GM Crops in India: Approval by Contamination?

Colin Todhunter

The regulatory system for GMOs (genetically modified organisms) in India is in tatters. So said the Coalition for a GMFree India (CGMFI) in 2017 after media reports about the illegal cultivation of GM soybean in the country.

In India, five high-level reports have already advised against the adoption of GM crops:

1. The ‘Jairam Ramesh Report’, imposing an indefinite moratorium on Bt Brinjal [Feb 2010];
2. The ‘Sopory Committee Report’ [August 2012];
3. The ‘Parliamentary Standing Committee’ [PSC] Report on GM crops [August 2012];
4. The ‘Technical Expert Committee [TEC] Final Report’ [June-July 2013]; and
5. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science & Technology, Environment and Forests [August 2017].

Given the issues surrounding GM crops (including the now well-documented failure of Bt cotton in the country), little wonder these reports advise against their adoption. Little wonder too given that the story of GM ‘regulation’ in India has been a case of blatant violations of biosafety norms, hasty approvals, a lack of monitoring abilities, general apathy towards the hazards of contamination and a lack of institutional oversight.

Despite these reports, the drive to get GM mustard commercialised (which would be India’s first officially-approved GM food crop) has been relentless. The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) has pushed ahead regardless by giving it the nod. However, the case of GM mustard remains in limbo and stuck in the Supreme Court due to various pleas lodged by environmentalist Aruna Rodrigues.

Rodrigues argues that GM mustard is being undemocratically forced through with flawed tests (or no testing) and a lack of public scrutiny: in other words, unremitting scientific fraud and outright regulatory delinquency.

Moteover, this crop is also herbicide-tolerant (HT), which is wholly inappropriate for a country like India with its small biodiverse farms that could be affected by its application.

GM crops illegally growing

Despite the ban on GM cops, in 2005, biologist Pushpa Bhargava noted that unapproved varieties of several GM crops were being sold to farmers. In 2008, Arun Shrivasatava wrote that illegal GM okra had been planted in India and poor farmers had been offered lucrative deals to plant ‘special seed’ of all sorts of vegetables.

In 2013, a group of scientists and NGOs protested in Kolkata and elsewhere against the introduction of transgenic brinjal in Bangladesh – a centre for origin and diversity of the vegetable – as it would give rise to contamination of the crop in India. As predicted, in 2014, the West Bengal government said it had received information regarding “infiltration” of commercial seeds of GM Bt brinjal from Bangladesh.

In 2017, the illegal cultivation of a GM HT soybean was reported in Gujarat. Bhartiya Kisan Sangh (BKS), a national farmers organisation, claimed that Gujarat farmers had been cultivating HT crop illegally – there is no clearance from the government for any GM food crop.

There are also reports of HT cotton illegally growing in India. In a paper appearing in the Journal of Peasant studies last year, Glenn Stone and Andrew Flachs show how cotton farmers have been encouraged to change their ploughing practices, which has led to more weeds being left in their fields. The authors suggest the outcome in terms of yields (or farmer profit) is arguably no better than before. However, it coincides with the appearance of an increasing supply (and farmer demand) for HT cotton seeds.

It doesn’t take a dyed-in-the-wool cynic to appreciate that the likes of Bayer, which has now incorporated Monsanto, must be salivating at the prospect of India becoming the global leader in the demand for GM. PM Modi has already proclaimed that GM represents a good business-investment opportunity.

Vandana Shiva has highlighted the arm twisting that has gone on in an attempt to force through GMOs into India, with various politicians having been pushed aside until the dotted line for GMO open field testing approval was signed on. Of course, Modi is only accelerating what former PM Manmohan Singh had set in motion – a politician whose pro-GMO policies were regarded by the late Arun Shrivastava as total treachery.

It is not surprising then that calls are being made for probes into the workings of the GEAC and other official bodies who seems to be asleep at the wheel or deliberately looking the other way. The latter could be the case given that, as Stone and Flachs indicate, senior figures in India regard GM seeds (and their associated chemical inputs) as key to modernising Indian agriculture.

CGMFI spokesperson Kavitha Kuruganti says that the regulators have been caught sleeping. It wouldn’t be the first time: India’s first GM crop cultivation – Bt cotton – was discovered in 2001 growing on thousands of hectares in Gujarat, spread surreptitiously and illegally by the biotech industry. Kuruganti said the GEAC was caught off-guard when news about large scale illegal cultivation of Bt cotton emerged, even as field trials that were to decide whether India would opt for this GM crops were still underway.

In March 2002, the GEAC ended up approving Bt cotton for commercial cultivation in India. To this day, no liability was fixed for the illegal spread.

The tactic of contaminate first then legalise has benefited industry players before. In 2006, for instance, the US Department of Agriculture granted marketing approval of GM Liberty Link 601 (Bayer CropScience) rice variety following its illegal contamination of the food supply and rice exports. The USDA effectively sanctioned an ‘approval-by-contamination’ policy.

Illegal GM imports

Despite reasoned argument and debate having thus far prevented the cultivation of GM crops or the consumption of GM food in India, it seems we are be witnessing GM seeds and crops entering the food system regardless.

Kuruganti says that a complaint lodged with the GEAC and a Right to Information (RTI) application seeking information regarding the illegal GM soybean cultivation in the country has stirred the apex regulatory body to bring the issue to the notice of the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), months after the issue became public.

In reply to the RTI application, the GEAC responded by saying it had received no complaint about such illegal cultivation. Kurauganti says this is a blatant lie: the BKS had collected illegally cultivated soybean samples for lab testing and the report was sent to the GEAC along with a letter of complaint. GM HT soybean has not been granted permission for field trials, let alone large-scale cultivation.

It is also understood that apart from the BKS, the Government of Gujarat also alerted the GEAC to the illegal cultivation.

Kuruganti says:

“The fact that the GEAC is writing now to the DGFT to take action (on preventing the illegal GM imports), makes it clear that it lacks any real intent to take serious action about the violations of its own regulations. It also indicates that it is putting up a show of having “done” something, before an upcoming Supreme Court hearing on PILs related to GMOs.”

Her assertion is supported by Rohit Parakh of India for Safe Food:

“Commerce Ministry’s own data on imports of live seeds clearly indicates that India continues to import genetically modified seeds including GM canola, GM sugar beet, GM papaya, GM squash and GM corn seeds (apart from soybean) from countries such as the USA… with no approval from the GEAC as is the requirement.”

Kuruganti concludes that the regulatory system is a shambles and is not preventing GMOs from being illegally imported into the country or planted. Moreover, the ruling BJP has reneged on its election promise not to allow GM without proper protocols.

Offshoring Indian agriculture

It is not a good situation. We have bogus arguments about GM mustard being forwarded by developers at Delhi University and the government. We also have USAID pushing for GM in Punjab and twisting a problematic situation to further Monsanto’s interests by trying to get GM soybean planted in the state. And we have regulators (deliberately) asleep at the wheel.

The fact that India is importing so many agricultural commodities in the first place doesn’t help. Relying on imports and transnational agribusiness with its proprietary (GM) seeds and inputs is not a recipe for food security. In the 1960s, Africa was not just self-sufficient in food but was actually a net food exporter. Today, courtesy of World Bank, IMF and WTO interventions, the continent imports 25% of its food, with almost every country being a net food importer.

Is this want India wants? Based on its rising import bill, self-reliance and food security seems to be an anathema to policy makers. In response to the government’s decision to abolish import duty on wheat in 2017, Ajmer Singh Lakhowala, head of the Punjab unit of Bharatiya Kisan Union, said sarcastically:

“The import of cheap wheat will bring the prices down. It appears the government wants the farmers to quit farming.”

As previously outlined, at the behest of the World Bank and courtesy of compliant politicians in India, it certainly seems to be the case.

Self-sufficiency is not to the liking of the US and the World Bank. Washington has for many decades regarded its leverage over global agriculture as a tool to secure its geostrategic goals.

Whether it involves the import of subsidised edible oils, wheat, pulses or soybean – alongside the ongoing neglect of indigenous agriculture and farmers by successive administrations – livelihoods are being destroyed, food quality is being undermined and Indian agriculture is slowly being offshored.

US sanctions against Iran aimed at regime change

Peter Symonds

The Trump administration further spelled out this week the draconian sanctions it intends to enforce on Iran. A senior State Department official told the media the US would take measures against any country that failed to reduce its oil imports from Iran to “zero” by November 4.

Companies that fail to meet the deadline face the prospect of being excluded from the US financial system. While not completely ruling out waivers, the US official said there were unlikely to be any exemptions for corporations buying oil from Iran. The predisposition of the Trump administration, the official said, is: “No, we’re not going to do waivers.”

The announcement follows Trump’s decision on May 8 to unilaterally pull out of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), it was signed with the US, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia. Under the JCPOA, Tehran agreed to drastic curbs on its nuclear programs in return for a step-by-step easing of international sanctions.

Despite the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) repeatedly verifying that Iran kept its side of the bargain, the Trump administration tore up the deal. Washington wants to force Iran to fall into line with US policy throughout the Middle East, and end its nuclear and missile programs.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned last month that Iran would face “the strongest sanctions in history” if it did not bow to Washington’s demands. He also strongly hinted at regime change, suggesting that the Iranian public could take matters into its own hands.

Prior to Tuesday, Washington had already foreshadowed punitive measures to come into force in August. It plans to re-impose curbs on Iran’s ability to buy US dollars, along with any global trading in Iranian gold, coal, steel, cars, currency and debt. Ultimately the US sanctions will hit every aspect of Iran’s economy, although agricultural products, medicines and medical devices are supposedly exempted.

The US announcements have pushed up world oil prices and hit the Iranian economy hard. Oil sales generate 60 percent of Iran’s export income and underpin the government’s finances. The country’s currency, the rial, has plunged by 40 percent against the US dollar since last month, forcing the government to take emergency measures. These include the allocation of hard currency largely to importers and basic commodities, and bans on hundreds of imported goods, including cars.

The developing economic crisis inside Iran is generating sharp differences within the regime and prompted days of protests in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar by traders and shoppers against the government’s economic measures.

The Washington-based Brookings Institution published a paper yesterday entitled “Trump tightens the screws on Iran’s oil. Is the US aiming for regime collapse?” It commented: “The Trump administration is deploying US sanctions on Iran as a bludgeon rather than a scalpel in the hopes of wreaking maximum havoc on Iran as quickly as possible.”

US actions, however, are likely to wreak havoc around the globe. The latest round of economic thuggery has compounded the international tensions generated by US trade war measures. The White House is using sanctions legislation put in place by the Obama administration to force Tehran to sign the nuclear deal. Unlike Obama, however, Trump does not have the support of major allies, let alone China and Russia.

The European Union (EU) opposed Trump’s decision to pull out of the JCPOA and has been seeking ways to maintain the deal, even without US participation. The US actions threaten to sabotage billions of dollars worth of European trade and investment that has developed since 2015.

Last month, EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker announced that the bloc planned to reactivate a law that would prevent European companies from complying with any sanctions the US might reintroduce against Iran. On June 6, the EU Commission adopted an update of the 1996 “blocking statute.” It requires European companies to refrain from complying “whether directly or through a subsidiary or other intermediary person, or by deliberate omission,” with US sanctions on Iran.

European refiners and banks appear to be cutting back on purchases of Iranian oil. Reuters reported yesterday that the Swiss lender Banque de Commerce et de Placements (BCP) would stop financing Iranian oil cargoes by June 30. France’s Total, Greece’s Hellenic Petroleum and Litasco, the Geneva-based arm of the Russian company Lukoil, are among the customers using BCP banking services.

The Brookings Institution article explained that since the US withdrew from the JCPOA deal, “companies have been rushing to exit Iran, mammoth contracts for hundreds of new airplanes have been scuttled, and nearly all of the signature investments by European and Asian firms have already shifted to wind-down mode.”

The Wall Street Journal reported this week: “Top administration officials from the State and Treasury departments have jetted around the world in recent days to persuade other countries to cut use of Iranian crude and warn them that any companies, banks or traders that handle Iranian oil face US penalties, including the risk of being frozen out of US markets.”

US allies in Europe and Asia have already been warned, and White House trips are due to take place to China, India and Turkey, where the Trump administration also faces opposition to its sanctions.

All three countries, however, have indicated they will not fully comply with US demands for “zero” imports of Iranian oil. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman this week described China’s relations with Iran as “friendly” and its economic and energy ties as “beyond reproach.”

Sunjay Sudhir, joint secretary for international cooperation at India’s petroleum ministry, told CNNMoney earlier this week: “India does not recognise unilateral sanctions, but only sanctions by the United Nations.” India is the second largest purchaser of Iranian oil after China.

The US official who announced the November deadline for ending purchases of Iranian oil warned that Washington was not “kidding about this.” China and India “will be subject to the same sanctions as everybody else if they engage in those sectors of the economy.”

Ex-spy and lawyer face jail for exposing Australian bugging operation in East Timor

Mike Head

Nearly four years after raiding their homes and offices, the Australian government has laid serious criminal charges against a former intelligence officer and his lawyer for exposing Australia’s spying operation against East Timorese ministers during talks over disputed oil and gas rights in the Timor Sea.

In a move clearly intended to send a wider chilling political message, the pair face up to two years jail for making known to the public that the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), the country’s overseas spy agency, surreptitiously bugged the East Timor cabinet room in 2004 under the guise of providing aid to the tiny state.

Attorney-General Christian Porter personally authorised the prosecution, so the decision was taken at the highest levels of the Liberal-National government. The lack of any Labor Party criticism points to a bipartisan move, in line with the Gillard Labor government’s rejection of East Timor’s initial 2012 complaint about the bugging.

The decision to place the pair on trial indicates that much is at stake for Australia’s military-intelligence apparatus and political establishment. This is both in terms of protecting the escalating operations of the US-linked apparatus itself, and of covering up Australia’s protracted bullying of East Timor, which has become a testing ground for Washington’s drive to combat growing Chinese influence in the region.

Independent member of parliament Andrew Wilkie revealed under parliamentary privilege on Thursday that a former ASIS officer, who can be identified only as Witness K, and his lawyer, former Australian Capital Territory Attorney-General Bernard Collaery, had been charged by the Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecutions.

Witness K, ASIS’s head of technical operations in 2004, revealed the bugging operation and was going to be a key witness in East Timor’s case in the International Court of Justice at The Hague to overturn the 2006 Timor Sea treaty ultimately imposed by Canberra.

But Witness K was unable to give evidence after his passport and documents were seized and home raided, along with Collaery’s Canberra office, in December 2013 by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the federal police.

The ruling establishment regards the pair’s exposure of one of ASIS’s many illegal operations as a threat to the US-led “Five Eyes” global surveillance network, of which ASIS is a key part, together with the Australian Signals Directorate, the electronic spying agency.

This network is at the centre of Washington’s escalating trade war and military offensive against China, including preparations for war to reassert US hegemony over the Indo-Pacific region, which it established through World War II.

After Wilkie’s speech, prosecutors confirmed the pair had been charged with breaching the Intelligence Services Act by “conspiring” to “communicate” ASIS “information.” A maximum penalty of two years’ imprisonment applies because the alleged offence was committed before the maximum sentence was increased to 10 years in 2014.

The confirmation came on the same day as the Labor Party joined hands with the government to ram through parliament two huge “foreign interference” bills that constitute the greatest assault on fundamental legal and democratic rights in Australia since World War II.

As part of that legislation, wider secrecy provisions have been expanded. Previous jail terms of two years for leaking classified documents have been increased to up to 10 years for communicating “inherently harmful information” (i.e., even if not classified as secret), or information that “is likely to cause harm to Australia’s interests.” These punishments now apply not only to whistleblowers who allegedly leak information but to anyone who helps make it public.

While denouncing “foreign interference,” supposedly by China, the government is criminalising any exposure of US-backed Australian “interference,” including in East Timor.

By charging Collaery, as well as “Witness K,” the government is also attacking the principle of lawyer-client privilege, a centuries-old protection against authoritarian rule. This is not the only core legal and democratic right threatened. Media reports indicate that the government will apply to have the trial heard in secrecy, overturning another key principle—the right to a public trial.

Addressing the media on Thursday, Collaery said the charges were an attack on freedom of expression, the legal profession, and on him personally for acting as a lawyer. Collaery also threw doubt over the government’s case. He denied that his client was a whistleblower. “He went with his complaint to the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, received approval and I received approval to act,” Collaery said.

The charges are the latest development in a saga stretching back to 2004, when ASIS planted listening devices in East Timor’s cabinet room while the Howard Liberal-National government was coercing the impoverished state into relinquishing its territorial rights to the lucrative Greater Sunrise oil and gas field.

ASIS’s illegal surveillance was just part of a concerted campaign of economic and diplomatic bullying by Canberra, from the day that it sent troops to occupy the territory in 1999, supposedly to protect the Timorese people, and continuing long after nominal independence was granted in 2002.

The Timorese leadership was coerced into dropping its request for a demarcation of the maritime border between the two countries in line with international law, which would have allocated East Timor the majority share of the undersea oil and gas fields. The chief beneficiaries were Woodside Petroleum and other Australian, US and European energy conglomerates, which secured the rights to mine the reserves.

The bugging operation also assisted the violent regime-change operation that Canberra launched in 2006 against then Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri’s Fretilin government. This involved the instigation of a split within the Timorese armed forces, followed by a renewed Australian military intervention.

Under the 2006 oil and gas treaty, the Australian government secured 50 percent of the revenues from the $40 billion Greater Sunrise gas project in the Timor Sea and deferred the setting of a maritime boundary for 50 years. By international law, Greater Sunrise should be in East Timor’s territory. However, Canberra had declared in 2002 that it would no longer abide by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in settling the Timor border.

In March this year, the Australian government finally agreed to a treaty with East Timor that essentially conceded that their undersea boundary should be set at halfway point between the two countries, in line with international law, thus placing most of the vast untapped gas reserves within East Timor’s territory.

Nevertheless, the Australian government and the transnational energy giants that control the gas fields remain adamant that East Timor cannot have the gas processing operations, and all the associated profits.

After more than 15 years of illegally denying Timorese sovereignty in the disputed zone, there were concerns in both Canberra and Washington that Australia’s defiance of UNCLOS was opening the door for China to acquire greater influence in East Timor and the Asia-Pacific region.

Beijing had politically exploited the issue to undercut the denunciations from Washington and Canberra of China’s refusal to recognise a US-orchestrated international tribunal ruling in 2016 rejecting China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.

As the Chinese economy has grown rapidly over the past two decades, Chinese agencies and companies have been increasingly active in East Timor, as throughout the region, funding infrastructure and establishing business operations.

The territory is a strategic part of the Indonesian archipelago, which is pivotal to Washington’s war preparations against China. Critical sea lanes, on which China depends for its trade, pass through Indonesia and have been identified by the Pentagon as “choke points” to be blockaded in the event of war.

As the documents released by US National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden have proven, Australia’s spy agencies are central to the NSA’s vast global surveillance operations, with Australian diplomatic missions, including in East Timor, Indonesia and China, functioning as NSA listening posts.

The elections in Mexico and the political tasks of the working class

Bill Van Auken

The national elections taking place in Mexico on Sunday pose vital issues before the Mexican and international working class.

After six years of the corrupt and brutal rule of the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto, Mexico is mired in pandemic violence, unprecedented social inequality and staggering levels of unemployment as well as deepening poverty for the majority of the population.

The ruling PRI, which held undisputed power from 1929 to 2000, is so hated that it chose as its candidate a “technocrat”, José Antonio Meade, who is not even a member of the party. He is running third in the polls, and there is distinct possibility that the party will face a nationwide rout on the local, state and federal levels.

The candidate of the right-wing PAN (National Action Party), with which the PRI has alternated power since the dawn of the new millennium, Ricardo Anaya, is widely viewed as a representative of the corrupt system of bribes and kickbacks that he oversaw as the former head of the president of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies.

With the massive popular repudiation of these two traditional ruling parties, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City and now three-time presidential candidate, running as leader of the MORENA (Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional) party, is projected by virtually every poll to win the July 1 election by an historically unprecedented margin.

The coming to power of López Obrador will yield not a way out of the current crisis, but its sharp intensification and new dangers for the Mexican working class. Sooner rather than later, a MORENA-led administration will betray the mass aspirations for an end to the social hardship and suffering that López Obrador has cynically exploited.

There are no doubt substantial popular illusions in López Obrador, or AMLO as he is popularly known. A 64-year-old professional politician, he began his career in the PRI, leaving it for the PRD (Democratic Revolutionary Party) and twice running as its presidential candidate. He went on to found MORENA after the PRD turned sharply to the right, signing on to Peña Nieto’s 2012 “Pact for Mexico”, which opened up Mexico’s labor market, its education system, and the energy, financial, and telecommunication sectors to privatization schemes and so-called free-market “reforms.”

The closing of AMLO’s campaign Wednesday night, staged before a crowd that packed the Azteca stadium in southern Mexico City, provided an illustration of the sharp contradiction between the popular illusions in López Obrador and the reality of his class position and political program.

While vowing that the ruling parties of the past would lose the election, he promised that there “will not be reprisals.” This means that the crimes of the past six years, including the disappearance and presumed murder of the 43 Ayotzinapa teaching students, along with countless other massacres by state security forces, not to mention the wholesale corruption which AMLO has made the centerpiece of his campaign, will go unpunished.

He promised that “we will seek unity to the extent that we can.” Indeed, right-wing former PRI and PAN officials are already being integrated into AMLO’s prospective cabinet, guaranteeing continuity of the anti-working class policies carried out by both parties over the course of decades.

He signaled his readiness to enter a dialogue and reach agreements with Donald Trump, who after Peña Nieto is the most hated man in Mexico for his undisguised anti-Mexican racism, persecution of immigrants and demands that Mexico pay up to $15 billion to build a wall on its border. AMLO said that he would propose to Trump the creation of “something like the old Alliance for Progress,” the aid program inaugurated under US President Kennedy in 1961 with the aim of tying Latin America closer to US imperialism and forestalling left-nationalist revolutions like the one in Cuba.

As López Obrador has emerged as the all but certain victor in the July 1 election, he has moved steadily to the right, even as Mexico’s ruling oligarchy, which formerly denounced him as a demagogue bent on turning Mexico into a new Cuba or Venezuela, has moved to accept him.

Indeed, billionaire Carlos Slim, the richest man in Mexico and formally the richest man in the world, warned recently that if AMLO failed to be elected president, the country would face economic instability.

In an appearance before the heads of Mexico’s major banks in March, the MORENA candidate vowed that the “property regime” in Mexico would be respected, with no plans for “expropriations or nationalizations.” He swore his fealty to the “market economy” and promised that his policies would not “affect the banking sector at all.”

Similarly, his aides and advisors have walked back AMLO’s previous denunciations of the drive to privatize Mexico’s previously state-controlled energy sector and open it up to exploitation by international energy conglomerates, promising that all such contracts will be respected.

The markets have already factored in the victory of López Obrador, and by all accounts see no threat to the interests of Mexican and world capitalism.

“This stability is perhaps surprising,” said the director general of the Mexican stock exchange, José Oriol Bosch. “There are always those who look for the negative, but what is being demonstrated in the markets is that the country is prepared for this process.”

After his meetings with executives of major international banks such as Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. in recent months, Wall Street is similarly bullish on an AMLO victory.

It cannot be excluded, given the deep crisis and bitter divisions within the Mexican ruling class, that the 2018 election will be determined not by the popular vote, but by electoral fraud. Such was the case in 1988, when the election was stolen from Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas in order to install the PRI candidate Carlos Salinas.

This has been the most violent election year in Mexican history, with over 120 politicians murdered since campaigning began. These killings take place in the context of a continuing wave of violence, claiming 8,000 lives in the same period, in a country where at least 35,000 people are classified as disappeared.

The passing of an Interior Security Law last year has given the president the authority to impose what amounts to martial law, deploying the army to the streets. An attempt to impose a president under such conditions, however, could quickly plunge volatile Mexico into violent social upheaval.

The international working class has undergone bitter experiences with bourgeois parties like MORENA, resting on affluent layers of the middle class and employing vaguely left phrases, while promising “hope” and “change.” Just across Mexico’s northern border, American workers made such an experience with Democrat Barack Obama, hailed by the pseudo-left as a “transformational president,” who, once in power, imposed policies that expanded war, accelerated the transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top and increased mass deportations to record levels.

Then there was the election of Syriza in Greece. Hailed by petty-bourgeois left parties throughout the world, it came to power in 2015 on the basis of promises to end EU-imposed austerity measures, only to capitulate within months, trampling underfoot a referendum rejecting austerity by a landslide and imposing the cuts demanded by the international banks.

There is a striking similarity between the campaigns waged by Syriza and MORENA. Syriza formed a coalition after the 2015 election with the Independent Greeks, a right-wing nationalist party that advocates anti-immigrant policies and support for the Greek Orthodox Church, while engaging in open anti-Semitism.

AMLO’s Morena is running in Sunday’s election as part of a coalition that includes the Social Encounter Party (PES), a right-wing party comprised mostly of Evangelical Christians that campaigns against gay rights, same-sex marriage and abortion.

This remarkable symmetry is by no means coincidental. In both cases, the alliance of these supposed “left” bourgeois candidates with parties of the extreme right represents an unmistakable signal to the ruling establishment that they can be entrusted to defend the interests of both national and foreign capital, including through the support of the most right-wing policies.

MORENA and AMLO represent the interests of capitalism. It is notable that López Obrador has not embraced or welcomed the explosive struggles of the Mexican workers and oppressed, from the gasolinazo protests against the hiking of energy costs to the strikes of teachers and the ongoing struggles of victims of state violence.

While promising the cheapest form of populism, a struggle against corruption—while guaranteeing impunity for the corrupt—and minimal increases in social assistance programs for the poor, it can be certain that a López Obrador administration will respond to pressure from the working class not with concessions, but with ferocious attacks in defense of the interests of the financial elite that has embraced AMLO.

The acute crisis in Mexico and the lack of an independent political alternative for the working class underscores the urgency of building a new revolutionary leadership, a section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, fighting to unite the struggles of the Mexican working class with those of workers in the United States and throughout the Americas to put an end to capitalism.

UNCDF Grants for Development of a Mobile Application for Financial Education in West Africa 2018

Application Deadline: 10th July 2018

Eligible Countries: Guinea, Niger, Senegal, The Gambia

About the Award: The application should be designed for trainers at FSPs level but also for final young clients on their own devices with the option (where applicable) to be linked to an e-wallet system of a partner financial institution. Content for the financial training modules will be provided by UNCDF and the partner financial institution.

Type: Grants, Entrepreneurship

Eligibility: The application:
• Should use an open sourced solution
• Provide an option for USSD compatibility is desirable
• Easy to adapt to different cultural contexts like local language
• Should be easy to use and should take into consideration low literacy and digital skills of end users
• Should be android compatible
• Compatibility with IOS desirable

The technical partner will first launch the platform in Guinea. The launch in other countries will be discussed with UNCDF at the start of the engagement. Please note the timeline for other countries will vary according to the FSPs selected in each country.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Up to US$300,000 for the whole project. Applicants should provide budgets indicating the cost per stage (as depicted above) per country and how they would allocate costs to produce high quality results with their technical approach.

Duration of Programme: The duration of the grant agreement will be 30 months.

How to Apply: 

• Applications and any consultation about this RfA should be submitted via email at youthstart@uncdf.org
• Questions regarding this RfA will be accepted until 5 July 2018
• The subject line of the email should be: Mobile Application for Financial Education YS-E
• Applications can be submitted in either English or French

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Award Providers: UNCDF

FAO/FIMI Training of Trainers on Human Rights, Food and Nutrition Security for Indigenous Women Leaders from Africa 2018

Application Deadline: 9th July 2018

Eligible Countries: African countries

To Be Taken At (Country): To be communicated

About the Award: In this occasion, FIMI and FAO are going to implement the program Training of Trainers on Human Rights, Food Security and Nutrition to be carried out at a regional level in Africa.
The Objectives are:

• Strengthen the leaderships and knowledges of indigenous women on human rights, food security and nutrition for the capacity building of other indigneous women from Africa.
• Promote and strengthen the articulation, alliances and collaborations between activists and indigenous organizations at the regional level for the advocacy and participation at the international processes.

Type: Training

Eligibility: This program is open to indigenous women leaders from Africa, the requirements are

• Indigenous women with skill and experience in facilitating capacity building processes.
• Indigenous women associated with an indigenous organisation and actively working with indigenous communities and involved in human rights, indigneous peoples rights and women?s rights.
• Basic english speaking and writing skills.

Number of Awards: In the selection process, 30 indigenous women leaders will be selected to participate in the program through an Advisory Committee.

Value of Award: Scholarship to cover airfare (economy flights), accommodation and food will be provided; it is included educational material. FIMI will provide full scholarships for 30 participants. All scholarships will awarded in the most equitable way possible.
Participants’ commitments

• A signed letter of commitment to actively participate and complete the 12 days of the capacity building training.
• Deliver a Capacity builidng Plan on the knowledge acquired from ToT and its implementation.
• Getting a visa or passport in advance, if it is required.

Duration of Programme: The program will be held for a period of 12 days continuous during August or September of this year. The exact dates and venue are still to be confirmed.

How to Apply: For an application to be complete, the following documents must be submitted:

1. A completed application form 
2. A letter of organizational endorsement, preferable the Organisation/Institution the applicant belong to or is working closely with. This letter shall be addressed to the Coordination of the Indigenous Women’s Global Leadership School. The letter should also specify the national or regional network which the organisation is affiliated with.
3. A commitment letter from the candidate to perform all tasks required and commitment to conclude the program.

The completed application form and a letter of endorsement shall be sent by email to winniekodi@iiwf.org with a copy to global-school@iiwf.org Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any enquiries.

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Award Providers: FAO, IIWF/FIMI

Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize ($1 million) for Outstanding Teachers Worldwide 2018

Application Deadline: 9th September 2018

Eligible Countries: All

To be taken at (country): Winner will be announced at the Global Education and Skills Forum 2019 in Dubai, UAE

About the Award: Dubbed the “Nobel Prize for teaching”, this $1 million award aims to put teaching excellence in the spotlight, where it belongs. Our goal is to give outstanding global educators a chance to show the world what they do, sharing inspiring stories and encouraging ever-more ambitious teaching practice and educational initiatives.
The Prize will be awarded under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President and Prime Minister, Ruler of Dubai.  The winner will be announced during the Global Education and Skills Forum 2019. The selection process will be audited by PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

Type: Contests/Award

Eligibility: To be eligible, an Applicant must:

• be at least eighteen (18) years old at time of entry;
• teach or provide educational support to students between the ages of 5 and 18 in a compulsory setting;
• not be prohibited from participating in the Contest or receiving the Prize under applicable law;
• not have a criminal record;
• not have conducted themselves (by act or omission) in such a way as to bring the teaching profession or VF, its affiliates, or their respective directors, officers, employees, agents, and subsidiaries (“VF Parties”) into disrepute (as may be determined at the sole discretion of VF);
• not be a previous Prize winner; and
• not be a previous Top 10 candidate

Selection Criteria: We’re looking for:

• Appreciation from parents, students, colleagues, head teachers or the community. We want to see the people who matter speaking up for a teacher who has made a real impact in their lives.
• Innovation in teaching practice. Whether that means embracing technology or doing something new and different. Whatever innovative approach is used, it should clearly help students achieve their learning outcomes.
• Contribution to educational debates. From blogs and conferences, to social media campaigns and media participation, our Global Teacher should be giving voice to the educational issues which affect them and their community.
• Encouragement for teachers, and non-teachers. We’re looking for an individual who supports educators and encourages others to enter the teaching profession, either actively or by setting a positive example.
• Preparation of young people for success in an increasingly diverse and globalised world. Winning candidates should be working to turn students into open-minded, successful global citizens.
• Development of innovative ideas and initiatives which improve access to quality education for children from all backgrounds.
• Accomplishment which goes beyond the classroom, setting a precedent for a truly extraordinary approach to education which inspires both teachers and non-teachers all over the world.

Selection Process:

• Once the application process has closed, applications will be scored and read by a panel of online judges who will select the Top 50 Finalists.
• The first Committee of judges (“Prize Committee“) will meet in November 2017 to select the Top 10 Finalists.
• The Global Teacher Prize Academy (the final panel of judges) will then select the winner, through a secure online voting system, subject to additional screening, background and reference checks.
• The whole selection process will be monitored and audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers to ensure transparency.

Number of Awardees: Ten (10)

Value of Award: US$1,000,000

How to Apply: 2019 applications and nominations are now open

Visit Award Webpage for details

Award Provider: Varkey Foundation

Canadian Government Rapid Research Fund for Ebola Virus Disease Outbreaks Call for Research Proposals 2018

Application Deadline: 13th July 2018 12:00 p.m. EST

Eligible Countries: African countries and Canada

About the Award: Together, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) have made available a combined CA$1.5 million to support partnered teams of Canadian and African researchers.
The Rapid Research Fund (RRF) for Ebola Virus Disease Outbreaks will fund social science, population and public health, and health systems research relevant to the emerging crisis. A minimum of four successful teams will be eligible to receive research grants up to CA$360,000 over two years (2018–2020).
The focus of the supported research will be to inform the response to the current Ebola outbreak in DRC, with the aim of improving prevention and preparedness efforts for future Ebola or similarly significant infectious disease outbreak threats in the region.

Scope: The Rapid Research Fund (RRF) for Ebola Virus Disease Outbreaks is intended to support social sciences, humanities, public health and/or health systems research aimed at more effectively containing the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), as well as potential future outbreaks, more readily.
A minimum of four successful teams will be eligible to receive research grants up to CA$360,000 over two years (2018–2020). The focus of the supported research will be to inform the response to the current Ebola outbreak in DRC, with the aim of improving prevention and preparedness efforts to future Ebola or similarly significant infectious disease outbreak threats in the region.
Projects must be focused on addressing challenges related to the current Ebola outbreak in the DRC, and/or risks of extension to the surrounding region. Proposals should apply social science, humanities, population and public health, and/or health services research approaches that build on previous learnings, and/or respond to documented knowledge and practice gaps, to build capacity for more effective outbreak response, containment, and mitigation efforts.
The proposal must also justify the use of Rapid Research funds, detailing how the same research success and impact would not be achieved through traditional, less time-sensitive funding sources.

Type: Grant

Eligibility: This call is intended to fund collaborative partnerships between Canadian and African researchers based out of established, research-oriented organizations in North and sub-Saharan Africa and Canada.
The following eligibility criteria also apply:

• Application from one Canadian lead applicant and an African co-lead applicant.
• Application from one African lead applicant and a Canadian co-lead applicant.
• Eligible organizations are legal entities, such as accredited universities, non-governmental or government-funded research organizations.
• African-Canadian partnerships may include other co-applicant research partners from eligible organizations.
• Intergovernmental organizations (e.g. United Nations system) and CGIAR Centres may not apply to this call as lead or co-applicants. Intergovernmental organizations may, however, participate as collaborating organizations.
• The lead applicant and co-applicants may negotiate and develop funding arrangements directly with third-party organizations for specific services. IDRC will not contract directly with third-party organizations. Applications that involve third-party organizations must clearly justify their involvement and explain their role(s).
• At most, a person can apply as the lead applicant for one project and be a co-applicant for one additional project.

Number of Awards: 4 teams

Value of Award: CA$1.5 million (up to CA$360,000 per project)

How to Apply: Apply online
Please consult the online call application in English and French for complete details on eligibility criteria, including additional information and FAQs.

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Award Providers: International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

OFID Development Leaders Scholarship for Youths to Attend One Young World Conference 2018 – The Netherlands

Application Deadline: 20th July 2018

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: OPEC Countries. See list below.

To be taken at (country):The Hague, Netherlands

About the Award: The OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) is the development finance institution established by the Member States of OPEC in 1976 as a collective channel of aid to the developing countries. OFID works in cooperation with developing country partners and the international donor community to stimulate economic growth and alleviate poverty in all disadvantaged regions of the world. It does this by providing financing to build essential infrastructure, strengthen social services delivery and promote productivity, competitiveness and trade. OFID’s work is people-centered, focusing on projects that meet basic needs – such as food, energy, clean water and sanitation, healthcare and education – with the aim of encouraging self-reliance and inspiring hope for the future.
OFID is a long standing supporter of One Young World and has enabled 100 young leaders to participate in One Young World Summit since 2011. This year OFID will sponsor twenty successful applicants to participate in the One Young World Summit 2016 which takes place in Ottawa, Canada from 28 September – 1 October.

Offered Since: 2011

Type: Conference, Training

Eligibility: In order to apply, candidate must be:

• Aged 18 – 30
• A national of one of the listed eligible countries. Click here to view list.

Successful candidates will excel in the following areas:

• Evidenced commitment to the sustainable development of their country. This commitment can come in many forms; ranging from a high level of involvement in community initiatives to social entrepreneurship or from leading responsible business practices to public service.
• Leadership ability
• Concern for local or global issues
• Ability to generate and articulate impactful ideas
• Teamwork

Number of Awardees: 20

List of countries:  Algeria, Guatemala, Nigeria, Syrian Arab Republic, Botswana, Iraq, Palestinian Territory, Occupied, Tanzania, United Republic of, Burkina Faso, Jordan, Paraguay, Tunisia, Cambodia, Lebanon, Philippines, Venezuela, Cameroon, Libya, Qatar, Vietnam, Congo, The Democratic Republic of, Malawi, Rwanda, Zambia, Egypt, Mongolia, Saudi Arabia, Eritrea, Morocco, Sierra Leone, Ghana

Value of Scholarship: 

• Access to the One Young World Summit 2018 in The Hague, Netherlands
• Hotel accommodation on a shared basis between 17 October and 20 October
• Catering which includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
• Transport between the Summit accommodation and the Summit venue.
• Summit hand-outs and support materials.
• The cost of travel to and from The Hague.

In addition to attend to attending the Summit, all OFID scholars will be able to apply for a €5,000 grant to support their development work.

Duration of Scholarship:17 – 20 October 2018

How to Apply: Submit an online application in English before midnight 5 August. If you already have a One Young World candidate profile, you do not need to create a new application to apply for this scholarship, you will be considered for it automatically.

Apply Here

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: One Young World,OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID)

Australian government pushes cuts to student loan scheme

Oscar Grenfell 

The Liberal-National government of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is pressing ahead with a pro-business plan to substantially lower the threshold at which students must begin to repay their exorbitant university debts, under the HECS/HELP fee deferment program.

The move seeks to drive down the number of tertiary students, and transform universities, ever more directly, into corporatised, for-profit entities accessible only to wealthy layers. It is a continuation of a decades-long assault on university funding, prosecuted by successive governments, Labor and Liberal-National alike.

The Turnbull government planned to push the full tranche of its university cuts through parliament this week. It reportedly secured support from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party and other right-wing populist senators, who are playing a crucial role in the imposition of the government’s austerity agenda.

Yesterday, however, Turnbull announced that the education bills would be postponed until August. The government has been preoccupied with enacting its “foreign interference” legislation, aimed at criminalising opposition to Australia’s role in the US-led plans for war with China, and winning sufficient parliamentary support to impose deeply unpopular tax cuts for big business.

Turnbull appears to have deferred the HECS/HELP legislation for fear of the widespread opposition it will provoke, especially in the lead-up to by-elections next month.

The threshold at which students must repay the university debt they accrue during their studies, will, however, be lowered on July 1, as a result of previous cuts imposed in 2016.

As of the new financial year, former students must pay 1 percent of their taxable income, once they begin earning $51,196 per year. This is almost $4,000 lower than the previous threshold of $55,874. The move applies not only to graduates, but also to students, including those undertaking postgraduate degrees, who have begun working.

The government’s latest bill aims to slash the threshold even further, to just $45,000 per year. If it passes, the change will come into effect in July 2019.

The measures will intensify a social crisis that already confronts thousands of young people. Anyone earning $45,000 per year receives about $730 per week after tax.

The average weekly rent for an apartment in Sydney, the centre of a property boom fuelled by financial speculation, is over $500. Average rents for single rooms in share houses in Sydney and Melbourne exceed $200 per week.

The latest cut in the threshold coincides with the second stage of reductions in weekend penalty wages, mandated by the Fair Work Commission, the pro-business industrial tribunal created by the previous federal Labor government. Overall, Sunday penalty rates for hospitality workers will be cut from 175 percent of base pay rates, to 150 percent. Fast food and retail workers face a similar reduction.

That move will hit broad layers of young people, including students and graduates, who are forced to work in low-paid positions, with poverty-level wages, to survive. Precarious casual and part-time employment now accounts for half the entire workforce.

University graduates, like their counterparts internationally, are increasingly unable to find positions in the fields they studied. A Productivity Commission report last year found that only 70 percent of graduates were employed on a full-time basis. Almost a third were performing roles not directly related to their degree.

The government is also seeking to cap state-subsidised university debt for each student at $104,440, across the lifetime of their studies. A student who exceeds the limit will be forced to pay full-fees up-front for subsequent courses. Undergraduate degrees for medicine and other subjects can cost over $30,000 per year.

If there is a substantial rise in inflation, or universities increase their fees amid deepening government cuts, students’ fees may easily reach the HECS-HELP cap.

The move has a broader significance, as an initial step toward the introduction of full-upfront fees for all students. The lifetime cap, like the income threshold at which students must pay their debt, will undoubtedly be lowered by governments seeking to further reduce education spending.

The government’s measures are a direct response to a protracted campaign by the financial and corporate elite. Right-wing think tanks, with close ties to big business, such as the Institute of Public Affairs, and Murdoch-owned publications, including the Australian, have called for reduced annual intakes of university students.

They have bemoaned the fact that growing numbers of working class youth are receiving a tertiary education, and have called for courses and admissions to be tailored, more directly, toward the immediate labour market needs of the major corporations. Amid a deepening slowdown of the Australian and world economy, and the destruction of large numbers of jobs, the ruling elite is seeking to create an entire layer of young people who will be fodder for low-skilled, poorly-paid and menial labour.

The Labor Party opposition, collaborating closely with the education unions, cynically claims to oppose curtailing the HECS-HELP system. In reality, Turnbull’s measures are the continuation of those put in place by previous Labor and Liberal-National governments.

In 1989, the Labor government of Bob Hawke reintroduced tertiary education fees as part of a broader pro-business agenda of deregulation and privatisation. While creating a HECS loan scheme for domestic students, which burdens young people with thousands of dollars of debt, Labor imposed full, upfront fees on international students.

Average fees for international students, for any degree, now stand above $30,000 per year. For domestic students, HECS debts rose from an average of $1,800 in 1989, to $2,454, when Labor was ousted from office in 1996. Today, annual fees for undergraduate arts degrees often approach $5,000, and are substantially higher in specialised fields.

From 2007 to 2013, the Labor governments of Prime Ministers Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd intensified the assault on university education, with the support of the trade unions. They deregulated student enrollments, forcing universities to compete for funding by attracting the largest number of students, while inflicting billions of dollars in funding cuts.

The result has been an unprecedented casualisation of the academic and university workforce, classroom overcrowding and cuts to courses, along with cuts to staff jobs and conditions, imposed by university managements across the country.

The Turnbull government’s latest measures, and the cuts that preceded them, underscore the reality that the fight for free, high-quality tertiary education as a basic social right, can go forward only through a political struggle against all the official parliamentary parties, including Labor.

AT&T colludes with the NSA to carry out massive illegal surveillance

Meenakshi Jagadeesan

In an investigative report released on Monday, The Intercept has further exposed the long-term and highly organized collusion between the communications behemoth AT&T and the National Security Agency (NSA). The story reveals the use of eight AT&T facilities in major cities across the US (New York, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington D.C., and Dallas) by the NSA to serve as “critical parts of one of the world’s most powerful electronic eavesdropping systems, hidden in plain sight.”

In large part due to the efforts of brave whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, the public has been made aware of the massive and illegal surveillance on all forms of electronic communications carried out by the NSA. In addition, there has been sufficient evidence of the “special relationship” between AT&T and the NSA. However, the new revelations are striking in that they not only provide us a much better look at the physical infrastructure of the spying, but also make clear that the sheer scale of the collusion and the surveillance is far greater than has been assumed.

The eight sites identified by The Intercept are different from the hundreds of other sites that are owned by AT&T across the US, in that they primarily carry and process large amounts of data not just from the company’s own customers, but also from other internet providers. Not all internet operators have the infrastructure to send data in an efficient or cost-effective manner. So, when internet traffic in a particular area gets overwhelming for a particular internet provider, they tend to use the bandwidth that is sold or exchanged by another operator with capacity to spare.

Given its position as one of the largest US telecommunications companies, AT&T’s vast network is often used by other operators around the world to transport their customers’ data. Included in the list of companies that use AT&T’s infrastructure are Sprint, Cogent Communications, and Level 3, as well as foreign companies such as Sweden’s Telia, India’s Tata Communications, Italy’s Telecom Italia, and Germany’s Deutsche Telekom. The initial transfer of data between the companies takes place in third party sites (such as those operated by California’s Equinix), but then much or all of it is routed through the eight major sites. These sites are known as “peering” or “backbone” facilities. And it is these facilities that are being put to the service of the NSA’s surveillance program.

Mark Klein, a technician who worked for AT&T over 22 years, told The Intercept that having access to the “peering sites” provides the NSA far greater access than just the usual data “because the peering links, by the nature of the connections, are liable to carry everybody’s traffic at one point or another during the day, or the week, or the year.”

NSA spokesman Christopher Augustine gave the expected official response that the agency could “neither confirm nor deny” the story, while insisting that it “conducts its foreign signals intelligence mission under the legal authorities established by Congress and is bound by both policy and law to protect U.S. persons’ privacy and civil liberties.”

However, the NSA’s extra-legal activities are by now well-known enough for that assurance to sound quite hollow. In addition, the willingness of the ruling class to use all tools at its disposal to curtail mass opposition, means that even the existing “legal authorities” are at best vague and elastic enough to justify mass surveillance and violations of the Bill of Rights.

The NSA had laid the framework for its largest surveillance program, codenamed “FAIRVIEW,” in 1985, before technological developments allowed for this amount of data to be transported and processed. In fact, AT&T (incidentally, the only company to participate in FAIRVIEW) developed the eight “peering” sites, known as “Service Node Routing Complexes,” only in the late 1990s, following the internet boom. However, within a decade these sites were being fully used by the NSA, still within the purview of FAIRVIEW.

The kind and amount of data that control of the peering sites allows the NSA is truly mind-boggling. A majority of the data transmitted from around the world through the vast, under ocean, fiber-optic network is routed at one point or another through the US. This is in part due to the location of the country between the major continents, but also due to the pre-eminence of American telecommunications companies. It is this “home-field advantage” that the NSA has very systematically exploited, with the full support of AT&T.

Under a classified initiative called “SAGUARO,” AT&T worked with the NSA to create a framework on how to eavesdrop in the most effective manner in the peering sites, ranking “communications flowing through its networks on the basis of intelligence value, prioritizing data depending on which country it was derived from.” AT&T’s helpfulness seems to have gone even beyond just facilitating the use of its own servers. According to the information acquired by The Intercept, the company has worked hand-in-glove with the NSA to set up a centralized processing facility, believed to be somewhere in New Jersey, where the material collected from the peering sites are processed once again, before being sent to the NSA headquarters in Maryland.

The NSA has for decades claimed the legal right to eavesdrop on “communications which originate and terminate in foreign countries, but traverse U.S. territory,” under the Reagan-era Executive Order 12333. After 9/11, the agency creatively interpreted this right to surveil communications taking place between American citizens, leading to the eventual exposure of the “warrantless wiretapping” scandal.

While critics rightly pointed out that this constituted a violation of citizenship rights, in 2008 Congress provided a legal patina to the actions of the NSA by enacting Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act (FISA). Under this, the NSA is allowed to continue warrantless wiretapping, so long as “it is incidental ... for instance, if it was monitoring people in Pakistan, and they were talking with Americans in the U.S. by phone, email, or through an internet chat service.” The absurdity of supposing this addition in any way protects Fourth Amendment rights was made apparent even in the FISA court’s own findings in 2011 that the NSA “had acquired some 13 million ‘internet transactions’ during one six-month period, and had unlawfully gathered ‘tens of thousands of wholly domestic communications’ each year.”

The court’s ruling meant that the NSA had two options: to shut down its surveillance operations or to put into place measures that would prevent it from reviewing its unlawfully collected information. The NSA claimed that it chose the latter, and had put into place “cautionary banners” that would ensure the protection of constitutional rights. However, there is no indication that these “banners” in fact function as their supporters claim.

In fact, in April 2017, the NSA admitted what it called “inadvertent compliance incidents” and stated that it would no longer be using surveillance programs authorized under Section 702. As with its earlier assurances about respect for constitutional rights, this statement should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism. The exposure of the continued activities of the NSA in collusion with AT&T shows that the very same tactics, albeit not under the same legal framework, remain in place, and the construction of an Orwellian state apparatus continues unabated.

Government of Netherlands/Fate Foundation Nourish Nigeria NutriPitch for Nigerian Entrepreneurs 2018

Application Deadline: 7th July 2018

Eligible Countries: Nigeria

To Be Taken At (Country): Nairobi, Kenya.

About the Award: The programme positions entrepreneurs for growth and scale through the intensive Bootcamp Session, Business Gap Analysis and Workshop Sessions.

Start of Programme: NutriPitch – The Nourish Nigeria Challenge will commence in July 2018 in Lagos with an induction session and an intensive one-week accelerator boot camp and GAP Analysis to help each entrepreneur develop an individual growth plan and roadmap to scale. This will be followed by post boot camp sessions aimed at helping the entrepreneurs address gaps that they have identified in their businesses.

End of Programme: The programme will close out with presentation of awards at the NutriPitch Competition and a graduation ceremony will hold at the FATE Annual Celebration on Thursday, December 6^th, 2018.

A Local Elevator Pitch Competition (NutriPitch) will be held at the end of the workshop sessions for businesses to showcase and pitch to key funding partners. The top five (5) entrepreneurs from the NutriPitch competition will represent Nigeria in the Regional Elevator Pitch Competition (REPC) in Nairobi, Kenya.

Key focus areas:

• Input supply
• Production (crop/animal farming)
• Processing
• Packaging
• Logistics and distribution
• Trading and retailing
• Advocacy
• Consulting
• Information management

Type: Entrepreneurship

Eligibility: Applicant must

• Be a Nigerian citizen (male or female)
• Have a business whose products and/or services promote nutrition and food safety in Nigeria. Note that the NutriPitch Programme will abide by the UN Business Sector Guidelines  and priority will only be given to businesses whose operations abide by the guidelines.
• Be a start-up or growth stage SME fully registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission
• Be available to participate FULL-TIME in the one-week boot camp in Lagos between from Monday to Saturday, July 23 –July 28, 2018 and ALL other required sessions between July 30 and August 23, 2018.

Number of Awards: 10

Value of Award: The programme supports only for-profit businesses and social-enterprises whose products or services promote nutrition and food safety in Nigeria.

Duration of Programme: 3 Months

How to Apply: Apply Here

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Scaling up Nutrition Business Network , GAIN and the Netherlands Government and supported by FATE Foundation