13 killed in deadly SUV crash near US-Mexico border in southern California

Meenakshi Jagadeesan

Early Tuesday morning, a semi-truck towing two trailers slammed into a Ford Explorer SUV carrying more than two dozen people in the Imperial Valley region in Southern California just a few miles from the US-Mexico border.

Law enforcement officers work at the scene of a deadly crash in Holtville, Calif., on Tuesday, March 2, 2021. Authorities say a semi-truck crashed into an SUV carrying 25 people on a Southern California highway, killing at least 13 people. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

The crash, which is the deadliest in the border area in many decades, has so far claimed 13 lives and left many seriously injured. The carnage, captured on traffic cameras, shows passengers being ejected from the SUV on impact, and then several trying to get out of the wreckage looking dazed. Emergency responders at the scene reported finding several victims dead inside the vehicle.

The injured were taken to the El Centro Regional Medical Center (ECRMC), Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs and Pioneers Memorial Hospital in nearby Brawley. UC San Diego Health said it received three patients transferred from ECRMC via air ambulance. According to CHP reports, the passengers ranged from ages 20 to 55, and it has been reported that the driver of the SUV was a 28-year-old from Mexicali, Mexico.

In his initial statement reported by CNN, El Centro Regional Medical Center CEO Dr. Adolphe Edward highlighted the fact that this was a major accident and that “people were going through a difficult time,” and warned reporters against categorizing the victims as “undocumented.” According to the latest reports, US Border Patrol (USBP) has stated it suspects all the victims had been part of a group of 44 migrants smuggled from Mexico into the US through a hole in the border fence near Calexico.

On Wednesday morning, USBP also released a timeline detailing the events leading up to the crash. According to the official version, agents patrolling the Calexico were notified that a “red Suburban was on fire” near I-8 and Interstate Route 115 at 5:56 a.m.. Within 10 minutes, the agents claim they found a 10-foot hole in the border fence near Gordon’s Well exit/Schneider’s Bride area, and 19 people hiding in the bushes while trying to put out the vehicle fire.

Soon after, the agents received a call about a deadly crash. Border Patrol Search Trauma and Rescue Team (BORSTAR) agents were the first on the scene and reported that they found 12 victims dead on the spot.

The Ford Explorer SUV involved in the accident had all but the driver and front passenger seats removed, which meant none of the other passengers had access to seat belts. The vehicle, which is supposed to carry a maximum of 8 people, was carrying two dozen passengers.

This dangerous mode of transportation is not uncommon in the border areas, especially in the Imperial Valley, where agribusinesses have consistently exploited underpaid transborder farmworkers. Farms in the region have used vehicles like the one involved in the most recent deadly crash to transport migrant workers who have crossed legally into the United States.

Car crashes in the border area are not uncommon, and usually have been the result of vehicles trying to flee USBP. In what was the most recent deadly crash before Tuesday, seven people were killed when a car attempted to flee USBP vehicles giving chase in El Paso, Texas in June 2020. Prior to that, in 2019 a police chase in rural South Texas resulted in six deaths, and five people charged with migrant smuggling. In July 2012, in one of the worst border-related crashes of the last decade, a Ford pickup crammed with more than 20 undocumented adults and children struck two trees, killing 15 people, including an 8-year-old girl, in Texas.

At the time of publication, many questions raised by the most recent accident remain unanswered. The official report merely states that the SUV was hit after it apparently entered an intersection directly in front of a Peterbilt tractor trailer traveling north on Route 115 near El Centro. However, it is not quite clear whether the SUV was speeding or whether the driver ran a stop sign or for that matter what would account for it being directly in front of an oncoming vehicle. For now, USBP has claimed that none of its agents were in pursuit and the BORSTAR agents at the site had merely responded to the emergency call.

The response to such accidents from government officials and the media has taken the form of bemoaning the evils of human trafficking and a ramping up of militarized border policing. In his official statement after Tuesday’s tragedy, El Centro Sector Chief Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino connected the accident to the hole in the border wall, insisting, “Human smugglers have proven time and again they have little regard for human life. Those who may be contemplating crossing the border illegally should pause to think of the dangers that all too often end in tragedy; tragedies our Border Patrol Agents and first responders are unfortunately very familiar with.”

The Department of Homeland Security has also announced an investigation into the human trafficking operation that apparently brought the migrants into the country. This investigation, as others in the past, will whitewash the horrendous human costs of US immigration policy, which under the new Biden administration is not fundamentally different from what it was under Trump.

The El Centro sector employs 800 Border Patrol agents to cover 70 miles across the valley. It boasts of a new border barrier—a row of 30-foot-tall, slender steel slats with pointed edges—that Trump inspected with great fanfare. All of this is to impede the movement of workers in an area which is the agricultural heart of the region and also among the most economically depressed in California.

The unemployment rate for the valley is four times the state average, and its seasonal labor demands are met in large part through migrant labor from across the border. It is estimated that around 6000 farm workers cross the border legally during the annual harvest. However, the dire economic conditions on both sides of the border—exacerbated by the on-going pandemic—have meant that desperate workers have been forced into looking for any means possible to eke out a living and provide for their families.

Border Patrol agents, who are usually heavily armed in these areas, have reported that the number of unauthorized immigrants arrested in January 2021 was 78,323—well over double the figure from January 2020. These numbers, which had dipped to 17,066 in April 2020 in the early days of the pandemic, reveal the growing desperation of the working class in the border regions.

The Biden administration, which supporters claimed would initiate a new chapter in US immigration policy, has done nothing of that sort. Despite the anti-immigrant ravings of Donald Trump at the recent CPAC convention, US immigration policies have continued to develop along the same trajectory he had set, including the re-opening of detention centers for children. In this context, tragedies like what unfolded in the Imperial Valley this week will sadly continue to be a fixture.

Australia: Media-led hysteria in overdrive after attorney-general denies rape allegation

Oscar Grenfell

A campaign against the Liberal-National Coalition government, centering on various accusations of sexual misconduct, reached a new level of intensity yesterday, with Attorney-General Christian Porter compelled to identify himself as the subject of a historical rape allegation.

Porter’s press conference, at which he strenuously denied the accusation, has done nothing to dampen a media-led frenzy, which has acquired a hysterical character. The corporate press and official political discussion is now completely dominated by an allegation dating back more than three decades, that will never be tested in a court of law and that is impossible to verify.

Attorney-General Christian Porter speaking to the press (Source: ABC News Australia)

As is always the case, such media-driven campaigns serve political agendas that cannot be openly stated, and that are concealed behind a wall of confected moral outrage, salacious gossip and feverish speculation.

In the first instance, the function of the current hysteria is to drown out discussion of the immense social crisis triggered by the pandemic and the pro-business response to it, or any other political issue, from Australia’s frontline role in US-aggression against China, to an escalating, bipartisan assault on democratic norms.

Then there are the various conflicts within the political establishment and the ruling elite, which are clearly at play.

Longstanding factional divisions within the Coalition are at the centre of the crisis. Elements within the Coalition are leaking extensively to the media. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has positioned himself as the figurehead of the campaign over sexual misconduct, targeting current incumbent Scott Morrison, who displaced him in a party-room coup in 2018.

Labor, which has marched in lockstep with the government for the past year, and the Greens that long ago dropped a posture of opposition to the major parties, are seeking to differentiate from the government solely on the question of sexual misconduct.

They are trying to shore up their support among a privileged, upper-middle class constituency, that is obsessed with issues of identity, including gender and sexual relations, and largely indifferent to the class questions of social inequality, growing poverty and war, on which Labor and the Coalition have indistinguishable policies.

The sordid political agendas being pursued are intersecting with frustrations within the ruling class over the “paralysis” of the government, voiced by publications such as the Australian and the Australian Financial Review. Their chief complaint is that Morrison is not moving quickly enough on a wholesale restructuring of the economy and workplace relations, aimed at boosting the profits of the corporate elite at the expense of the working class.

The campaign began on February 15, when Liberal Party staffer Brittany Higgins told the media that she had been raped by a colleague in early 2019. At the time, Higgins had requested an end to a police investigation of the allegation, less than two weeks after she had filed a complaint, and then collaborated with the government to keep the story out of the press.

Almost two years after the fact, she suddenly aired the allegations through the media and connected them to vague assertions that she received insufficient support from her superiors. This was immediately presented by the media as proof of an endemic culture of sexual harassment and assault within the Coalition and parliament as a whole, which overnight became the decisive political issue of the day. Further anonymous allegations were rapidly forthcoming.

In this context, Labor foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong and Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young reported last Friday that they had just received an anonymous letter detailing allegations of a 1988 rape by a senior cabinet minister. Turnbull, it rapidly emerged, had himself been sent the letter in late 2019.

Within days, Porter’s identity as the minister in question was leaked. His name trended on Twitter, while Turnbull, Labor and the Greens demanded that he step forward and respond to the allegations.

What is publicly confirmed of the accusations is limited. In February 2020, a woman filed a report at a Sydney police station alleging that she was raped by Porter in January 1988 when both of them were at a debating tournament held at the University of Sydney. In June 2020, before she had been formally interviewed, the woman withdrew her complaint. Several days later, she passed away, reportedly as a result of suicide.

On Tuesday, New South Wales police announced they were ending an investigation into the allegation, because the woman’s death meant there was insufficient admissible evidence to proceed.

At yesterday’s press conference, Porter categorically denied that he had committed any sexual offence. The attorney-general, now 50, noted that in January 1988, he was just 17 years old. Porter rejected calls that he stand down or resign, warning that if he were to do so, it would create a precedent for “trial by media,” with the mere airing of untested allegations enough to end the career of any public figure. This, he said, would be a threat to the rule of law and to democratic rights, including to the presumption of innocence.

Many in the media pack, which often refrains from any critical questioning of government ministers, were clearly furious with these statements. The details of the allegations were put to Porter repeatedly, while one reporter responded to talk of the presumption of innocence by declaring that it applied in court, but not “in the court of public opinion,” i.e., where careerist journalists and their billionaire employers are the arbiters.

There are growing calls from media outlets, including the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, Crikey and the Guardian, as well as commentators at the state-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation, for some sort of official inquiry into the allegations against Porter. This is also the line of Turnbull, Labor and the Greens.

Proponents of this course of action openly acknowledge that Porter could never be convicted of an offence based on the criminal burden of proof, i.e., guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Instead, they are calling for the allegations to be tested, outside of court, on the evidentiary standards of a civil case, in which adjudication is based on the balance of probabilities.

Given that many of those calling for such an investigation also insist that complaints of sexual assault by a female must always be believed at face value, and without critical examination, it is fairly obvious that they are angling for Porter to be officially labelled a rapist without a criminal trial or due process.

Some have gone even further. Representatives of the Australian Women Lawyers group, for instance, have called in the media for an examination of Porter’s personal conduct spanning decades. This would include not only the rape accusation, but such things as media allegations last year that he had engaged in consensual extra-marital relations with adult women.

Legal experts who have not lost their heads or been cowed into silence have warned of the dangerous precedent that would be established by such an operation. Firstly, individuals could be tainted as guilty of the most serious criminal offences, without any of the standard evidentiary requirements applying; secondly, the executive branch could call such non-binding hearings against anyone, thereby undermining the independence of the judiciary and the separation of powers.

All of this underscores that there is nothing progressive in the current campaign, which, like the #MeToo movement, is based on a rejection of core democratic rights, above all the presumption of innocence.

Labor and the Greens are seeking to confine opposition to the Morrison government within an anti-democratic and essentially right-wing framework. Under conditions of mounting social and political opposition among workers and youth, they are insisting that the primary, and perhaps sole basis of opposition to a reactionary Coalition government, is upper-middle class identity politics.

Labor and the Greens are hostile to a broader fight against the government, because they support its policies. Labor has backed the government’s pro-business response to the pandemic, its massive tax cuts for the wealthy and the corporations, contained in last October’s federal budget, and its escalating provocations against China. Like the Coalition, they are, above all, fearful of and hostile to any struggle by workers against inequality, war and the corporate offensive against living standards.

The promotion of the anti-democratic nostrums of #MeToo is also providing the most openly right-wing sections of the political establishment with an opportunity to posture as defenders of civil liberties. This includes Porter himself, who as attorney-general has presided over the persecution of refugees, secret trials of whistle-blowers and other moves towards authoritarianism.

For the past fortnight, the Murdoch press has fueled the sexual misconduct frenzy, in line with its frustration over government “paralysis.” Murdoch outlets have previously spearheaded nasty #MeToo “exposures” of Geoffrey Rush and John Jarratt, which ended with the acclaimed actors winning defamation cases against the publications. They also trumpeted untested accusations against actor Craig McLaughlin, which were dismissed at a criminal trial that concluded last December.

Now, fearful that the allegations against Porter could bring down the government and result in protracted political instability, the Murdoch stable has recalled a commitment to due process and hostility to trial by media.

Workers and young people should steer clear of the current sexual misconduct campaign and reject the competing factions of the political establishment. Instead they must begin a political fight for their independent class interests and democratic and social rights against the entire parliamentary set-up and the capitalist system that it defends.

MEST Africa Entrepreneurial Training Programme 2021

Application Deadline: 29th April 2021

Eligible Countries: This program is open to anyone of any nationality or citizenship who meets all the application requirements and lives in Ghana or Nigeria.

To be taken at (country): The training will take place online.

About the Award: MEST offers a full scholarship to a 12-month graduate-level entrepreneurial training in business, communications and software development, including extensive hands-on project work, culminating in a final pitch and the chance to receive seed funding.

As COVID-19 has changed the way organizations operate around the world, causing travel restrictions and moving many workplaces to adopt digital solutions, the Training Program for 2022 will focus on entrepreneurs who live in Ghana and Nigeria.

This campaign falls in line with MEST’s plan to create a pan-African network which will pool the collective talents of entrepreneurs and techies alike. The campaign will also seek to increase the number of entrepreneurs by empowering young Africans while increasing investment eligibility throughout Africa.

Type: Entrepreneurship, Training

Eligibility: To be eligible for the programme, applicants need to meet the following requirements:

• A degree from a top university or Technical College or equivalent experience with at least two (2) years corporate and startup experience (preferred)
• Deep skills in either communications, business or software development (from the onset or acquired during the Pre-Learning stage)
• Young persons crazy about tech and entrepreneurship, and how to use technology to achieve business results
• Should be ready to commit to a full residential program for a whole year
• Disciplined, motivated self-starter who can work and deliver on assignments and projects – demonstrate this by completing the required Pre-Learning courses and MEST’s rigorous recruitment process
• An entrepreneurial spirit and strong desire to start a company
• Ability to communicate candidly and persuasively
• Ability to work well in teams, proven academic or professional excellence
• Demonstrated leadership abilities
• Confident and independent thinking
• Excellent people skills

Number of Awards: 60

Value of Training: The MEST Training Program is fully-sponsored and requires no financial payments to MEST. This is a full-time program that requires you to be available to attend all classes and sessions.

Duration of Training: 1 year

How to Apply: Anyone who would be willing to apply can do so below.

Visit Training Webpage for details

Thailand International Postgraduate Scholarship 2021

Application Deadline: 15th March 2021

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

To Be Taken At (Country): Thailand

About the Award: Thailand International Postgraduate Programme (TIPP) was introduced in 2000 as a framework in providing postgraduate scholarships for developing partners. Believing that knowledge sharing is an important pillar of South-South Cooperation, TIPP offers opportunities for Thailand and its partners to exchange their experiences and best practices that would contribute to long-term and sustainable development for all. Aiming at sharing Thailand’s best practices and experience to the world, the AITC training courses and the TIPP scholarships focus on development topics of our expertise which can be categorized under five themes namely; Food Security, Climate Change, Public Health,  other topics related to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and “Sufficiency Economy Philosophy” or SEP which Thailand is proud to introduce as the highlighted theme. SEP has been added with an aim to offer an insight into our home-grown development approach which is the key factor that keeps Thailand on a steady growth path towards sustainable development in many areas.

Fields of Study: Food Security, Climate Change, Public Health,  other topics related to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and “Sufficiency Economy Philosophy” or SEP

Type: Training, Postgraduate (Masters, PhD)

Eligibility: 

• Candidates must be nominated by central government agencies in a country from the TIPP eligible countries/territories list.
• Candidates should be an officer or agent (preferably from government agencies) currently working in the area related to the course provided.
• Candidates must have bachelor degree and/or professional experience related field or related to graduate degree.
• Candidates must have a good command of English.
• It is recommended that candidates be less than 50 years of age.
• Candidates must have good physical and mental condition.
• TICA reserves the rights to revoke scholarship offered to participants who are pregnant during the period of study or violate rules and regulations.
• Other requirements apart from these will be under consideration by the University regulations.

English Language Requirements: Candidates must have a good command of English. Candidates whose English is not the first language/Bachelor’s degree was not taught in English/ who is from a country other than New Zealand, USA, the United kingdom, Australia, Canada has to pass and English Language proficiency test according to criteria announced by University regulations.

Selection Criteria: 

• In considering applications, particular attention shall be paid to the candidates’ background, their current position in the service of their Government, and practical use they expect to make of the knowledge and experience gained from training on the return to their Government positions.
• Selection of participants is also based on geographical distribution and gender balance, unless priority is set for particular country/ group of countries.

Number of Awards: Over 70 postgraduate scholarships. Each eligible countries/territory can nominate up to five (5) candidates per academic program.

Value of Award: Successful candidates will be offered an award which covers:

• Return economy class airfare
• Accommodation allowance
• Living allowance
• Book allowance
• Thesis allowance
• Settlement allowance
• Insurance
• Airport meeting service

How to Apply: The candidates must fill in the online application form

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

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

How museums are revitalizing in times of covid-19 crisis?

Fatma Faheem

The recent cataclysmic year 2020 has been a true test of our resilience, and certainly some of the most challenging of our lives and career. As many buildings temporarily closed its doors, like so many museum and cultural institutions around the world, which lead to concerned about the future, but it is also an overwhelming sense of solidarity, knowing that we are all in this together. I believe that art and culture play a crucial role in seeing us through these tough times. I am not alone in this belief but the entire museum and cultural community has jumped into action to keep bringing art into our lives.  Museums have launched social media campaigns, drawing on their collections for moments of inspiration, hope, and even a touch of relief through humor. Not only this, art fairs also have opened virtual showrooms, even artists have started digital community projects, musicians have live streaming concerts from their living rooms, our educators and instructors have brought art classes online and the list continues. So, this very incredible outpouring has proven that human creativity is perhaps the most resilient in times of crisis. Even as we face unprecedented challenges and fears in this century, the show must, and will, go on.

1. Challenges face by museums during pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought new kinds of challenges to museums and cultural institutions. The crisis has prompted hand-wringing and self-reflection among some museum professionals. Several questions museums faced such as, ‘How can museums remain relevant if people can’t visit them?’, ‘Can exhibitions which take years to plan and execute be transferred to the digital realm to keep museums open virtually?’, ‘How formerly touch-interactives can be made touchless?’, and ‘How free flow galleries can be converted into directional paths?’. This global pandemic crisis has raised a raft of questions for museums, especially if museums have to remain shut then ‘How best museums can evolve to reflect the current situation?’, and ‘What their role might be post Covid-19?’. There are also problems like ‘Who can a museum serve if their only instance is an online version?’. These are the crucial questions, and all of them fall within the remit of a museum’s role in a community. Therefore, the current crisis has forced museums to consider questions that have been emergent in this current situation and if museums can respond to them, might not only help museums to remain firm in front of any storm but also lead to emerge stronger and more resilient.

2. UNESCO report on museums around the world in Covid-19

UNESCO launched a new report on museums around the world in the face of Covid-19. It comprises an international survey targeting museums, culture professionals, and member states. It was found that no museum in the world has escaped uncertainty and questions of survival due to the pandemic’s closures and plunges in revenue. The study reveals that the number of museums is estimated at around 95,000 in 2020, which represents a 60% increase compared to 2012. They are, however, very unevenly distributed across the globe. Museums have been particularly affected by the pandemic, as 90% of them closed their doors during the crisis and, according to the International Council of Museums (ICOM), more than 10% may never reopen. Facing the crisis, museums acted quickly to develop their presence on the Internet. However, the digital divide is seen to be more evident than ever. It is recorded that only 5% of museums in Africa and the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) were able to propose online content.

3. Art and museums in times of crisis

There is never been a time in history when people stop to cogitate and contemplate upon the human condition in times of hardship, we have often seen incredible examples of creativity and expression. When the world becomes dark, chaotic, and scary, people turn to art, whether it is the work of artists like ‘Chagall’ in the years that followed ‘Nazi Oppression’, or the graphic novels of the ‘Art Spiegelman’ after ‘9/11 attack’. We know that grief and tragedy are recurring themes that demand contemplation. A pandemic is a very different scenario to a global war or a terrorist attack, but what the most remarkable about this present time in history is the ‘immediacy of connection’ and the ‘reach of art delivered online’. Consequently, this time of global crisis prompted us to view art in a completely new way. As we search for inspiration to lighten our days, the digital world opens up to us, offering moments of serendipity, curiosities, learning, and exchanges that we may not have discovered before. These new circumstances make us think of ‘Kairos’, the Ancient Greek concept of time that speaks of an opportune or hoodwink moment. Though we cannot physically attend cultural spaces, we can still seize this moment to find art that can heal us, and in doing so, we can become the curators of our own experience.

It is found that artists and museums alike have been using creative methods to explore the various consequences of the Covid-19 crisis in their work and exhibitions. One of the most well-documented examples of this has been the Victoria and Albert Museum’s ‘Pandemic Objects Exhibition’ in London. It was an online series, analyzing the unremarkable items that have taken on new meaning over the course of the pandemic. Such as items from ‘Toilet rolls’ to ‘Sourdough bread’, the collection succeeds in capturing the scale and the strangeness of the crisis so far. Similarly, the ‘Historical Museum of Urahoro’ in Japan invited their people to contribute objects that represent their experience of the pandemic. They design a small digital exhibition which included ‘Takeaway menus’, ‘Remote learning instructions’, Face masks, ‘Printouts of festival cancellation emails’, and even ‘Remote instructions for attending a funeral’. The final result of this online exhibition was a powerful and emotional commentary on the global impact of the Coronavirus.

4. Museums adapting to new scenario

As Covid-19 loosens its grip over nations, museums and art galleries are gradually and cautiously awakening to a new reality. It becomes indispensable to understand how these places, which are custodians of relics of our past, present, and maybe future, need to adapt to the new scenario and still be relevant. Generally, a visit to a museum is found to be educational, inspiring, calming, or encouraging. Museums bring people together, expand our horizons, teach us about the world, and provide moments of peaceful reflection. But at a time when our nation is facing a pandemic and community needs have abruptly changed, museums have quickly adapted to continue serving their communities, even their physical locations were closed down. Museums curators have been required to ‘retool’, ‘rebrand’ and ‘rethink’ their roles. The things which might have been physical has become digital during this time of crisis.  Museums of all kinds have started offering free online learning resources, access to their digital collections, virtual tours, and online exhibits. They are continuously striving for all invaluable opportunities to educate and connect people across the world.

5. The pandemic act as a creative catalyst for museums: A positive outlook

Covid-19 acts as the catalyst for transformation across many aspects of society. Whether it is the adoption of technology for remote work, the embracing of online shopping, or the evolution of virtual classrooms, we have found a way to function and connect at a time when face-to-face interaction must be kept to a minimum rate. So, therefore, one can say, as much as the pandemic has brought society to a standstill, it has also accelerated some of the trends particularly in the digital space such as ‘Cashless transactions’, ‘Video calling’,  Work from home’ and many more. And this has been found more evident in the museum and cultural sectors. In 2020, museums had to find new ways to stay relevant and maintain a role in the public consciousness at a time of global crisis. Digitization has been evident within many institutions over recent years but Covid-19 has certainly forced all of them for a gradual approach to this process without any impediment. During this time of crisis, museums have been acknowledging the monumental impact of Covid-19 through collecting the creative work that has been made during this tough time. According to the international associations and committees of museums, the progress of five years is seen to be condensed into twelve months, which is both a sign of the challenges that have presented themselves and a credit to those institutions that have shown a willingness to pivot quickly.

6. The Future of Museums: Post- Covid-19

Traditionally, museums have served their communities not only by providing access to culturally significant artifacts but also by engaging in scholarly activities.  In recent decades, museums have shifted away from research and instead began serving the public through education and entertainment which is also known as ‘Edutainment’. This shift in ‘visitor-oriented’ has provided some museums with additional revenue stemming from admissions, special events, and venue rentals. However, the recent Covid-19 pandemic has devastated these sources of revenue. ‘Stay-at-home’ orders and mandatory closures have left many museums to make difficult decisions. As museums overcome the short-term financial impact of Covid-19, they will face the challenges of operating in a post-pandemic future. This new environment may herald innovative economic models and change the way we think about museum design. The present situation also leads to the new idea of moving our arts and exhibitions outdoors. A group of museum developers, designers, and researchers gathered over the internet during lockdown to imagine a new way of thinking about the museum exhibition and created an ingenious concept known as “Free the Museum”.

The museums governing authorities like UNESCO, ICOM, can provide urgent support to the museums by providing appropriate policies, mobilizing cooperation to enable the museums to survive economically. All the stakeholders such as the government, employees, museum authorities, policymakers have to ensure working in a holistic approach so that the museums can survive in the pandemic situation as well as in the post-Covid-19. The role of museums in education, communication, research, heritage preservation, financial, and social is enormous. Thus, it is the responsibility of all of us to support the museums so that they can face the Covid-19 challenges.

German court imposes lengthy sentence on Islamist preacher accused of supporting ISIS terrorist group

Peter Schwarz

The Zelle Regional High Court sentenced the Iraqi Ahmad Abdulaziz Abdullah A., known as Abu Walaa, to 10-and-a-half years in prison for being a member of a foreign terrorist organisation, an accomplice to the preparation of a seditious crime and the financing of terrorism.

The court deemed it proven that the preacher of the now prohibited “German-speaking Islamic Circle of Hildesheim” was a leading member of the IS terrorist group in Germany, radicalised young people, encouraged them to carry out terrorist attacks and helped them to reach IS-controlled territory in Syria and Iraq.

Three co-accused were convicted of supporting a terrorist organisation and were sentenced to eight, six-and-a-half, and four years imprisonment, respectively, because they recruited men for IS from Hildesheim and the Ruhr Region.

Terrorist attack at Breitscheidplatz (Image: quapan/flickr/CC BY 2.0)

With its ruling, which can be appealed, the court came close to meeting the state prosecutor’s request that Abu Walaa be sentenced to 11-and-a-half years in prison. By contrast, the defence appealed for a much milder sentence or acquittal. They justified this by calling into question the credibility of the key witness upon which the charges were based.

Although the trial lasted three years and included 246 days of proceedings, it raised more questions than it answered.

The main witness, the intelligence agency informant code-named Murat Cem, whose alias was VP01, infiltrated the group around Abu Walaa over a period of years to spy on it on behalf of the state bureau of criminal police (LKA) in North Rhine-Westphalia. However, he did not receive authorisation from the state government to testify.

Although the presiding judge Frank Rosenow repeatedly sought to compel this in writing, neither the court nor the defence were able to question him. Instead, the witness bench was occupied by police officers who reported his testimony.

The fact that the informant was not permitted to testify to the court is significant above all because he was in close personal contact with Anis Amri, who crashed a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin on December 19, 2016, killing 12 people. Cem probably knew Amri better than any of the Islamist’s ideological co-thinkers, noted Der Spiegel. The pair often spent days together.

Cem made the acquaintance of Amri while he was spying on Abu Walaa’s group. Amri was active in the group and personally knew all four men who have now been sentenced. He participated in Abu Walaa’s seminars and lived for a time in Dortmund with Boban S., who has now been sentenced to eight years in prison.

The informant Cem became one of Amri’s closest confidants. They discussed planned attacks and the purchasing of weapons. According to his own statements, Cem warned his superior in the LKA North Rhine-Westphalia repeatedly about the threat posed by Amri. He also chauffeured Amri to Berlin in February 2016, 10 months before he carried out his attack.

The background to the Breitscheidplatz terrorist attack remains murky to this day. It is known that the LKA from North Rhine-Westphalia, as well as other police and intelligence agencies, had Amri on their radar. They knew about his plans for a terrorist attack and allowed him to go ahead with them. The Abu Walaa trial could have provided answers about the background to the attack.

However, it was conducted in the same way as the major trials against right-wing extremist terrorists—the NSU trial in Munich, the Lübcke trial in Frankfurt, or, 40 years ago, the investigations into the Octoberfest attack in Munich. As soon as the role of the intelligence agencies and security forces came into focus, inquiries were shut down. The executive branch, the interior ministers, and the intelligence agencies determine what the judiciary can and cannot know. A mockery of the principle of the balance of power and the independence of the judiciary!

The prohibition of the main witness from testifying is all the more peculiar because he was not afraid of speaking in public. In March 2019, without the police’s knowledge, he contacted Der Spiegel to tell his story. A team from the news magazine repeatedly met with Cem, spoke to him for hundreds of hours, travelled with him to operation locations, evaluated tens of thousands of pages from files about his case, and spoke with investigators, colleagues, and relatives.

The result of this research was a lengthy front-page story in Der Spiegel and the 320-page book “Undercover: An informant tells all,” which detailed Cem’s 20-year career, including his relationship with Amri and Abu Walaa.

Cem portrayed his own role and motives to Der Spiegel in the rosiest colours, but the fluidity of the transition from informant to agent provocateur is well known. Early on, the suspicion arose that Cem strengthened Amri’s belief in his terrorist plans. During the trial, one of the defendants accused him of being a provocateur and inciter of the most serious crimes. Cem’s history certainly does not speak in his favour. He was hired by the police after having accumulated a criminal record of 12 offences, and he faced a lengthy prison sentence due to drug trafficking.

Cem testified to the parliamentary investigative committee in Germany’s federal parliament in December during a hearing on the Breitscheidplatz attack. He did not appear in person, but spoke behind the cover of an altered face and voice via video link. This would also have been possible in the Abu Walaa trial. The fact that North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Ministry refused to grant the authorisation for the now inactive informant is a clear indication that there is a desire to conceal something.

The second key witness upon which the court based its verdict was anything but credible. The former Islamist Anil O. appeared in court under the disguise of sunglasses and a blond wig and testified during 20 days of proceedings. But the defence considers the now 25-year-old to be a notorious liar.

Anil O. moved with his wife and child to a Syrian war zone in the summer of 2015, but turned against IS six months later and fled to Turkey. While there, he spoke with German reporters. He then offered himself to the German security authorities as a key witness against Abu Walaa, who he described as IS’ number one in Germany. They repaid him with a mild punishment of a two-year suspended sentence and his acceptance into a witness protection programme.

The court justified its belief in Anil O.’s credibility by stating that he detailed the complex proceedings almost without contradiction and that there were “striking overlaps” in his testimony and that of Cem. However, according to statements from the defence lawyer Thomas Koll, who represented Abu Walaa, O. “prior to making his statements, received comprehensive information about the files, including of course the statements of VP01.” He was therefore able to compare his testimony with the statements of Cem, who could not be questioned by the court.

Koll takes the view that the key witness merely supplied the information expected of him by the investigative authorities. Anil O.’s ability to do this is beyond doubt. Even the court described the ex-Islamist, who obtained top marks in his high school diploma and began a course in medicine before he was radicalised, as having an “above-average intelligence” and being “eloquent.”

The fact that Abu Walaa had ties to IS was confirmed by other witnesses during the trial. But it is questionable whether he was such a dominant figure as he is now being portrayed. There is much to suggest that his role is being exaggerated to divert attention from the role of state agencies in the Breitscheidplatz terrorist attack.

Already three years ago, the WSWS posed the question, “Was the terrorist attack on the Berlin Christmas market an ‘intelligence agency operation with deadly collateral damage’?” At the time, we based ourselves on reports from Die Welt and the Green Party politician Hans-Christian Ströbele, suggesting “the involvement also of international intelligence agencies,” including explicit reference to the US. “They likely saw Amri as a decoy who would lead them to those backing him, IS plotters of terrorist attacks in Libya,” wrote Die Welt.

There were also domestic political considerations that supported allowing the attack to take place. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s national domestic spy agency, followed Amri’s activities at the highest levels. Even at this stage, the suspicion was raised that Cem encouraged Amri’s plans for the attack. A potential accomplice of Amri’s, the Tunisian Bilel Ben Ammar, was rapidly deported shortly after the attack.

In an article on the deportation of Ben Ammar, we commented, “it is impossible to reject out of hand the suspicion that the state authorities allowed the Breitscheidplatz attack to take place in order to produce the necessary political climate for their militarist policy, the build-up of a police state and the intensification of deportations, and to create the conditions that made possible the rise of the AfD [Alternative for Germany].”

The prohibition on Cem testifying in the Abu Walaa trial has further strengthened this suspicion.

High Court ruling exposes Tory contracts with pandemic profiteers

Rory Woods

The UK High Court has ruled that Health Minister Matt Hancock “acted unlawfully by failing to comply with the Transparency Policy” in granting Covid-19 contracts.

The ruling followed a judicial review against the Tory government’s failure to publish its contracts with private companies involved in the response to the pandemic. The review was headed by legal charity the Good Law Project (GLP), alongside three MPs from Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and Green Party.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock speaking at a government Covid-19 press conference inside No10 Downing Street (credit: picture by Andrew Parsons/No 10 Downing Street--Flickr)

Operating under the principle of “never let a good crisis go to waste,” the British ruling class, like their counterparts across the globe, ensured that vast profits were made by a small number of UK companies during the first wave of Covid-19. This is the modern-day equivalent of war profiteering.

The Conservative government is not only using the pandemic to continue privatizing the National Health Service (NHS) but to enrich a select group of corporations and shareholders. Many winners of lucrative contracts, who received them without any “competitive tendering” or scrutiny, are Tory party cronies. The government used emergency powers under the Coronavirus Act 2020, introduced with the support of the Labour Party, to bypass normal contract tendering process and set up a “VIP channel”—later renamed the “high-priority lane”.

More than £17 billion worth of contracts for the supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), test and trace, procurement and consultation have been dished out in this way during the pandemic. This amount equals one eighth of the entire National Health Service (NHS) annual budget and excludes the money spent on outsourcing treatment and care services to private hospitals. By not publishing the details of the contracts awarded, Hancock was trying to conceal the corrupt practices of his government from the wider public.

In handing down the judgement, Judge Chamberlain stated, “The Secretary of State spent vast quantities of public money on pandemic-related procurements during 2020. The public were entitled to see who this money was going to, what it was being spent on and how the relevant contracts were awarded.”

The ruling stated that there was “now no dispute that, in a substantial number of cases, the Secretary of State breached his legal obligation to publish Contract Award Notices [CAN] within 30 days of the award of contracts.”

While the documents relating to the contracts have been posted online, the GLP points out that vast amounts of detail that would allow the public to assess whether the contractors delivered what they promised have been blacked out and redacted. One £98.7 million PPE contract has the quantity, unit price, measurements and even the colour of gowns redacted.

As part of the judicial review, the Good Law Project commissioned research into the government’s handling of contracts, undertaken by procurement consultancy Tussell. Their findings are shocking. By the beginning of October 2020, the secretary of state for health and social care had spent some £15 billion on PPE. However, the value of contracts made public by then was only £2.68 billion. Their research found that the average time for publication of CANs was 47 days for Covid-19 related contracts, despite the legal obligation to publish within 30 days of awarding any contracts for public goods or services worth more than £120,000.

Some of the types of personal protective equipment (PPE) used in National Health Service hospitals (credit: WSWS media)

The government was also in breach of its own transparency policy, which requires the publication of details of all public contracts worth more than £10,000.

In November last year, the World Socialist Web Site noted that “A report by the National Audit Office (NAO) into 8,600 contracts signed during the pandemic found that government officials awarded contracts worth £17.3 billion to private sector firms. Of this £10.5 billion (58 percent) was awarded directly without any tendering of contracts. £12.3 billion was paid out by government for the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) and £2.9 billion in Testing and Tracing contracts.”

The Good Law Projects submissions to the judicial review provide a further damning picture of government criminality and corruption.

Many contracts were awarded to companies that did not have any prior experience in providing medical services, testing and tracing or PPE. As well as avoiding any competitive tendering, the government avoided scrutiny by not advertising that the contracts were on offer.

Some of the types of personal protective equipment (PPE) used in National Health Service hospitals (credit: WSWS media)

In April 2020, the government awarded a contract to Ayanda Capital Limited for the supply of face masks. The value of the contract was £252 million. Some £160 million worth of masks purchased were unusable in the NHS. This contract was won via the VIP lane by a company created by a crony of the minister for the international trade.

Clandeboye Agencies Limited, a company which previously supplied only confectionery products, was awarded a £108 million contract for the supply of gowns to the NHS.

Crisp Websites Limited (trading as PestFix—a pest control company) managed to secure six contracts worth £345 million, benefitting from the VIP lane, despite the company having never before supplied medical PPE. Serious concerns have been raised about the quality of the products it supplied and the financial standing of the company. It was reported that Pestfix had total assets worth just £18,000 prior to winning contracts.

The contracts awarded to those companies are subject to another legal challenge by the Good Law Project.

In May, outsourcing company Serco was handed £108 million to run non-complex contact tracing for three months. Another private firm, Sitel, got a separate contract from the government. It was reported that the renewal value of Serco’s contact tracing contract was £410 million.

The company’s pathetic performance was such that they managed to reach less than 60 percent of contacts by the end of October. Yet Serco was expected to make £165 million profit out of the contract. The company will this year resume dividend payouts after a seven-year interval with a £17 million distribution.

Another beneficiary of the government’s largesse to their friends in the private sector was Alex Bourne. Bourne previously ran a pub, The Cock Inn in Thurlow, situated close to Hancock’s former constituency home in Suffolk and visited frequently by the health secretary. He had no expertise in the manufacture and supply of medical equipment but won at least £30 million worth of contracts to provide vials and plastic funnels for test samples. His company, Hinpack, is currently under investigation by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency as it is alleged he did not have “adequate facilities from a health and hygiene perspective.”

Hancock was unrepentant after the High Court ruling, claiming without an ounce of shame that it was “in the national interest that we did what we did.” He was supposedly trying to “save lives.” Speaking to the Sky News, he said: “If I had my time again, absolutely I do exactly the same thing even if it led to this conversation.” Despite the well-publicised cases of nurses going to work in April wearing bin liners as PPE, Hancock insisted that “there wasn’t a national shortage [of PPE] at any point… “because of the work” his team did.

A National Health Service nurse wearing, in November 2020, a repurposed bin liner that was supplied as PPE (credit Twitter @drTeaLady)

These are obscene lies. The pandemic profiteering took place amid and contributed to a catastrophic loss of life. More than 4.1 million people have contracted Covid-19 in the UK and at least 135,000 have died. Among the dead are 883 health and social care workers in England and Wales alone.

The government’s clear-eyed enthusiasm for shoveling public money into the pockets of their friends was in sharp contrast to their disregard for the actual provision of life-saving equipment.

Surveys carried out by the Royal College of Nursing, Unison and British Medical Association among their members have revealed widespread shortages of PPE, leading to tens of thousands of infections. Severe starving of funds for the NHS and social care over the last decade had already created a massive shortage of PPE even before the pandemic hit. Between 2013 and 2016, the national stockpile of PPE was slashed by 40 percent as a part of £20 billion in cuts in NHS “efficiency savings.”

Even though the government was fully aware of the PPE shortage, it refused to join a joint procurement scheme with the European Union in March. On March 19, it downgraded the classification of Covid-19 to a non-High Consequence Infectious Disease (HCID)—reducing the level of what constitutes safe PPE required for staff in treating the disease.

Former French president Nicholas Sarkozy sentenced to one year in prison

Anthony Torres

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced yesterday to three years in prison, with two years suspended, for corruption and influence peddling in the so-called “wiretapping” affair.

The revelation of criminal actions by the highest representative of the French state is a further blow to the legitimacy of the entire political regime. Sarkozy had sought to bribe a magistrate to suppress the fallout from the Bettencourt affair, named after the billionaire Bettencourt family with a fascist past. The affair exposed the family’s financing of large portions of the French political establishment, and implicated the entire state apparatus.

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrives at the courtroom Monday, March 1, 2021 in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

The imposition of a prison sentence on a former President is unprecedented under the Fifth Republic. The judges concluded that Sarkozy’s actions had undermined the legitimacy of the ruling class and its regime. The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) had requested a four-year sentence, with parole after two years, against the former head of state, and declared that the presidential image had been “damaged” with “devastating effect” by the case.

Along with Sarkozy, his lawyer Thierry Herzog and former high-ranking magistrate Gilbert Azibert were also sentenced to three years, with two years suspended. Herzog was banned from practicing law for five years. However, the judges stated that his sentence could be reduced if he agrees to wear an electronic bracelet. Sarkozy has ten days to appeal, and his lawyers have already announced that he will do so.

Christine Mée, the lead judge in the case, explained in her statement that the “corruption pact” between Sarkozy and Herzog, made over a secret phone line under a different name, required “a firm legal response.” She said: “The acts are particularly serious, having been committed by a former president of the Republic. He used his status and his political and diplomatic relations to reward a magistrate who served his personal interests.”

Mée continued: “This case has seriously undermined public confidence by suggesting that proceedings before the Court of Cassation [the highest criminal and civil court in France] do not always involve a conflict before independent magistrates, but may be subject to hidden arrangements designed to satisfy interests.”

Yesterday, Sarkozy gave an interview to Le Figaro to proclaim his innocence. “I have received many statements of support from French and foreign observers,” he said, adding that he would appeal, if necessary, to the European Court of Human Rights. “It would be painful for me to have to have my own country condemned, but I am ready to do so, because it would be the price of democracy.” He is to speak at 8pm tonight on the TF1 public broadcaster.

The so-called “wiretapping” affair dates from 2014. At the time, the PNF was investigating claims of Libyan financing of Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign. Sarkozy had been accused of “receiving Libyan funds,” “illegal campaign financing” and “criminal association.”

Investigators discovered an unofficial, secret line between two mobile phones in the name of Paul Bismuth, on which Nicolas Sarkozy and Herzog were exchanging information. The issue in this case was whether Nicolas Sarkozy tried, through Herzog, to help Gilbert Azibert get a job in exchange for information about Sarkozy in the Bettencourt affair.

The Bettencourt affair erupted in 2010, after Mediapart published revelations about Sarkozy. The testimony of an accountant suggested that billionaire Liliane Bettencourt, who died in 2017, had illegally financed his 2007 election campaign.

The accountant, Claire T., explained that she had withdrawn 50,000 euros a week from Bettencourt’s accounts. “Part of it was used to pay doctors, hairdressers, small staff, etc.,” she said. “And another part was for politicians ... Dédé [Liliane’s late husband, André Bettencourt] used to distribute it widely. Everyone came to get in on it. Some got up to 100,000 or even 200,000 euros.” She also quoted Patrice de Maistre, Bettencourt’s financial adviser, who told her that 150,000 euros would be needed to finance Sarkozy’s campaign.

These allegations directly implicated Sarkozy’s labour minister, Eric Woerth, who was treasurer of his election campaign, but Sarkozy himself has since been cleared in the affair.

Sarkozy faces numerous other scandals, against the backdrop of bitter conflicts in the ruling elite over who is to run in the 2022 presidential elections. Sarkozy briefly ran in 2017. He is now due to appear in court as early as March 17 in the Bygmalion affair, on suspicions of illegal financing.

Others indicted in these cases include Woerth, former Secretary General of the Elysée Claude Guéant, and former minister Brice Hortefeux. The PNF also confirmed on January 15 that it had opened an investigation of “influence peddling” and “laundering” against Sarkozy in connection with his consultancy activities in Russia.

The corruption exposed by these affairs can only be fought against, in the final analysis, through the independent struggle of the working class against the capitalist state. Behind the various cases and the multiple charges are unmistakable political crimes that are the doings of not only one man, but an entire social order. The policies pursued in Europe over three decades since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 have criminalised the European capitalist class.

Liliane Bettencourt’s father, Eugène Schueller, founded L’Oréal and financed the fascist group La Cagoule in the second half of the 1930s. La Cagoule spread terror through its violent attacks on Jews and communists. Since then, however, the family has played a large role in French politics, funding the major parties and their leaders. For the financial aristocracy, this is a small price to pay for the immense fortunes it has been able to accrue, at the cost of ever more brutal austerity aimed at the working class.

Now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, this policy is being pursued through European bank and corporate bailout plans worth more than two trillion euros. The funneling of vast sums of public money to the super-rich is financed through a policy of “herd immunity,” in which workers are forced to continue to work in unsafe conditions, to finance the profits of the corporations. This policy, which is opposed by doctors and medical professionals, has led to more than 800,000 deaths in Europe.

At the same time, French imperialism advances its geopolitical interests through dirty neo-colonial wars, particularly in Africa, such as the 2011 intervention in Libya. The French pseudo-left New Anticapitalist Party and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Unsubmissive France backed the war and applauded the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi’s government by Islamist militias backed by Sarkozy.

Criminality and gangsterism underpin the policies of the financial aristocracy in France and internationally.

On 6 January, Trump attempted an unprecedented fascist coup d’état to overturn the outcome of the US elections. In France, the situation is not fundamentally different, even if the trade union apparatuses and the pseudo-left attempt to cover up the bankruptcy of the ruling class by hailing their “social dialogue” with the government and employers. While no capitalist leader has yet openly attempted a coup d’état, there is increasingly open criminality by all the leaders of the French Republic in the 21st century.

Jacques Chirac was the first president to be convicted for corruption in 2011, in the affair of the fictitious jobs at the Paris town hall. His successor has now been sentenced to prison. Under the Socialist Party presidency of Francois Hollande, the state conducted targeted killings of French citizens by the intelligence services.

Faced with explosions of workers’ anger against the policy of austerity and war, including in the “yellow vest” protests of 2018, Macron hailed collaborationist dictator Philippe Pétain. He has pursued a policy of “herd immunity” in all but name. The coronavirus has killed more than 85,000 people, most of whom could have been saved through a scientific policy. Only a politically independent and international mobilisation of the working class will put an end to this murderous policy and the capitalist system that underlies it.