic commodities, including cooking oil and fuel, sparked mass protests.
Dianta warned, “Widening inequality will bring about social conflict.”
The Widodo government’s pro-corporate response to the COVID-19 pandemic, involving massive bailout packages for the financial elite, has resulted in an explosive growth in social inequality. In March 2023, reports showed that the expenditure gap between the rich and poor had reached a record high in the past five years. The wealthiest 20 percent accounted for nearly 50 percent of national spending.
As of 2022, Indonesia ranked sixth in the world for wealth inequality. Income disparity has grown faster over the past 20 years than in any other Southeast Asian country. Oxfam estimates that the four richest individuals in Indonesia are worth more than the combined wealth of the poorest 100 million people.
From 2020 to 2023, inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient on a scale of 0 [complete equality] to 1 [absolute inequality] inched up to 0.409 from the previous 0.393. Financial research institute Indef admitted that government policies had contributed to this bump in inequality, including luxury tax cuts for the wealthy and Bank Indonesia’s interest rate hikes. “With no increase in income, the poor [need to scale back consumption],” said institute researcher Nailul Huda.
This is the highly volatile social context for the 2024 presidential election campaign. As part of his efforts to promote himself as a defender of ordinary people, Ganjar Pranowo, the candidate of Widodo’s party PDI-P, recently promised to create 17 million new jobs, particularly aimed at young people, in a “Quick to Get Work” initiative. Youth unemployment officially stood at 13 percent by the end of 2022.
The other two candidates have not commented specifically on social issues, but have elaborated their own economic policies.
Prabowo Subianto, Widodo’s defence minister, who is currently leading in the polls, has stated he will continue Widodo’s infrastructure investment and “downstreaming” policy, with commodities mined in the country to be processed domestically rather than exported. His election manifesto also pledges to develop rural areas, providing direct cash aid and building low-cost homes.
Anies Baswedan, the former governor of Jakarta, has pledged to reform the country’s booming natural resources industry. Anies’ spokesman, Tom Lembong, told Al Jazeera that economic growth had become dominated by mining industries and that putting growth on a “more diversified and sustainable footing” would lessen the “divides between the rich and poor as well as developed and less-developed regions.” This will include developing other industries in at least 14 smaller cities, so that each becomes a “more dynamic growth engine for the regions around them.”
Such bogus promises serve to disguise the underlying agenda of all three candidates, who are all committed to defending Indonesian capitalism at a time of international economic and geopolitical crisis. This requires the systematic suppression of wages and destruction of workers’ conditions to ensure global competitiveness.
The Indonesian ruling class is keenly aware of the social consequences of these dire economic conditions. This is precisely why such a figure as Prabowo Subianto, the notorious Suharto-era general, has been promoted at this time as a key presidential candidate. With the growing danger of social unrest, calculations are being made by the country’s financial elite as to which candidate can best use authoritarian measures to suppress opposition.
Last week, following the imposition of a State of Emergency in Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) capital, Port Moresby, in response to widespread rioting and looting, the government threatened a complete shutdown of social media.
For 24 hours beginning January 10, simmering social discontent driven by escalating living costs, erupted into chaos in Port Moresby and other centres after police and armed services personnel walked out and protested over persistent shortages in their pay. Buildings and shops were looted and torched, and 22 deaths resulted. Calls for a nationwide strike were also raised.
Port Moresby shop on fire in Papua New Guinea after rioting on January 10, 2024 [Photo: Facebook/Isaac A Itsima]
With troops and armoured vehicles deployed in the streets of the capital, Prime Minister James Marape on Friday imposed a two-week State of Emergency. It contained draconian measures, including the “absolute right” of searches of private homes, property, vehicles and phones by government agents.
On January 16, ICT and Telecommunications Minister Timothy Masiu, a former journalist, declared the government would not hesitate to shut down social media sites and apps if there was “continuous abuse” of social media “spreading fake news, misinformation and disinformation.”
Masiu claimed there was a “sharp spike” in social media activity spreading “false information” connected with the destruction of properties and deaths during the previous week’s events, which the media has now termed “Black Wednesday.”
The police cybercrime unit and other agencies have been instructed to strengthen monitoring and begin investigations with a view to prosecutions. Spreading “false information or confidential government information, opinions that are wrong…or hearsay and defamatory” will be subject to legal action. If people fail to adhere, Matiu declared, they will face a complete shutdown of social media for the remainder of the 14-day State of Emergency.
The extraordinary powers granted under the emergency legislation allows the government to require telcos and other licensees who provide ICT services to restrict or delay certain communications and disclose the content of communications to the minister. The threatened activation of these measures has raised concerns by NGOs, human rights groups and others over the likely infringement of constitutional rights and privacy.
Police have meanwhile warned people holding looted items to return them or face the “consequences.” Emergency Controller and acting Police Commssioner Donald Yamasombi said that after a narrow “grace period” police would enter the homes of “people suspected of keeping stolen properties.”
The threat raises the likelihood of police searches of hundreds of homes throughout the capital without warrants, evidence or due process and followed by swift prosecutions. It portends an escalating assault on basic legal rights which will only exacerbate social discontent and resentment of the authorities.
Tensions have erupted among the political elite over the apportioning of blame. The pay deductions which triggered the protests amounted to between $US26-80 per fortnight—about half the take-home salary for some public servants. The government claimed the issue was caused by a “glitch” in the payroll system which would be fixed—a claim nobody believes.
In order to deflect responsibility, Marape has made unsubstantiated assertions that the riots were organised, hinting at the involvement of opposition politicians. Pending a formal inquiry, Police Commissioner David Manning and senior bureaucrats in the finance and treasury departments have been suspended.
Amid government claims that sections of the police facilitated the rioting, Yamasombi last week sacked Assistant Commissioner Anthony Wagambie and warned police to perform their duty “without fear or favour.” Many retailers reacted to the news by shutting their shops fearing repeated disorder.
The explosive tensions highlight the vast gulf that separates the poverty-stricken PNG masses from the country’s corrupt and venal political establishment. Trust in the entire ruling elite has disintegrated following decades of social deprivation buttressed by authoritarian military-police measures.
The seething social discontent that resulted in the riots is the product of widespread poverty, inequality, frustration and alienation. Elections, including the one in 2022 that installed Marape, have been mired in violence and corruption, with thousands of voters disenfranchised, and are widely regarded as illegitimate.
Port Moresby is at the centre of an escalating social crisis. The city has a large population of unemployed, many young and living in impoverished shanty settlements. They have moved from the provinces seeking refuge from rampant poverty and violence. National Capital District Governor Powes Parkop is demanding a Vagrancy Act to push people who he denounces as “not fit and proper” out of the capital.
PNG, an Australian colony until its nominal independence in 1975, is rich is natural resources but remains one of the world’s most unequal countries. Conditions for the working class and rural masses are dire and getting worse. According to UNICEF, of the 10.3 million population, 40 percent live below the extreme poverty line and 41 percent of children live in poverty.
The cost-of-living crisis comes on top of a decade of deteriorating living conditions. Inflation averaging 5 percent per year for 10 years has degraded the value of take-home pay. Cost of living adjustments for public servants have typically been around 3 percent.
The minimum wage has not been significantly increased since 2013 and is only worth half what it was. The Post Courier last December declared the minimum wage to be “obsolete.” Since 2016 it has been 3.50 PNG Kina ($US0.94) per hour—a can of tinned fish currently costs K5.90. “It is a death trap for PNG families who cannot feed, clothe and manage their lives on K280 ($US75) per fortnight,” the newspaper declared.
Unemployment is skyrocketing. The state employs about 700,000 people and the formal private sector 260,000—the latter declining from 305,000 in 2013. The COVID pandemic, allowed to run unchecked by the government, exacerbated the situation. The Seekjob website, which has 110,000 visits per month, recently reported 86,262 people registered for just 213 jobs advertised. PNG has no social “safety net” such as unemployment insurance, welfare, Medicare or old age schemes.
An arrogant, corrupt and wealthy elite meanwhile flaunts its privileges. In October 2018 thousands joined a one-day strike to protest the purchase of a fleet of luxury cars for use during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. The government imported 40 high-end Maseratis, costing up to $350,000 each and three luxury Bentleys to ferry dignitaries during the conference. The vehicles are currently rumoured to be languishing in a warehouse at the port.
The damages bill from Black Wednesday is K1.2 billion ($US323.5 million) as estimated by the PNG Business Council to cover the costs of restocking and rebuilding. This does not include such items as wage support for staff who will be without work for long periods. The government is offering only K300 million ($US81 million).
The political fallout continues, including calls for a vote of no confidence against Marape, who has responded with a major cabinet reshuffle. Seven MPs in Marape's government have resigned. Belden Namah, a senior MP and former captain in the PNG Defence Force is the latest, his resignation another blow to the government.
Washington and Canberra are watching closely. In a threatening editorial on January 12, Murdoch’s Australian called the riots a “tragic lapse” for PNG and “a concern for regional security more broadly.” With PNG increasingly on the front line of preparations for war with China, an imperialist intervention is not out of the question. The US and Australia have both signed far-reaching “security” agreements with PNG in the past year giving sweeping access for their police and armed forces.
China’s economy grew by 5.2 percent in 2023, slightly above the official target of 5 percent, and a significant rise from the 3 percent growth in 2022 when anti-COVID measures were in place.
Containers ships at Xiamen in southeast China's Fujian province on Dec. 26, 2023 [AP Photo/Andy Wong]
From late 2022, the government lifted virtually all public health measures under enormous pressure from the imperialist powers and global corporations, resulting in the death of an estimated two million people. It had been hoping for a resultant “boost” to the economy, particularly as a result of increased consumer spending.
Apart from a brief uptick at the start of the year, that has not materialised. While some sectors of the economy are expanding quite rapidly—car production is one—there are growing problems in both the short and longer term.
An immediate issue is that China could be in the grip of a deflation cycle with the risk of what is known as a deflation-debt loop. Chinese consumer prices fell 0.3 percent in December for the third month in a row with producer prices dropping by 2.7 percent.
Prices have now fallen or remained flat in every month since August with the 0.5 percent decline in November the biggest drop in three years.
Deflation means that corporate profits and revenues fall and the debt burden increases. As a result, wage growth will slow, leading to falling consumption spending in conditions where the government is looking to it to boost the economy. Deflation threatens to see off a loop of falling aggregate demand which in turn leads to further deflation.
While showing that GDP came in on target, the data underscored the continuing problems in the property and real estate sector. This has been a mainstay of the Chinese economy for the past decade and half and accounts for around 25-30 percent of the economy when its connection to other sectors is considered.
Investment in property development fell 9.6 percent in 2023 compared to a year earlier, with the price of new homes falling by 0.4 percent for the month of December, the sharpest decline since February 2015. In a sign of conditions in the housing market, existing homes are selling for a fifth less than their peak in the summer of 2021.
The real estate crisis has seen the collapse of major developers Evergrande and Country Garden together with at least 50 other smaller firms that have defaulted on loans. It is now extending into what is known as the shadow banking area of the financial system.
Last July, the wealth management group Zhongzhi revealed it was experiencing difficulties. It announced in November that it was “seriously insolvent” and has since filed for bankruptcy.
In a note on the bankruptcy filing earlier this month, Alicia Garica-Herrero, chief Asia-Pacific economist at the investment firm Natixis, said: “All in all, Zhonghzi’s bankruptcy filing points to the rippling effects of real estate and some failures in the shadow banking sector.”
The bankruptcy is not expected to have major immediate flow-on effects, but it does point to the growing debt problems, especially in the real estate sector. This has led to calls in some quarters for a “bazooka” stimulus package for the economy along the lines of measures the government has taken in the past, if not as large.
This has been ruled out, as was made clear by China’s premier Li Qiang in an address to the World Economic Forum gathering of the global elites at Davos, Switzerland, last Tuesday.
Announcing the GDP number before its official release, Li said the rise from 2022 had been achieved without resorting to “massive stimulus.”
“We did not seek short-term growth while accumulating long-term risks, rather we focused on strengthening internal drivers,” he said, adding that the economy was making “steady progress.”
Likening a viewing of the Chinese economy to zooming out to appreciate the majestic beauty of the European Alps, he said this approach had to be taken for the Chinese economy. “One has to broaden the vision and take a panoramic view … to truly grasp where it is now and where it is going,” he said.
However, he was forced to refer to the giant black cloud which hangs over this panoramic view: the drive by US imperialism to use an arsenal of trade bans and sanctions to suppress the development of the Chinese economy which it regards as existential threat to its global dominance.
Using the veiled language in which Chinese leaders speak of the actions of the US which claims to be upholding a “rules-based order,” Li said: “The question is, what is true multilateralism? Who will set the rules? What are the rules? If the rules are set by certain or a few countries, then we will have to put quotation marks on multilateralism because it will still be unilateralism in nature.”
While Li did not spell out the “long-term risks” the government is seeking to avoid in its opposition to stimulus measures, it was a reference to the growth of debt.
The credit rating agency Moody’s last year issued a negative rating for China’s government debt while another agency, DBRS Morningstar based in Chicago, downgraded its rating in November.
In remarks to the New York Times, Rohini Malkani, a senior for sovereign debt ratings at the agency said that overall debt in the economy now exceeded three years of economic output.
“Over the past 15 years, it has more than doubled” compared to the country’s fast-growing output, she said.
As the GDP figures were announced, another set of data pointed to longer-term problems for the economy. The population in 2023 shrank for the second consecutive year. There were 9.02 million babies born last year compared to 9.56 million in 2022.
The fall in population has significant implications. China’s economic development over the past 30 years was driven by an influx of a cheap young workforce. It is now becoming one of the oldest societies in the world.
Some of the population decline can be attributed to the previous one child policy, the effect of which the government appears to be now trying to turn around.
Recently, according to a report in the NYT, president Xi Jinping urged government officials to promote a “marriage and childbearing culture.” The fact that it seems to be having little effect so far may well indicate a growing lack of confidence in the future.
Many factors may be involved, but one could well be the rise in youth unemployment raising question marks for families about the future for their offspring.
Back in August, the publication of data on youth unemployment—aged between 16 and 24—ceased after it reached over 21 percent. Publication has now been resumed after high school students seeking part-time jobs were excluded. But it still showed a jobless rate for urban youth of nearly 15 percent.
Apart from the decline in births, the population decline reflected the lifting of anti-COVID measures at the start of the year, which resulted in up to two million deaths.
The government was no doubt relieved the growth rate for the year reached its target, but repeating that target—the lowest level in three decades apart from 2022—prove difficult with many predictions that it will fall further.
Summing up to the situation, China economy observer Eswar Prasad of the Brookings Institution, told the Financial Times that the latest data revealed an economy experiencing “at best subdued growth characterised by weak demand and persistently deflationary pressures” which was “not out of the woods.”
The next indication of the direction of official policy will come at the National People’s Congress in March where the decisions reached in the leadership bodies of the ruling Communist party will be announced.
The Malaysian government of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is engaging in a filthy campaign to demonise migrant workers as a means of deflecting public anger over the country’s growing economic crisis. Police last month detained approximately 1,100 migrant workers suspected to be without visas in what was the largest such raid since May 2020.
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, centre with Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, left, and other leaders at UMNO headquarters, Aug. 12, 2023. [AP Photo/Vincent Thian]
On December 21, over 1,000 officers from a militarised section of the Malaysian police force normally used for counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations raided an area along Jalan Tun Tan Siew Sin, located in central Kuala Lumpur.
Frequented by Bangladeshi businesses and workers, the area where the raid occurred has been derogatorily labelled “Mini Dhaka.” Like the vast majority of migrant workers in Malaysia, Bangladeshi workers are engaged almost exclusively in low- and semi-skilled work, often called the “3Ds”: dirty, dangerous, and difficult. Other areas of Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia have similar pejorative labels, such as “Mini Jakarta,” “Mini Yangon,” “Mini Kathmandu,” and “Mini Manila.”
The raid marks a particular low point in the government’s agenda to blame migrant workers—one of the most vulnerable sections of the Malaysian working class—for declining economic conditions, which are entirely the making of Malaysia’s ruling elite.
The raid was aimed at stirring up the most backward and reactionary elements within Malaysian society on the basis of racist slurs. The press sought to justify it by claiming local residents complained of feeling uneasy and uncomfortable around the Bangladeshis, who supposedly behaved “arrogantly.”
One of the filthiest aspects leading up to the police raid was a campaign by TikTok personality Sophian Mohd Zain. One video published on December 8 with 1.3 million views shows him chastising the Malaysian Immigration Department for releasing migrants after only 24 to 48 hours in custody.
Sophian claimed the migrants would go back to stealing the jobs of locals and consuming subsidised goods intended for locals. Sophian is well known for publishing videos doxxing, harassing, and verbally abusing migrants and which have featured him wandering around Jalan Tun Tan Siew Sin railing against Bangladeshi migrants.
No member of Prime Minister Anwar’s so-called “progressive” Pakatan Harapan coalition government has stepped forward to oppose such racism. Instead, one day after the raids, Minister of Economy Rafizi Ramli stated on Twitter/X, “Dependence on foreign workers has reached 2.5 million people (documented, undocumented higher) which narrows the employment space for citizens. The effect is not only on job opportunities, but also the outflow of foreign currency when their salary is sent home every month.”
The government has also claimed that migrant workers are responsible for shortages of subsidised essential items such as cooking oil. Deputy Minister for Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Fuziah Salleh stated in early December that “with the implementation of targeted subsidies and Padu... identification will likely be required in the purchase of subsidised cooking oil in the future.” Padu refers to the government’s central database hub for delivering public services.
Migrant workers constitute a significant and heavily exploited section of the Malaysian working class. Malaysia has a population of approximately 34.2 million and a work force of 16.7 million, which includes about 2.5 million migrants with visas. In addition, estimates of the number of migrants who have overstayed their visas vary but ranges between 1.5 to 3.5 million. Most migrant workers are from Indonesia, Nepal and Bangladesh.
Many migrant workers are lured to Malaysia by promises of jobs that never materialise, despite acquiring proper visas. Without work, they face losing their visas and are then branded as “undocumented.” Adrian Pereira, the executive director of North-South Initiative, a migrant rights group, stated, “There is a huge number of job scams that are happening where workers are trafficked to Malaysia without jobs but using formal working visas.”
The Malaysian government turns a blind eye to this trafficking of migrant workers who are often forced to labour for lower pay and longer working hours. Migrants typically work in manufacturing, construction, plantation work, agriculture, hospitality, and domestic work. Living conditions are substandard and inimical to one’s physical and mental well-being.
For example, in mid-2023, the United Nations labour agency and the International Labor Organization found that about 30 percent of domestic workers toil under exploitative conditions, including excessive work hours, unpaid overtime, low wages, high levels of isolation, and the curtailment of movement. Malaysia has approximately 300,000 to 400,000 such workers, mostly women with about 80 percent from Indonesia.
In the palm oil industry, employing about half a million workers, approximately 80 percent are migrants. Case studies by the International Organization of Migration demonstrate that this industry is based on “[f]orced labour practices such as debt bondage [to pay for highly inflated recruitment and travel costs], deceptive recruitment processes, retention of passports, and limited availability of or access to grievance mechanisms.”
While allowing these conditions to continue for the benefit of big business, the Anwar government is inflaming anti-migrant sentiments as a political safety release valve for mounting and intractable social and economic issues.
Government debt, currently RM1.5 trillion or $US322 billion, is growing and the Malaysian ruling class is forcing the entire working class to foot the bill. The Anwar cabinet plans to cut government subsidies for essential items such as cooking oil, chicken, eggs, and fuel.
The government is also under pressure to reintroduce the widely-hated goods and services tax (GST) in order to boost government revenue and pay down the debt. The current sales and service tax, which replaced the GST in late 2018, only covers 38 percent of goods and services. Under the previous GST, the coverage was 68 percent.
On January 9, Economy Minister Rafizi noted that the government was “open (about GST),” noting that the national debt had increased in 2022. The reintroduction of the GST would lead to a further cost-of-living increase for workers and the poor in particular.
Like its global counterparts, the Malaysian ruling class is shopping around for a scapegoat bag to deflect blame away from its growing attacks on all sections of the working class.
Ford announced Friday it would eliminate a shift at the Detroit-area factory building electric pickup trucks, cutting 1,400 jobs. The move is the latest in a jobs massacre continuing into the new year by corporations across the US and around the world.
The jobs affected are at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Plant (REVC), part of the larger Dearborn Truck complex. Previously, the company announced it was cutting production of its electric F-150s in half, without giving details.
Ford workers at Dearborn Truck Plant
The job cuts announced Friday are even worse than anticipated, affecting roughly two-thirds of the 2,200 workers at REVC. Some 700 workers will be reassigned to the Michigan Assembly Plant and other factories, according to the company, implying that another 700 will be either laid off permanently or forced into early retirement.
The cuts are just the beginning of massive layoffs across the industry, where the transition from gas-powered to electric vehicles (EVs) is being used by the automakers to cut hundreds of thousands of jobs. The cuts bring the total number of announced layoffs at the Detroit Three alone over the past month to nearly 8,000 workers. This includes, in addition to the cuts at REVC:
539 supplemental employees at Stellantis who were summarily fired last week at plants in Detroit and Kokomo, Indiana;
3,680 layoffs previously announced at Stellantis’ Mack Avenue and Toledo Jeep plants;
1,300 cuts at General Motors’ Lake Orion and Lansing Grand River plants;
900 employees at GM Cruise, a subsidiary focusing on automated taxis, equal to 25 percent of the workforce.
Layoffs are also taking place globally, including 2,250 layoffs at Stellantis plants in northern Italy and layoffs across Europe by parts suppliers Continental and Bosch. Ford’s Saarlouis plant is in the process of closing, following a bidding war over cuts and concessions between the auto unions in Germany and Spain.
These layoffs are a devastating exposure of the new auto contracts rammed through last fall by means of lies and fraud by the United Auto Workers bureaucracy after a limited strike deliberately structured by the UAW to limit the impact on production. The union claimed the deals were a turning point marking an end to decades of concessions. It has taken only a few months for the auto companies to launch the deepest cuts since the late 1970s, with the blessings of the UAW apparatus.
In a letter to REVC workers, UAW Plant Chairman Nick Kottalis made clear the union would do nothing to fight the layoffs. He claimed, without evidence, that nobody would lose work “by my calculations” and added that “more opportunities will be forthcoming when we receive retirement numbers” from other plants. In other words, the chance for current workers to keep their jobs depends on Ford’s success in forcing higher seniority workers into early retirement.
Anger over the layoffs is building rapidly, and momentum is growing for an emergency meeting against the layoffs on Saturday, January 20, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, sponsored by the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC). Will Lehman, the socialist autoworker who ran for union president last year on a platform of abolishing the UAW bureaucracy and putting the rank and file in control, will speak at the meeting, as well as delegates from other industries where major cuts are underway.
Mack Trucks worker Will Lehman speaking with Ford Dearborn Truck Plant workers on October 16, 2023.
Jobs massacre accelerating across the US
The layoffs in auto are part of a broader policy of the ruling class. Last year, US companies cut more than 700,000 jobs, according to Challenger Gray and Christmas, nearly double the previous year’s mark. The spearhead for this was a rise in interest rates by the Federal Reserve, for the explicit purpose of exerting downward pressure on wages through layoffs.
The Fed falsely claimed this was necessary to curb inflation and avoid a “wage-price spiral.” In reality, high inflation rates have historically been primarily due to price gouging by corporations. A recent report by Groundwork Collective found that corporate profits accounted for 53 percent of inflation in the middle of last year, compared to 11 percent in the four decades before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Prices for consumers rose by 3.4 percent over the past year, but input costs for producers increased by just 1 percent, according to the authors’ calculations,” the Guardian reported.
The same day that Ford announced layoffs, the S&P 500 stock market index reached the highest level in its history. The surge in stock prices was driven by optimism that the Fed would cut rates over the next year—in other words, that the job cuts underway are so severe that the Fed can afford to return to its usual free money policies. The stock surge was powered in particular by a continuing rise in tech stocks, as investors salivate over the use of AI and other emerging technologies to cut costs and drive up profits.
Other major cuts have been announced in recent days by other US employers.
Macy’s will cut 2,300 jobs, or 3.5 percent of its total workforce, according to a report Thursday in the Wall Street Journal. The department store chain, which once occupied a central position in the US retail sector, has closed hundreds of stores in several rounds of cuts in recent years. According to a report last month, also in the Journal, the company is the target of a potential buyout by real estate investment firm Arkhouse Management. The $5.8 billion potential deal would be a boondoggle for investors, who would receive a 32 percent premium above the company’s share value, while undoubtedly leading to even deeper cuts.
Walmart also announced that it was closing two locations in the San Diego area, affecting around 460 jobs. The company closed 24 stores in 2023.
Walmart claims the closures are due to poor performance. But companies across California, especially low-wage retailers, have announced thousands of layoffs in recent weeks in retaliation against a new minimum wage law recently passed by the state legislature. This includes 200 layoffs by healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente in the midst of the second-biggest wave of COVID-19 ever. California Governor Gavin Newsom has announced a delay in the new law’s implementation, underscoring the total control of the corporate oligarchy over American political and economic life.
On Thursday, Walmart also announced it was increasing annual salaries for store managers from $117,000 to $128,000, with performance bonuses as high as 200 percent of base salary.
Other significant layoffs announced in the past week include:
CVS will close certain locations inside Target department stores. Last year, the pharmacy chain closed hundreds of stores.
Tech services company CDW is apparently cutting hundreds of jobs. No official announcement has been made, but the moves have been reported in posts by workers on TheLayoff.com.
Sports Illustrated magazine has announced plans to lay off its entire staff within 90 days, following the severing of a licensing deal between the magazine’s corporate owner and its publisher Arena Group. The future of the magazine, first published in 1954, is now in doubt. The magazine had already moved towards using AI to replace some of its writers, with a scandal unfolding last year following revelations that it had published AI-generated articles without prior disclosure.
Application Deadline: 13th March 2024 5pm (Irish Time)
Eligible Countries: International
To be Taken at (Country): Ireland
About the Government of Ireland – International Education Scholarships (Bachelor, Master & PhD): Under the initiative 60 scholarships will be provided for one year study at Bachelor, Master or PhD levels to successful candidates who have an offer of a place at an eligible Irish higher education institution.
The Government of Ireland International Education Scholarship (GOI-IES) programme supports high-calibre international students who wish to study at master’s or PhD level in Ireland. The programme is funded by the Government of Ireland in partnership with Irish higher education institutions and managed by the Higher Education Authority. Under the initiative, 60 scholarships are awarded each year for one year of full-time study at master’s or PhD level. The programme is open to applicants studying in any field.
Benefits for students: Scholarships must be regarded as highly desirable and value-adding to individuals’ subsequent lives and careers. In view of this, the GOI-IES will be awarded: • to high calibre higher education students from non-EU/EEA countries; • to study in Ireland for a period of one year
Benefits for Higher Education sector: GOI-IES will reflect Ireland’s commitment to excellence in the provision of higher education for both domestic and international students: • for scholarships that will highlight Ireland’s strengths as a centre of international education; • to promote links with target markets globally; • to strengthen the internationalisation strategies of HEIs especially in the context of the system performance framework.
Field(s) of Study: All
Type: Bachelor, Master PhD
Eligibility: The Government of Ireland – International Education Scholarships (Bachelor, Master & PhD) 2023 is open to students from non-EU/EEA countries and is applicable to all fields of study.
Number of Awards: 60
Value and Duration of Government of Ireland – International Education Scholarships (Bachelor, Master & PhD): Students who are successful will receive:
A €10,000 stipend for one year’s study
A full fee waiver of all tuition and other registration costs at the higher education institution
Applicants are expected to demonstrate:
a record of outstanding academic achievement;
excellent communication skills;
evidence of participation in extracurricular activities, for example humanitarian work, politics, arts or sport; and
a strong rationale for pursuing their study in Ireland that indicates how a Government of Ireland International Education Scholarship would align with their longer-term goals.
Applications will first be shared with the relevant higher education institutions, who will check them for eligibility and shortlist them based on alignment with institutional strategic objectives. The shortlisted applications will then be assessed by an independent panel of international assessors. Full details of the assessment process are available in the call document.
Key dates
Application deadline
5pm (Irish time)13 March 2024
Call outcome
Late May or early June 2024
How to Apply for Government of Ireland – International Education Scholarships (Bachelor, Master & PhD):
Potential applicants should read the call documentation carefully to ascertain whether they are eligible to apply. An indicative version of the application form is provided for information purposes only.
Applications must be submitted via the online portal.
All applications require two references to be uploaded via the online portal. It is recommended that candidates submit their applications well before the deadline, to avoid technical issues due to heavy server traffic on the respective day. Applications cannot be submitted once the deadline has passed. No alterations can be made to an application once it has been submitted.
It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.
