Tell Me About The OSV Fellowship and Grant Program:
The O’Shaughnessy Fellowships & Grants is a prestigious one-year program offering a $100,000 equity-free grant to individuals working on bold and innovative projects. The fellowship supports researchers, builders, and creatives by providing them with the resources to bring their ideas to life while allowing them to retain full ownership of their work. The program unites visionary individuals from diverse fields, helping them develop new ideas and positively impact the world. Through the fellowship, winners gain access to a powerful network of investors, partners, and mentors, enabling them to collaborate and further their work. Over the past two years, O’Shaughnessy Ventures has funded 55 remarkable innovators across 140 countries, supporting the development of groundbreaking projects such as documentaries, startups, non-profits, and scientific research.
Which Fields are Eligible?
All fields
Type:
Fellowship
Who can Apply For The OSV Fellowship and Grant Program?
Additionally, applicants must ensure they meet the following criteria:
Individuals must be over 18 years of age.
The fellowship is open to applicants worldwide, regardless of background.
Applicants must have a strong portfolio of proof of work.
How are Applicants Selected?
Personal Agency: Applicants must have a demonstrated ability to shape their future through initiative and proactivity.
Exemplary Proof-of-work: A strong portfolio of impactful projects.
Resourcefulness: The ability to maximize available resources to achieve goals.
Which Countries Are Eligible?
All countries
Where will the Award be Taken?
Remotely
How Many Awards?
Ten Fellowships will be awarded.
In addition, up to twenty individuals will receive $10,000 grants.
What is the Benefit of the OSV Fellowship and Grant Program?
Furthermore, the fellowship comes with the following benefits:
$100,000 equity-free grant.
Access to a global network of investors, mentors, and partners.
A chance to work alongside other high-caliber innovators.
Direct support for turning ideas into reality without the pressure of debt.
Opportunities for post-fellowship equity fundraising.
Tell Me About The AFS Global STEM Academies Scholarships 2025:
The AFS Global STEM Academies is a prestigious, full-scholarship program designed for talented and diverse youth from 15 countries worldwide. This program integrates virtual and in-person learning to equip scholars with STEM skills, intercultural understanding, and sustainability knowledge through an interactive, hands-on curriculum. Sponsored by bp, the program focuses on sustainability and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, combining a 12-week virtual e-learning curriculum with a 4-week immersive experience abroad. Participants engage in workshops, social impact projects, and cultural immersion while earning the Advanced Certificate on Global Competence for Social Impact awarded by AFS and the University of Pennsylvania Center for Social Impact Strategy.
Which Fields are Eligible?
STEM and sustainability with a focus on the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Type:
Scholarship
Who can Apply For The AFS Global STEM Academies Scholarships 2025?
Additionally, the eligibility criteria include:
Birthdate must fall between September 1, 2007, and April 1, 2010.
Applicants must be aged 15–17.5 years at the program start date.
Must be a citizen or legal resident of one of the eligible countries.
Must be able to participate fully in English in both online and classroom settings.
Must be able to travel unaccompanied to any of the four Academy destinations: Brazil, China, Egypt, or India.
Strongly encouraged to apply: young women, underrepresented populations, and students with high financial need.
How are Applicants Selected?
Demonstrated academic potential and interest in STEM and sustainability.
Ability to fully engage in virtual and in-person program components.
Strong problem-solving, analytical, and social innovation skills.
Commitment to global citizenship and social impact.
Required Documents:
The following documents are also necessary:
Completed online application form.
Proof of nationality or legal residency in an eligible country.
Parental consent forms (if applicable).
Any additional supporting documents requested by AFS.
Which Countries Are Eligible?
The following countries are eligible: Azerbaijan, Brazil, China, Egypt, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, United Kingdom, USA.
Where will the Award be Taken?
A 12-week virtual program (from home) followed by a 4-week immersive study abroad experience in Brazil, China, Egypt, or India.
How Many Awards?
Not specified
What is the Benefit of the AFS Global STEM Academies Scholarships 2025?
Additionally, the benefits include:
Comprehensive orientations.
Cultural tours and field trips.
Housing, meals, and domestic transport.
Round-trip airfare and airport pick-up.
24/7 emergency and intercultural support.
Medical insurance.
Visa application assistance.
Advanced Certificate on Global Competence for Social Impact.
The extent of the divorce between the US stock market and the financial system more broadly from the underlying real economy is revealed in the rise of Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index for the past two years.
For the second year in a row, the index rose by more than 20 percent, despite a selloff of 2.5 percent in December.
A sign for a Wall Street building, Wednesday, May 19, 2021, in New York [AP Photo/Mark Lennihan]
The market was up by 23.3 percent for 2024 following a 24.2 percent rise the previous year. This is the largest two-year hike this century and brings to four the number of S&P gains exceeding 20 percent in the past six years.
The market has risen by more than 40 percent in the past two years not because of growth in the US economy, running at a fairly modest rate of 3 percent, but on the hype and expectations surrounding high-tech stocks, especially those associated with the development of artificial intelligence (AI).
It has also been boosted by the expectation that the incoming Trump administration will be very favourable for corporate and finance capital both through tax cuts and the scrapping of what remains of regulations in a number of areas.
The rise in the market has also been propelled forward by expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates further in 2025, although that sentiment appeared to have cooled somewhat after its December meeting. Chair Jerome Powell indicated a more “cautious” approach to further rate cuts and members of the governing body reduced their expectation of the number of interest rate cuts in the coming year from four to two.
There are concerns in the Fed’s policymaking bodies that the increases in tariffs foreshadowed by Trump—60 percent on Chinese goods and up to 20 percent on those from other countries—could push up inflation and create less space for interest rate reductions.
As always when the stock market is on a tear, there are those who maintain it is set to go even higher. At the beginning of December, a monthly survey conducted by the Bank of America reported that the long-term exposure of asset managers to the S&P 500 had risen to the highest level in 20 years. This indicated what it called a “super-bullish sentiment.” Deutsche Bank reported that retail investor enthusiasms for stock market gains had never been higher.
According to Benjamin Bowler, a strategist at Bank of America whose remarks were cited in a Financial Times report, Trump’s “laissez-faire economics, tax cuts and deregulation” together with a potential “AI revolution” meant the stock market climb would continue in 2025. While 2024 was a “good year” for stocks, “it may only be the beginning.”
Amid the market hype, warnings are being sounded because of the state of the global economy and the impact of Trump’s “America First” policies.
According to a survey of economists conducted by the FT and the Booth School of Business at Chicago University, many believe that Trump’s policies will boost inflation and lead to a more cautious approach by the Fed on interest rate cuts.
“Trump’s policies can bring some growth in the short term, but this will be at the expense of a global slowdown which will then come back and hurt the US later on,” Şebnem Kalemli-Özcan, a professor at Brown University and an advisor to the New York Fed, told the FT.
“His policies are also inflationary, both in the US and the rest of the world, hence we will be moving to a stagflationary world.”
There are growing indications that stagnation is taking hold in major components of the global economy. The eurozone is barely growing with its major economy, Germany, confronting its worst downturn in the post-war period as jobs are slashed in its major industries, above all auto production.
The chief economist at one German bank told the FT Europe was soon going to resemble the “late Hapsburg empire” falling behind economically and technologically and dominated by “melancholic remembrance of its former greatness.”
China is struggling to reach its target of around 5 percent growth for 2024—most observers consider it will make the target but there is considerable scepticism about the accuracy of official data—and the predictions are that growth will trend down in 2025.
Concerns in the Chinese leadership were reflected in the New Year address by president Xi Jinping, in which he directly warned about the state of the economy, rather than simply extolling the accomplishments of the regime over the previous year.
He warned that the economy was facing “some new situations” and there were “challenges from the uncertainty of the external environment” (an oblique reference to Trump’s tariff hikes) and pressure from the “transformation of new and old drivers.” The term old driver refers to the severe downturn in the property and real estate market, which has been a mainstay of Chinese growth since the global financial crisis of 2008.
As far as financial conditions are concerned, the main issue is the increased role played by private equity markets. The global consultancy firm McKinsey estimates that private markets’ assets under management reached $13.1 trillion in mid-2023 and has been increasing at around 20 percent per annum since 2018.
Commenting on these figures, FT columnist John Plender noted that one outcome “is a significant increase in the proportion of the equity market and the economy that is non-transparent to investors, policymakers and the public.”
Major financial institutions, including the International Monetary Fund, the Bank for International Settlements and the Fed, have indicated that they have no real idea of the operations of the private equity markets and their interconnections with major banks.
As Plender commented, “private equity credit funds pose a unique set of potential systemic risks to the broader financial system because of their interrelationship with the regulated banking system, the opacity of the terms of their loans, the illiquid nature of their loans and potential mismatches with the needs of limited partners (investors) to withdraw funds.”
In other words, major problems could be building up in the financial system, even as the stock market surges ahead, of which regulators would only become aware when they burst over their heads.
There were, he concluded, “no prizes for guessing where the next financial crisis will emerge from.”
At the end of December, the cabinet of Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba approved a new record-high military budget for 2025. It is the 13th consecutive year that Japan has increased military spending and is part of Japan’s ongoing remilitarization, as Tokyo, alongside the United States, prepares to wage war against China and expand its involvement in the war against Russia.
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, bottom centre, accompanied by his new cabinet members in Tokyo, November 11, 2024 [AP Photo/Yoshikazu Tsuno]
Ishiba’s cabinet approved the 8.7 trillion-yen ($US55.3 billion) budget on December 27 which requires parliamentary approval by March. It is a 9.43 percent increase over last year’s budget. It does not include additional spending on public works or research and development for military purposes that could raise actual military spending by more one trillion yen as was the case in 2024. The 2025 military budget is part of a larger 115 trillion-yen ($US731 billion) national spending bill.
This year is the third in the five-year military build-up plan, totaling 43 trillion-yen ($US273 billion), unveiled in December 2022 as part of Japan’s revised National Security Strategy as well as its National Defense Strategy and Defense Buildup Program. Tokyo is doubling military spending to approximately two percent of GDP, in line with the target set by NATO. It would make Japan the third largest military spender in the world after the United States and China respectively.
Ishiba, a far-right war hawk and former defense minister, became prime minister in October. Like his predecessors Fumio Kishida and Yoshihide Suga, he is continuing the remilitarization agenda that sharply accelerated under Shinzo Abe throughout the 2010s. Tokyo has all but thrown out Article 9 of the constitution, which bans Japan from acquiring military weaponry and waging war overseas.
The Japanese government has never fully adhered to Article 9, chipping away at it almost as soon as the constitution went into effect in 1947. However, the ruling class paid lip service to it, conscious of the widespread anti-war sentiment in the working class and among youth. Now, however, Tokyo is openly acquiring offensive weaponry that would be capable of striking targets in China, Russia, or North Korea.
This includes 940 billion yen ($US5.9 billion) for developing long-range missiles, a satellite constellation, and the deployment of Tomahawk cruise missiles. Tokyo inked a deal to purchase 400 Tomahawks from the United States last January. An additional 1.8 billion yen ($US11.4 million) will be spent on equipment to launch Tomahawk missiles from Japan’s Aegis naval destroyers.
Another 533 billion yen ($US3.4 billion) will be spent on missile inceptors and mobile reconnaissance radars in Okinawa, which hosts approximately half of the 54,000 US troops stationed in Japan. The purpose is to prepare the region for a US-instigated war with China over Taiwan, a conflict in which Tokyo plans to take an active role.
The Ryukyu (or Nansei) Islands, which make up Okinawa Prefecture, have been increasingly militarized over the last several years with the deployment of missile batteries and military units. From these islands, Japan would funnel weapons into Taiwan as the US bogs China down in a war similar to the strategy employed against Russia in Ukraine. However, a war would undoubtedly expand to the Chinese mainland and throughout the Indo-Pacific as the US and Japan attempt to carve up China in pursuit of their imperialist interests.
Part of the budget also includes a focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and unmanned weaponry. Tokyo plans to build three 4,800-ton multi-purpose compact destroyers, known as the New FFM (or Future Multi-Mission Frigate), totaling 314.8 billion yen ($US2 billion). The ships require only 90 crew members through the use of AI and automated systems, or less than half that needed on older vessels. These ships are upgraded versions of the Mogami-class destroyer which carry long-range missiles as well as having stealth, anti-submarine, and mine warfare capabilities. The Defense Ministry plans to acquire 12 in total.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which produces the warship, is competing with German company Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems to be selected by Australia to provide the upgraded Mogami to the Australian navy. In this regard, Tokyo is working to expand its participation as part of the anti-China AUKUS alliance that includes Australia, the United Kingdom and the US. While not a full member, Japan is cooperating under AUKUS Tier 2, which involves sharing advanced military technology.
This is just one aspect of the military cooperation between Tokyo and Canberra as part of the war preparations against China. In 2023, the two sides agreed to implement a Reciprocal Access Agreement that allows troops from one country to more easily enter the other. Japan is deploying fighter jets and marines to northern Australia on a rotational basis.
The burden for this record-high military spending falls on the Japanese working class and poor as economic conditions decline. In October, the International Monetary Fund estimated that the economy grew by just 0.3 percent for 2024 and will grow by only 1.1 percent this year. Real wages have fallen nearly every month for the past two and half years, including a 0.4 percent drop in October.
To pay for its militarist agenda, the government plans to impose a 4 percent surtax on corporate taxes, an increase big business will have no trouble avoiding through tax loopholes. The government will also increase taxes on heated tobacco products and cigarettes. The government intends to raise income taxes by at least 1 percent, but a final agreement has not been reached given the broad public opposition.
Speaking on this opposition, a former US-Japan alliance manager told the Japan Times, “At a time when the economy was an important factor in the Liberal Democratic Party’s trouncing in the most recent election, it will be difficult for Ishiba to justify why Japan needs to pour money into, say, an arsenal of Tomahawk cruise missiles or a next-generation fighter jet.”
There is also broad opposition to war itself. The focus on AI in the budget is to address the fact that Japan’s military, formally known as the Self-Defense Forces (SDF), has struggled to recruit new troops. In 2023, the SDF barely reached half of its recruitment goal, bringing in 9,959 new troops across the Ground SDF, Maritime SDF, and Air SDF. The Defense Ministry had set a goal of 19,598. This trend is not new, but has been ongoing for years.
The Japanese ruling class blames this on the country’s declining population and low birthrate, which has steadily fallen since the 1970s. This is in no small part due to declining economic conditions that make getting married, having children, and raising families increasingly difficult. However, workers also have no interest in sending their children off to war.
Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government has reneged on promises made in opposition that the party would compensate women born in the 1950s who lost up to tens of thousands of pounds due to pension changes under previous governments.
During Prime Minister’s Questions on December 17 Starmer, backed by Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Liz Kendall, refused Parliament a vote on a compensation package for the cohort—known as WASPIs (Women Against State Pension Inequality)—proposed by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.
Starmer said, “The taxpayer simply cannot afford the tens of billions of pounds in compensation when the evidence does show that 90 percent of those impacted did know about it [changes to pensions]. That is because of the state of our economy.”
While Kendall admitted to parliament there was a 28-month delay informing women of the pension changes, in the same breath she said there was “considerable awareness” of the changes, that timely letters would have made no difference and there was no evidence of “direct financial loss.”
Labour politicians including Starmer, his Deputy Angela Rayner, Reeves and Kendall, and many other Labour MPs, all professed sympathy for the plight of the WASPI campaign group in the past. This included photo ops with WASPI women at every opportunity for years.
However, with Labour having an almost unassailable lead over the Tories in the year leading up to the July 2024 general election, the matter was getting too close for comfort for the party—pledged to “iron” fiscal discipline—and nothing on the WASPI issue appeared in its 2024 election manifesto.
The 1995 Pensions Act brought in by the Conservatives, led then by Prime Minister John Major, increased the state pension eligibility age (known as the state pension age), for women from 60 to 65 years, on the cynical grounds of achieving equality with men who retired at 65. The change was phased in from 2010 for women born between 1950-55.
These changes were accelerated by the 2011 Pensions Act under another Tory Prime Minister, David Cameron, encompassing women born between 1950-1960. The state pension age for women increased to 65 by November 2018, and for women and men to 66 by October 2020. The WASPIs argue they were not given adequate notice of the changes by the DWP to enable them to adjust their future financial arrangements accordingly. Many retired without realising their state pension age had risen.
It was only from 2009 to 2013 that the DWP wrote to the women affected about the pension changes in 1995 and 2011.
How this worked out in practise is exemplified by the experience of retiree Hilary Simpson, whose story is told by the Guardian.
She retired early from employment in local government aged 55 to take on childcare responsibilities for her daughter, having calculated she could manage on the lump sum from her workplace pension until she could claim her state pension at 60. The new legislation, however, upended her plans, meaning the lump sum would now have to be stretched over eight years until she was 63. When the changes were accelerated with the 2011 Act, eight years became 10-and-a-half years.
Simpson challenged the claims by the government that 90 percent of the women affected knew about the changes. “The DWP have said they don’t know how many letters they sent out and to whom,” she said.
Further attacks on the pensions of men and women followed. The Pensions Act 2014 further raised the state pension age from 66 to 67, to be in place by 2026-28. An earlier Pensions Act 2007 established a rise in the State Pension Age from 67 to 68 by 2044-2048. The Pensions Act 2014, however, introduced five-yearly reviews and it is expected the state pension age of 68 will be in place much sooner.
A petition organised by the WASPIs has passed the necessary threshold of 100,000 votes for a parliamentary debate to be considered—to discuss a compensation scheme for the WASPI women. To date, approaching 151,000 votes from the public have been registered.
Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI). demonstration outside Parliament on the day of Labour's autumn budget, October 30, 2024 [Photo: Cllr Pat Draper/X]
The package proposed by the Ombudsman amounts to £10.5 billion for the 3.5 million women affected, which works out at a meagre payment of £1,000-2,500 for each woman.
This should be measured against the state pension totals which might have been paid but were stolen from WASPI women by the changes in legislation. For example, a woman born in 1952, who paid in the qualifying 30 years National Insurance contributions and retired at the State Pension Age of 62, would have lost two years Full State Pension—at the then weekly amount of £169.50—and robbed of £17,628 in total.
Someone whose State Pension Age rose to 65 would have been purloined of five years’ pension, or a staggering £44,070, as well as five years of well-earned retirement.
How paltry this settlement is exposed in the fact that in the run-up to the 2019 general election, Labour, then headed by the nominally left Jeremy Corbyn, pledged £58 billion—over five year—to compensate the WASPI women. The then Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said Labour in government would make individual payments of an average of £15,380 to the 3.7 million women affected, with some payouts reaching £31,300. Had Corbyn won the election, there is no doubt he would have ditched this pledge—in line with his constant capitulations to the Labour right that saw him politely hand the party leadership over to Starmer, after losing the general election.
Notwithstanding the laughable pittance that the Ombudsman suggested, ignoring its recommendations is highly unusual and created further embarrassment for the government. The Ombudsman is appointed by the Crown at the prime minister’s recommendation to investigate complaints against public bodies. It is independent of the government and answers complaints to Parliament.
In the UK, the income of pensioners comes from one or more of the following sources: the state pension financed by National Insurance contributions, a workplace pension, a personal pension—or personal wealth. The poorest who survive on the state pension alone must claim welfare benefits to top up their income.
Not only is the state pension being eroded, but so are workplace pensions, with workers in the public who previously received better terms than the average in the private sector being levelled down, now having to work longer and pay higher contributions to receive smaller pensions.
This is above all due to the betrayals of the trade union bureaucracy in the public sector, which sold out the mass pension struggles by teachers, civil servants and workers in higher and further education among other sectors. The largest pension strike on November 30, 2011, involved 2.5 million workers in 20 unions.
This continued into the present decade. Central to the betrayal in 2023 by the University and College Union of its members during a strike wave over falling living standards that erupted in 2022-23 was a sellout pension deal.
Starmer’s refusal to pay compensation to the WASPI women is another signal to the ruling class—after its October budget was attacked by big business—that Labour will deepen its assault on the working class, no holds barred. It follows the sharp restriction of winter fuel allowance payments—previously worth between £100 and £300 for all retirees, including 1.8 million of the poorest—and comes alongside an announcement kicking any action on the social care crisis into the long grass.
A recent study of the sector painted a “dire” picture of provision, the lack of which had a “profound human cost and economic consequences” for the elderly and their families. Thanks to Labour, a “review” will report at the scheduled end of Labour’s first term in office, in 2028.
In a sign of the intensifying political crisis in South Korea, investigators and police attempted to execute an arrest warrant for impeached President Yoon Suk-yeol on Friday. He is the first sitting South Korean president to be the subject of an arrest warrant. They were rebuffed however by the president’s security detail including a military detachment.
Members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions demand the arrest of impeached President Yoon near the presidential residence in Seoul, January 3, 2025. The letters read “Immediately arrest Yoon Suk Yeol.” [AP Photo/Lee Jin-man]
The Seoul Western District Court issued the arrest warrant for Yoon on Tuesday at the request of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO), which is investigating Yoon’s failed attempt to impose martial law on December 3. The court also issued a separate warrant for investigators to search Yoon’s presidential residence in Yongsan, Seoul, which they were also unable to carry out.
The CIO requested the warrant after Yoon refused to appear for questioning three times, most recently on December 29. Yoon has been accused of insurrection and abuse of power and is already listed as a criminal suspect in the case. While sitting presidents are immune from prosecution, this does not apply to charges of insurrection and treason. Yoon has denounced the CIO, claiming it has no authority to investigate his martial law declaration. His lawyers called the arrest warrant “illegal.”
When CIO officials and the police arrived at Yoon’s residence Friday morning, they attempted to enter at around 8:00 a.m., but were blocked by the Presidential Security Service (PSS) and the 55th Security Brigade, which belongs to the Army’s Capital Defense Command, but is subordinate to the PSS. Clashes between the two sides reportedly broke out and a standoff lasted for approximately five and half hours before the CIO called off the attempt to arrest Yoon.
The PSS is responsible for the president’s security. However, it is not simply a division of bodyguards, but an independent section of the South Korean state bureaucracy. It has its own political interests while being close to the president, with influence over policy, the police and the military. The now former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, who has been arrested for playing a leading role in the declaration of martial law, led the PSS from May 2022 when Yoon took office until September 2024. He is a close friend and confidant of Yoon.
The CIO released a statement afterwards saying, “We determined that executing the detention warrant would be practically impossible due to the continued confrontation, and suspended the execution out of concern for the safety of on-site personnel caused by the resistance. We plan to decide on the next steps following a review.” The warrant remains valid until Monday.
Approximately a thousand of Yoon’s supporters also demonstrated outside the residence in an attempt to block the president’s arrest. They are a collection of far-right and fascistic forces, lacking any popular support. They appealed openly to US imperialism, waving American flags alongside South Korean ones, which is common at their rallies. Some even held signs that read in English, “Stop the steal,” the same slogan used by Trump and his supporters to call for the January 6, 2021 coup attempt in Washington.
Yoon attempted to whip up this mob, telling them on January 1, “Due to internal and external forces infringing on its sovereignty and the activities by anti-state forces, South Korea is now in danger. I will fight with you to the end to protect this country.” This is the same rationale Yoon used to first declare martial law, claiming that the Democrats and their allies were “anti-state” elements who had to be suppressed by force.
Pro-Yoon demonstrations pale in comparison to the hundreds of thousands that have protested each weekend in Seoul demanding Yoon’s removal from office and arrest. On December 14, the day Yoon was impeached and suspended from office by the National Assembly, two million gathered outside parliament in opposition to the president.
Yoon’s impeachment or even potential arrest does not guarantee he will be removed from power. Presently, the Constitutional Court, which has 180 days from December 14 to decide on the president’s fate, may very well allow him to return to office. With the support of the PPP and right-wing bureaucrats, Yoon has also stonewalled his impeachment proceedings and the criminal investigation into his martial law declaration, which was in effect a coup attempt.
The Constitutional Court is comprised of nine justices who are approved by the president. Three are chosen by the executive, with three recommended by the chief justice of the Supreme Court and three recommended by the National Assembly. Since October, three vacancies had existed on the court to be filled by parliament.
After Yoon’s impeachment, the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) moved quickly to fill the three vacancies. Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who first replaced Yoon as acting president, refused to approve them, with the PPP claiming an acting president lacked the authority. The votes of six justices are necessary to remove a president from office, meaning only one had to side with Yoon to keep him in power.
As a result, the DP impeached Han on December 27 and he was replaced with Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok. In an apparent compromise, Choi appointed one justice recommended by the DP and another by the PPP on Tuesday. The Democrats have demanded Choi appoint the final justice recommend by their party.
However, as a capitalist party, the Democrats do not defend the democratic rights of workers and youth any more than Yoon or the PPP. Instead, the Democrats’ conflict with Yoon is over how best to impose the demands of big business.
Sections of the ruling establishment grouped around Yoon and the PPP increasingly see open dictatorship as necessary to suppress growing working-class anger to declining economic conditions and attacks on jobs. A significant strike by Samsung Electronics workers last July, a month-long auto part workers’ strike in October-November that shut down production at Hyundai, and strikes by railway workers in early December no doubt weighed on Yoon’s attempt to impose military rule.
On the other hand, the DP seeks to suppress the class struggle through phony promises of reforms and through their allies in the trade unions, such as the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU). Yoon’s often belligerent attacks on political opponents since taking office combined with worsening conditions for workers cut across the Democrats’ efforts, risking the explosion of social anger.
The DP is now rolling back protests in an attempt to head off the growth of social opposition, block opposition from growing, and prevent people from making the connections between Yoon’s attack on democratic rights and the broader crisis of capitalism internationally. They want to convince workers and youth that democratic rights can be defended within the National Assembly and the judicial system; and have turned anti-Yoon protests into campaign events and musical performances, all designed to cover up the political issues involved.
The Democrats have also worked with the KCTU to call off job actions like the December railway strike while presenting Yoon’s removal from office as practically a done deal. The KCTU initially claimed it would wage an “indefinite general strike” against Yoon. In the end, this amounted to little more than scattered protests and partial walkouts to allow workers to vent their anger while having no impact on big business or the government.
The danger of another declaration of martial law or military coup remains. If Yoon returns to power, he will do so with all the powers he previously held, including over the military. If mass protests grow against Yoon, it is also not out of the question that the military itself steps in to impose martial law, something it has considered in the past.
Eligible Countries: The students of eligible countries of the region of Asia Pacific, West Asia, Africa (Burkina Faso, Republic of Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe, South Africa, Swaziland), Caribbean, Central America, South America, Europe can apply for this scholarship.
To be taken at (country): Universities in Taiwan
Accepted Subject Areas: For undergraduate, masters and PhD courses offered at any of the participating University in Taiwan
About Taiwan Higher EducationScholarship: International education and training has long been one of the TaiwanICDF’s core operations, among many others. Human resources development programs play a vital role in assisting partner countries to achieve sustainable development, and education is a crucial mechanism for training workforces in developing countries.
The TaiwanICDF provides scholarships for higher education and has developed undergraduate, graduate and Ph.D. programs in cooperation with renowned partner universities in Taiwan.
The scholarship recipients gets a full scholarship, including return airfare, housing, tuition and credit fees, insurance, textbook costs and a monthly allowance.
Type: Undergraduate, Masters and PhD Scholarship
Who is eligible to apply? An applicant must:
-Be a citizen of List of Countries Eligible (including select African countries) for TaiwanICDF Scholarship, and satisfy any specific criteria established by his or her country and/or government of citizenship.
-Neither be a national of the Republic of China (Taiwan) nor an overseas compatriot student.
-Satisfy the admission requirements of the partner university to which he or she has applied to study under a TaiwanICDF scholarship.
-Be able to satisfy all requirements for a Resident Visa (Code: FS) set by the Bureau of Consular Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and an Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) set by the Ministry of the Interior, of the ROC (Taiwan) government (this means that the TaiwanICDF has the right to revoke a scholarship offered if an applicant cannot satisfy the visa requirements).
-Upon accepting a TaiwanICDF scholarship, not hold any other ROC(Taiwan) government-sponsored scholarship (such as the Taiwan Scholarship) in the same academic year in which the TaiwanICDF scholarship would be due to commence.
-Not be applying for a further TaiwanICDF scholarship in unbroken succession — applicants who have already held a TaiwanICDF scholarship must have returned to their home country for more than one year before re-applying.
-Have never had any scholarship revoked by any ROC (Taiwan) government agency or related institution, nor been expelled from any Taiwanese university.
Number of Scholarships: Not Specified
Scholarship Benefits and Duration: The TaiwanICDF provides each scholarship recipient with a full scholarship, including return airfare, housing, tuition and credit fees, insurance, textbook costs and a monthly allowance.
Undergraduate Program (maximum four years): Each student receives NT$12,000 per month (NT$144,000 per year) as an allowance for food and miscellaneous living expenses.
Master’s Program (maximum two years): Each student receives NT$15,000 per month (NT$180,000 per year) as an allowance for food and miscellaneous living expenses.
PhD Program (maximum four years; four-year PhD programs start from 2012): Each students receives NT$17,000 per month (NT$204,000 per year) as an allowance for food and miscellaneous living expenses.
How to Apply for Taiwan Higher EducationScholarship:
Applicants must complete an online application (found in Program Webpage link below). Then submit a signed, printed copy and all other application documents to the ROC (Taiwan) Embassy/ Consulate (General)/ Representative Office/ Taiwan Technical Mission or project representative in their country.
Please note that each applicant can only apply for one program at a time. The applicant must also submit a separate program application to his/her chosen universities.
Visit Program Webpage for the Online Application System and more details about this scholarship.
End of the year statistics released by Mapping Police Violence, a non-profit research group that has been tracking police killings in the US since 2013, found that police in the United States killed over 1,250 people in 2024. This grim figure marks the deadliest year ever recorded by the organization, which tracks police killings by government records and news reports.
Police killings have risen at a steady pace over the last decade in the United States, from just over 1,000 in 2014, to over 1,200 in each of the last two years. [Photo: Datawrapper/WSWS]
Overall the research group found that there were only 13 days in 2024 in which police did not kill someone. On average, Mapping Police Violence found that someone in the US succumbs to police violence roughly every 7 hours. While the vast majority of those deaths were the results of police shootings, cops also deployed tasers, batons and their vehicles with deadly force.
Notably only 31 percent of police killings, 387 people, began with an alleged violent crime taking place. On the other hand, 18 percent of those killed by police—over 200 people—were killed after being pulled over for an alleged traffic violation or after police were called to conduct a welfare check. Another 8 percent were killed in situations in which the victim was not alleged to have committed any crime, while 17 percent were killed in situations in which police alleged the victims were perpetrating “other non-violent offenses.”
Mapping Police Violence noted that even as the rate of police killings continues to increase, where police are killing people is changing, with more deaths recorded in rural and suburban zipcodes as opposed to large cities. The top five states with the highest rate of people killed by police in 2024 include New Mexico, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and North Dakota.
Local police departments constituted the bulk of killings in 2024 at 58 percent, with county sheriff’s departments accounting for 31 percent of deaths.
Victims of last year’s reign of police terror included babies, toddlers and teenagers:
One of the youngest victims this past year was 2-month-old baby Destinii, killed along with her mother Maria Pike. Both were gunned down in their Missouri apartment on November 7 after Destinii’s grandmother called the police to report that Maria had assaulted her. Nearly two months after the killing, police have yet to release the full body-camera footage or charge any officer with a crime.
Another child who was shot and killed by police this year was four-year-old Terrell Miller of Macomb, Illinois. The boy was taken hostage by his mother’s boyfriend in their home. Police showed up to the home and within 16 seconds shot Miller and the boyfriend, killing them both. No charges have been filed against Miller’s killer, Lt. Nick Goc.
On Thanksgiving last month in Akron, Ohio, 15-year-old Jazmir Tucker was shot and killed by police. Police claimed they heard gunshots in the area after 11:00 p.m. local time, which prompted them to investigate. Body camera footage shows police chasing after a fleeing Tucker and shooting him. None of the officers involved in the killing have been publicly identified or charged with a crime.
Keeping track of the number of people killed by police in the United States is difficult, as there is no federal government agency charged with compiling data from local police departments. Not every department keeps records and many, with the support of local press and capitalist politicians from both parties, obfuscate the lethal character of police interactions.
Furthermore, Mapping Police Violence’s figures do not take into account the many unreported killings across the United States’ sprawling prisons and jail gulag that incarcerates nearly 2 million people.
It is highly significant that police killings increased across the United States every single year under the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden. In the wake of massive anti-police violence protests following the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020, Biden and the Democrats campaigned on “reforming” the police, but, as the data shows, they have instead overseen a massive expansion in deaths with no accountability. Mapping Police Violence notes in their report that over 98 percent of cops involved in police killings between 2013 and 2023 have not been convicted of a crime.
While the mainstream press, the Democratic Party and the pseudo-left constantly seek to frame police violence as an expression of racism, the data shows that police killings occurred in every state and impacted people of every racial and ethnic background. While there are some racial disparities, the largest share of those killed by police in 2024 were identified as white, underscoring the class character of police violence.
The Biden administration and both parties rejected popular demands to “defund the police” during the George Floyd protests, instead funneling billions of dollars to hire and arm more police, including overseeing the construction of “Cop Cities” in virtually every state.
Hundreds of people gather in Atlanta's City Hall on Monday, June 5, 2023, to speak ahead of a council vote over "Cop City." [AP Photo/R.J. Rico]
While providing police all the weapons and “training” they need to suppress the working class, Biden’s Justice Department has implemented a few token “consent decrees” on police departments that have done nothing to stem police violence. Incoming President-elect Donald Trump has promised to end these toothless decrees, claiming that they are part of a “war on police.” In reality, they are a tool used by the ruling class to obscure the fact that police violence cannot be “reformed” away and is, in fact, endemic to the capitalist system that both parties uphold and defend.
