Europe sides with the US in imposing punitive sanctions against China

Peter Symonds

In a deliberate escalation of geo-political tensions, the European Union joined the US, as well as Britain and Canada, in imposing coordinated sanctions against Chinese officials on Monday for alleged human rights abuses against the Muslim Uyghur minority in China’s Xinjiang province.

The intensifying demonisation of China follows the modus operandi of US imperialism and its allies over the past three decades as they have prepared for one criminal war after another in the Middle East, the Balkans and Central Asia.

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken (Creative Commons/Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs)

The sanctions follow a fractious meeting between top US and Chinese officials in Alaska. The talks commenced last Friday with provocative public US condemnations of China across a range of issues, including its treatment of the Uyghurs—claims that were rebutted by China. The two days of talks ended without agreement or a joint statement.

The US set the stage for the showdown in Alaska by imposing sanctions on Chinese officials over a new law tightening the electoral system in Hong Kong. Now it has targeted Wang Junzheng, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) secretary of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, and Chen Mingguo, director of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau, for “serious human rights abuses” against Uyghur Muslims. The US froze assets and imposed travel restrictions.

In a statement reeking of hypocrisy, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused China of continuing “to commit genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang” and called on Beijing to release “all those arbitrarily held in internment camps and detention facilities.”

While the CCP regime undoubtedly uses police-state measures in Xinjiang, as it does more broadly against the Chinese working class, Washington—which is guilty of war crimes in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere—is again selectively exploiting “human rights” to advance its imperialist interests.

Blinken’s accusation of Uyghur “genocide” by China—a designation only made by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the dying days of the Trump administration—is intentionally inflammatory. While the term conjures up images of mass killings, it rests on nothing more than grossly distorted and largely unsubstantiated claims that China’s birth control methods in Xinjiang constitute “genocide.”

The European Union has cynically jumped on board the US “human rights” wagon as a means of extracting concessions from the US as the Biden administration seeks to “revitalise” relations with Europe that soured under Trump. Significantly, the coordinated sanctions on China were announced immediately prior to Blinken landing in Brussels for talks with European officials.

The EU formally announced travel and asset sanctions against four Chinese officials, including two punished by the US. These are the first EU penalties against China since 1989 when the European authorities imposed an arms embargo following the Tiananmen Square massacre. The EU statement stopped short of accusing China of “genocide,” but alleged that Beijing was responsible for “arbitrary detentions and degrading treatment” of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities, as well as systematic violations of their religious freedom.

The US also released a joint statement condemning China by Blinken and the foreign ministers of the so-called Five Eyes intelligence alliance, consisting of the US, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The UK and Canada have imposed their own sanctions on China, but Australia and New Zealand have yet to do so.

The joint statement declared: “The evidence, including from the Chinese government’s own documents, satellite imagery, and eyewitness testimony is overwhelming. China’s extensive program of repression includes severe restrictions on religious freedoms, the use of forced labor, mass detention in internment camps, forced sterilisations, and the concerted destruction of Uyghur heritage.”

The evidence, in fact, is far from overwhelming. Eyewitness accounts derive in the main from Uyghur exiles associated with CIA-funded organisations such as the World Uyghur Congress and the American Uyghur Association, while satellite photos and supposedly leaked Chinese documents provide no direct evidence and are inevitably interpreted through the jaundiced eyes of pro-US analysts. In the absence of independent evidence, no more faith should be placed in Western propaganda than claims by the Chinese government that no abuses are taking place.

The Chinese government immediately hit back, accusing the EU of “disregarding and distorting the facts” and “grossly interfering in China’s internal affairs.” Beijing imposed its own sanctions on 10 European politicians and individuals, as well as four entities. The latter included the right-wing, pro-US Alliance of Democracies Foundation established in 2017 by former NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Among the individuals sanctioned by China was Adrian Zenz, a right-wing German academic and self-described born-again Christian. While he claims that he was “led by God” to research into Chinese minorities, Zenz has undoubtedly been driven by more earthly motives. He is well connected in anti-communist circles in Europe and the United States, including to the anti-communist Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. US and European allegations against China rely heavily on his tendentious “research.”

With the latest round of sanctions barely announced, the Biden administration hinted that more is to come. Yesterday, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki, after reiterating Washington’s “grave concerns” over China’s treatment of Uyghurs, stated: “We will be evaluating what the appropriate next steps are in close coordination with our allies around the world.”

Less than three months in office, the extraordinary rapidity with which the Biden administration is ramping up the US confrontation with China, as well as Russia, has even surprised some hardened US propagandists. David Sanger, chief Washington correspondent for the New York Times, entitled his comment yesterday: “That was fast: Blowups with China and Russia in Biden’s first 60 Days.”

Sanger declared that the US had entered “a new era of bitter superpower competition, marked by perhaps the worst relationship Washington has had with Russia since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and with China since it opened diplomatic relations with the United States.”

Sanger also pointed, at least indirectly, to the underlying driving force for the escalating US war drive against China—the fear in Washington that the Chinese economy will eclipse that of the US within a decade. The power of the Chinese, he wrote, “arises not from their relatively small nuclear arsenal or their expanding stockpile of conventional weapons. Instead, it arises from their expanding economic might.”

Sanger highlighted China’s growing expertise in hi-tech areas, such as 5G technology, that are critical to the US maintaining its global economic and strategic dominance. The speed with which the Biden administration is ratcheting up its anti-China propaganda, alongside the expansion of its military forces in Asia, flows from a sense in Washington that time is running against it.

US imperialism cannot tolerate any threat to its hegemony and is prepared to use all means, including military conflict, to subordinate China. Outside of the political intervention of the international working class on the basis of a unified socialist perspective, the world is rapidly descending into war between nuclear-armed powers.

Stalinists, far right support new bourgeois coalition in the Philippines

John Malvar

With the formation of a new coalition, 1Sambayan (One Nation), on March 18, the ruling-class opposition to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte began organizing a united electoral campaign in preparation for the 2022 elections. In a remarkable alignment, every Stalinist political tendency in the Philippines has declared its support for 1Sambayan, joining hands with Magdalo, the far-right political party of military officers who rose to prominence in 2006 when they attempted to carry out a coup d’état.

1Sambayan coalition launched on March 18 (Source: ANC 24/7 YouTube)

The fundamental concern of 1Sambayan is to bring Philippine foreign policy back into camp of the United States, which is engaged in an aggressive escalation of military threats against China, reversing Duterte’s orientation of the country’s ties toward Beijing.

The elite opposition, organized in the Liberal Party and headed by Vice President Leni Robredo, suffered a devastating defeat in 2019, marking the first time in the country’s history that opposition candidates failed to secure a single senatorial seat in the midterm elections. 1Sambayan is an attempt to cobble together a viable opposition vehicle prior to the presidential election.

An opinion piece in the influential Business World indicated the perspective of the capitalist interests behind the formation of 1Sambayan: “I feel betrayed by the Liberal Party (LP). Don’t you? As the predominant opposition party, it is their duty to mitigate the policies, decisions, and actions of the executive branch and their allies in the legislature. But this has not been the case. ... As an opposition party, the LP is a national shame. I have never seen an opposition party so weak.”

The fundamental concern of 1Sambayan is geopolitical. It articulates the interests of layers of the capitalist class in the Philippines whose economic and political orientation is to Washington. These forces are predominantly based in the stock market and the business process outsourcing sector.

Significant layers of the Filipino elite have embraced Duterte’s reorientation of Philippine economic ties to Beijing. They see in ties with China, and its promise of infrastructural loans and investment, a means of expanding their holdings. Business interests in real estate speculation, malls, infrastructure, and those outside the national capital region have lined up behind this orientation.

Duterte has at the same time secured mass support from the sizeable lower-middle class, playing to their prejudices and fears of the working class and poor. His law-and-order campaign, under the guise of a war on drugs, has deployed the apparatus of state and paramilitary repression against any source of possible social unrest. Over 30,000 people have been killed as a direct result in the past five years.

In this manner Duterte has secured the support of an unprecedented super-majority in the Philippine legislature, which includes a number of defectors from the Liberal Party in its ranks.

Even a glance at the figures behind the convening of 1Sambayan lays bare the interests involved. Three names feature most prominently: Albert del Rosario, Antonio Carpio, and Conchita Carpio Morales.

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton shakes hands with Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Albert del Rosario in Washington on June 23, 2011. (Photo: State Department / Public Domain)

Del Rosario was the Secretary of Foreign Affairs for the Benigno Aquino III administration of 2010–2016. Under del Rosario, Manila came to serve as the most reliable and aggressive partner in South East Asia for Washington’s pivot to Asia. It was on his watch that the Aquino government repeatedly compared China to Nazi Germany, engaged in military, diplomatic and legal disputes over the South China Sea, and signed the Enhanced Defense Co-operation Agreement (EDCA) for the re-establishment of US military bases in the country.

Antonio Carpio is a former justice of the Supreme Court. More than any other figure he is the legal face of the Philippine claim to the South China Sea. He has relentlessly and publicly promoted the most expansive claim to the disputed waters. He termed China’s presence in the Philippine-claimed maritime region an “invasion,” and declared that the EDCA basing deal was an essential element for defending the country against it.

Conchita Carpio-Morales was ombudsman under the Aquino III administration, where she used corruption charges, often with data supplied by the US embassy, to prosecute sections of the political elite who were tied to the Arroyo administration, which had begun the reorientation of Philippine ties to China.

In 2019, the triumvirate of del Rosario, Carpio, and Carpio-Morales filed charges of “crimes against humanity” against China in the International Criminal Court (ICC) for its continued presence in what they term the “West Philippine Sea.”

That these three figures are the leading convenors of 1Sambayan sharply defines the new coalition. They have demonstrated only one common interest over the course of a decade: the strident denunciation of China and the formation of intimate ties with the United States. They are joined in the leadership of 1Sambayan by retired Rear Adm. Rommel Jude Ong, former vice commander of the Philippine Navy. Ong has publicly announced that the forthcoming elections would likely be “a contest with China,” and decried the forces around Duterte as “Manchurian candidates.”

1Sambayan stated that it proposes to review possible candidates for president and vice president before announcing its slate. Carpio told the assembly that the prominent names they were considering for nomination were Vice President Leni Robredo, Senator Grace Poe, Manila Mayor Isko Moreno, Senator Nancy Binay, and Senator Antonio Trillanes.

The names demonstrate that 1Sambayan do not represent any alternative to the reactionary policies of the Duterte administration. Many of these candidates have supported of Duterte on key measures extending his apparatus of repression, including the imposition of martial law on the southern island of Mindanao.

Moreno was part of the Duterte cabinet until he ran for mayor in 2019. He has repeatedly defended Duterte’s war on drugs. Moreno has, however, very publicly scapegoated Chinese immigrants in the Philippines for social ills. It is this that wins him the support of 1Sambayan.

Trillanes rose to political prominence by staging multiple coup attempts in the first decade of the 21st century. He represents far-right forces, organized in the Magdalo party, oriented to the formation of a military junta. He has repeatedly denounced Duterte as a “puppet of China,” and called for direct military confrontation with China in the South China Sea.

Magdalo is one of the convenors of 1Sambayan. They were joined on the rostrum by representatives of Bayan Muna (Nation First) and Partido ng Manggagawa (PM), rival mass organizations that share the nationalist program of Stalinism. Bayan Muna is an electoral party of the umbrella group, Bayan, which shares a common political line with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). PM represents a Stalinist tendency, founded by Popoy Lagman, that broke from the CPP in the early 1990s.

These long-time rivals are joining hands together and uniting with far-right forces, a fact which has been widely commented upon. An editorial in the Philippine Star on March 21, wrote that 1Sambayan represented the joining of the left “to the extreme right such as Magdalo party-list.”

Every Stalinist party and tendency in the Philippines immediately embraced 1Sambayan. The various organizations associated with the political line of the CPP, broadly referred to as the “national democratic movement,” led the way.

Jose Ma. Sison, founder and ideological leader of the CPP described 1Sambayan as a “newly risen broad coalition of patriotic and democratic forces that are determined to fight [Duterte’s] tyranny and challenge his clique in clean and honest elections.”

The CPP was directly responsible for facilitating Duterte’s rise to power in 2016. The party embraced his presidency, declared him progressive and even offered support for his war on drugs. Teddy Casiño of Bayan Muna wrote a rare acknowledgement of this last week, when he admitted that one of the difficulties for the national democratic movement in forming a new alliance was “because it opposed the Aquino administration and initially supported Duterte in the first year of his regime.”

The CPP-aligned forces are repeating the pattern now with their embrace of 1Sambayan. Representative of the Kabataan party-list, a “national democratic” youth organization, Sarah Elago “urged the youth to actively participate in 1Sambayan.” Carlos Zarate, elected representative of Bayan Muna, who in 2016 signed a public statement pledging full support to Duterte, stated, “We welcome this initiative for a broadest gathering of democratic forces to restore good governance, respect for human rights and an end to tyranny in our country.”

The rest of the so-called “left” in the Philippines is comprised of organizations that emerged out of various tendencies known as “RJ,” or rejectionists, who broke with the CPP in the early 1990s. All of these organizations retained the nationalist, class collaborationist perspective of Stalinism. One of the organizations that emerged out of the RJ forces, Akbayan, has effectively merged with the Liberal Party, and is one of the driving forces behind the formation of 1Sambayan.

A number of organizations tied to trade unionism formed under the leadership of Popoy Lagman. When Lagman was assassinated in 2001, these groups broke into various rival tendencies. All of these tendencies have now united in embrace of 1Sambayan. PM is a convening member. The rival Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP, Solidarity of Filipino Workers), associated with the leadership of Sonny Melencio, issued a statement declaring that the founding of 1Sambayan was “a breath of fresh air.”

The splits that occurred in Philippine Stalinism in the 1990s were brutal. They were marked by assassinations, subterfuge, hysterical denunciations, and embezzlement of funds. The rival parties were fighting to retain control over their mass membership, for this is the constituency that they bring to the alliances that they form with the capitalist class.

For all their tactical disagreements, there were no principled political differences between these organizations. They shared a common orientation to forming an alliance with a section of the capitalist class in the name of “national democracy.” As the bourgeois opposition gathers itself, desperately trying to reorient the country back into the ambit of the US, its former colonial ruler, all of the forces of Stalinism have aligned behind them. They stand exposed for what they truly are: agents of the bourgeoisie.

Albert Einstein Global Fellowship 2022

Application Deadline: 15th May, 2021

Eligible Countries: All

To be taken at (country): Germany

About the Award:  The purpose of the fellowship is to support those who, in addition to producing superb work in their area of specialization, are also open to other, interdisciplinary approaches – following the example set by Albert Einstein.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: Candidates must be under 35 and hold a university degree in the humanities, in the social sciences, or in the natural sciences.

At the end of the fellowship period, the fellow will be expected to present his or her project in a public lecture at the Einstein Forum and at the Daimler and Benz Foundation. The Einstein Fellowship is not intended for applicants who wish to complete an academic study they have already begun.

Selection Criteria: A successful application must demonstrate the quality, originality, and feasibility of the proposed project, as well as the superior intellectual development of the applicant. It is not relevant whether the applicant has begun working toward, or currently holds, a PhD.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value and Duration of Fellowship: The fellowship includes living accommodations for five to six months in the garden cottage of Einstein`s own summerhouse in Caputh, Brandenburg, only a short distance away from the universities and academic institutions of Potsdam and Berlin. The fellow will receive a stipend of EUR 10,000 and reimbursement of travel expenses.

How to Apply: Applicants should be under 35 years of age and have a qualified university degree in a humanities, social sciences or natural sciences discipline. The applications for the year 2022 should contain a résumé and an exposé of the project planned as part of the scholarship (both in English) as well as two scientific references and should be submitted by May 15, 2021 .

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Joint Japan World Bank Group Scholarship Program 2021/2022

Application Deadline: 21st May 2021

About Scholarship: The Joint Japan/World Bank Graduate Scholarship Program (JJ/WBGSP) is open to women and men from developing countries with relevant professional experience and a history of supporting their countries’ development efforts who are applying to a master degree program in a development-related topic.

After earning their degree, developing country scholars commit to return to their home country to use their new skills and contribute to their countries’ social and economic development.

Type: Masters

Selection Criteria: Eligible applications are assessed according to three main factors: academic excellence, professional experience, and relevance of program of study. Priority is given to candidates from the public sector with a high potential to impact the development in their own countries after completion of their studies

Eligibility: Details on Eligibility Criteria for each call for applications are provided in that call’s Application Guidelines, and these detailed eligibility criteria are strictly adhered to. No exceptions are made.

Broadly speaking, Developing Country nationals must:

• Be a national of a World Bank member developing country;
• Not hold dual citizenship of any developed country;
• Be in good health;
• Hold a Bachelor’s (or equivalent) degree earned at least 3 years prior to the Application Deadline date;
• Have 3 years or more of recent development-related work experience after earning a Bachelor’s (or equivalent) degree;
• Be employed in development-related work in a paid full- time position at the time of submitting the scholarship application.  The only exception to this criterion is for developing country nationals from a country that will be on the updated list of Fragile and Conflict States provided to applicants in the Application Guidelines for each call for scholarships.
• On or before the Scholarship Application Deadline date, be admitted unconditionally (except for funding) for the upcoming academic year to at least one of the JJ/WBGSP preferred university master’s programs and located outside of the applicant’s country of citizenship and country of residence listed at the time the call for scholarship applications open.
• Not be an Executive Director, his/her alternate, and/or staff of any type of appointment of the World Bank Group or a close relative of the aforementioned by blood or adoption with the term “close relative” defined as: Mother, Father, Sister, Half-sister, Brother, Half-brother, Son, Daughter, Aunt, Uncle, Niece, or Nephew; *Please note: All eligibility criteria are strictly adhered to. No exceptions are made.
• Eligibility criteria WILL NOT change during an open call for applications. However, this information is subject to change between the close of one application process and the opening of the next.

Number of Scholarships: Several

Scholarship benefits: The JJ/WBGSP scholarship provides annual awards to cover the cost of completing a master’s degree or its equivalent. The awards are given for one year and, provided that the academic program is longer than one year, may be renewed for a second consecutive year or a portion thereof, subject to satisfactory academic performance in the first year and the availability of funds.

The scholarship provides benefits for the recipient only, covering:

• economy class air travel between the home country and the host university at the start of the study program and one return journey following the end of the overall scholarship period. In addition to the ticket, scholars receive a US $500 travel allowance for each trip;
• tuition and the cost of basic medical and accident insurance usually obtained through the university;
• a monthly subsistence allowance to cover living expenses, including books.

Duration: The proposed program of study should start during the academic year 2021/2022 for a maximum duration of two years.

Eligible Countries: Developing countries

To be taken at (country): One of the preferred universities (see in Program Webpage Link below)

How to Apply: Applicants are strongly encouraged to use the online application form available in  English, French, or Spanish.

It is very necessary to go through the instructions in ALL application documents before applying.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Mammalogy African Graduate Student Research Fund 2021

Application Deadline: 15th April 2021

About the Award: The African Graduate Student Research Fund committee was formed in 2013 as an ad hoc committee and was promoted to a standing committee in 2016. Its mission is to support the next generation of African mammalogists by awarding individual grants of $1,500 and an online ASM membership to African nationals pursuing graduate degrees. Between 2014 and 2018, 2-3 awards were granted annually; in 2019, 4 proposals were funded, and in 2020 this number increased to 5.

Type:

Eligibility: Eligible students must be citizens of African countries and currently enrolled in a graduate program. Projects must be field oriented investigations of natural history, conservation, ecology, systematics, wildlife biology, biogeography, or behavior. The selection committee’s membership reflects these diverse fields and has field research experience in Africa.

Eligible Countries: African countries

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Individual grants of $1,500 and an online ASM membership to African nationals pursuing graduate degrees.

How to Apply: Applications consist of (1) a 3-page proposal prepared and submitted by the applicant and (2) an e-mail
from the applicant’s major graduate advisor; instructions for both are detailed below. Please ensure that your proposal is formatted as a .pdf and has the file name FAMILY NAME_FIRST NAME_AGSRF (e.g., Grinnell_Joseph_AGSRF). Failure to comply with these requests may result in our inability to review your proposal. Proposals should be e-mailed to Dr. Link E. Olson (link.olson@alaska.edu), Chair of the African Graduate Student Fellowship Committee, by 15 April 2021; applications received after that date will not be reviewed. In the subject header, please put FAMILY NAME_ FIRST NAME_AGSRF.

African Graduate Student Fund Grant Application (PDF)
African Graduate Student Fund Grant Application (DOCX)
Eligibility and Frequently Asked Questions

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

Visit Award Webpage for Details

WAN-IFRA Women in News Social Impact Reporting Initiative (SIRI Africa) 2021

Application Deadlines:

• 31st March 2021
• 31st May 2021
• 31st July 2021. 

About the Award: The WAN-IFRA Women in News Social Impact Reporting Initiative was launched in 2020 to facilitate social impact reporting; bringing the stories of marginalised and vulnerable communities to the mainstream, and helping to bring mainstream media to these underserved audiences.

Now in its second year running, the initiative provides small cash activities-based grants (for media organisations and industry associations) and sponsorship for reporting assignments (for individual journalists) that focus on social impact.

Members of the WIN community, as well as select community and local media operating in print, digital and radio are invited to apply. Industry associations may also apply.

At this time only applications from Sub-Saharan Africa countries in which WIN is active will be considered including Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Type: Grants

Eligibility:

INDIVIDUAL GRANTS

Which individuals can apply?
Sponsorship for reporting assignments through the Women in News Social Impact Reporting Initiative is available for individuals who are currently enrolled in, or are alumni of, any Women in News programme dating back to 2010.

While we will assess each application individually on its merits, you may apply as an ‘individual’ if any of the below conditions apply:

– You are not currently receiving a salary from a media organisation
– You have been made to take unpaid leave for an extended period
– You have been made to take a salary cut of 50% or more for an extended period
– You are a correspondent who has seen a work contract cancelled or reduced due to COVID-19

You may not apply if you are currently employed on a full-time basis, or have a full-time reporting contract in place.

How much can I apply for?
Journalists may apply for grants for assignments up to EUR2,000. The amount requested by an individual should reflect the scope and length of the proposed assignment.

What type of assignment can I propose as the reporting assignment?
You can propose any type of story, or series of stories, reports, or features, in any format: (e.g. print, podcast, video etc.). The number of planned stories or segments should be proportionate to the amount requested.

Thematically, SIRI assignments may cover a broad range of subjects, loosely categorized under the following themes:
– Gender equality & Gender Specific
– Poverty & Social Welfare
– Public Interest & Investigative
– Health & Safety

Assignments should reflect social, economic, political or health-related issues through a gendered-lens. General interest stories with an emphasis on segments of the population that are considered vulnerable or under-represented are also encouraged. This may be defined by gender, age, geography, racial or sexual identity, as well as economic status. Click here for more on Sida’s multi-dimensional view of poverty. Public interest and investigative stories are also accepted.

ORGANISATIONS

What organisations are eligible to apply?
Media outlets in print, digital or radio may apply for short-term grants to support their efforts to bring timely and accurate information to their audiences. Industry associations that are coordinating efforts on the ground on behalf of the media industry may also apply.

Priority will be given to any media organisation or media-related industry association that aims to deliver news and information to vulnerable or under-represented communities and the stories of vulnerable or under-represented communities to mainstream society. Community and local media organisations will also be given priority. The thematic priorities of SIRI are as follows:
– Gender equality & Gender Specific
– Poverty & Social Welfare
– Public Interest & Investigative
– Health & Safety

At this time only applications from Sub-Saharan Africa countries in which WIN is active will be considered including Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Vulnerable or under-represented segments of the population could be defined by gender, age, geography, racial or sexual identity, as well as economic status. Click here for more on Sida’s multi-dimensional view of poverty.

How much can my organisation apply for?
Organisations may apply for up to a maximum of EUR8,000.

How long can the assignment period be?
Reporting assignments should be completed within a 8 week period.

What sort of things can I use the grant for?
Appropriate activities or expenditure are defined by each initiative, however, they could broadly include:
– Personal protective equipment (PPE)
– Activity/implementation costs
– Core costs
– Salaries/fees

Eligible Countries: sub-Saharan African countries

Number of Awards: Not specified

How to Apply:

• Click here to apply as an individual.
• Click here to apply for a grant as an organisation.

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

Visit Award Webpage for Details

World Bank Group African and African Diaspora Fellows for Infrastructure 2021

Application Deadline: 15th April 2021

About the Award: With 189 member countries, staff from over 170 countries, and offices in 130, the World Bank Group aims to bring a richness of perspectives, cultures and experiences that is invaluable to our clients and make us a truly global multilateral development bank.

Our work in infrastructure in particular aims to improve lives by creating inclusion and connecting people to opportunities. We help developing countries address their unique infrastructure needs by building smart infrastructure that supports inclusive and sustainable growth, expands markets, creates job opportunities, promotes competition, and contributes to a cleaner future. The challenges are huge: Globally, 840 million people live more than 2 kilometers from all-weather roads, 1 billion people lack electricity, and 4 billion people lack Internet access. Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals will only be possible if we close these infrastructure gaps,

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: The program aims to welcomes outstanding candidates who are citizens of Sub-Saharan African countries or those who hold the citizenship of other countries but trace their ancestry to Sub-Saharan Africa, such as African-Americans, Afro-Latin-Americans, Afro-Caribbean, and others.

Selection Criteria: We recognize that poverty has no borders. Neither does excellence.  So, we are continually in search of the brightest, most talented individuals from around the globe. And we are proud to employ a dedicated and committed workforce that is diverse in gender, nationality and ethnic background.

Eligible Countries: Any country but with Sub-Saharan African ancestry

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award:

• We invite you to join a global team that currently works on more than 400 operations for a total value of USD 75 billion, and produces world-class research and knowledge focused on achieving sustainable infrastructure solutions that build better lives in developing and emerging economies.
• A career with the World Bank Group (WBG) offers a unique opportunity for exceptionally talented individuals with a passion for international development to contribute to solving some of the world’s most pressing problems.

How to Apply: If you want to help change the world by ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity, then the World Bank Group is the right place for you.

For this recruitment drive, we are looking for potential candidates with strong skills for the following roles:

• Extended Term Consultant, Transport Global Knowledge Unit
• Extended Term Consultant, Infrastructure Chief Economist Office
• Extended Term Consultant, Latin America Transport
• Extended Term Consultant, South Asia Transport
• Extended Term Consultant, South Asia Infrastructure
• Extended Term Consultant, MNA Infrastructure

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

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Walmart, Amazon and the Colonial Deindustrialisation of India

Colin Todhunter

In June 2018, the Joint Action Committee against Foreign Retail and E-commerce (JACAFRE) issued a statement on Walmart’s acquisition of Flipkart. It argued that it undermines India’s economic and digital sovereignty and the livelihood of millions in India.

The deal would lead to Walmart and Amazon dominating India’s e-retail sector. These two US companies would also own India’s key consumer and other economic data, making them the country’s digital overlords, joining the ranks of Google and Facebook.

JACAFRE was formed to resist the entry of foreign corporations like Walmart and Amazon into India’s e-commerce market. Its members represent more than 100 national groups, including major trade, workers and farmers organisations.

On 8 January 2021, JACAFRE published an open letter saying that the three new farm laws, passed by parliament in September 2020, centre on enabling and facilitating the unregulated corporatisation of agriculture value chains. This will effectively make farmers and small traders of agricultural produce become subservient to the interests of a few agrifood and e-commerce giants or will eradicate them completely.

The government is facilitating the dominance of giant corporations, not least through digital or e-commerce platforms, to control the entire value chain. The letter states that if the new farm laws are closely examined, it will be evident that unregulated digitalisation is an important aspect of them.

And this is not lost on Parminder Jeet Singh from IT for Change (a member of JACAFRE). Referring to Walmart’s takeover of online retailer Flipkart, Singh notes that there was strong resistance to Walmart entering India with its physical stores; however, online and offline worlds are now merged.

That is because, today, e-commerce companies not only control data about consumption but also control data on production, logistics, who needs what, when they need it, who should produce it, who should move it and when it should be moved.

Through the control of data (knowledge), e-commerce platforms can shape the entire physical economy. What is concerning is that Amazon and Walmart have sufficient global clout to ensure they become a duopoly, more or less controlling much of India’s economy.

Singh says that whereas you can regulate an Indian company, this cannot be done with foreign players who have global data, global power and will be near-impossible to regulate.

While China succeeded in digital industrialisation by building up its own firms, Singh observes that the EU is now a digital colony of the US. The danger is clear for India. He states that India has its own skills and digital forms, so why is the government letting in US companies to dominate and buy India’s digital platforms?

And ‘platform’ is a key word here. We are seeing the eradication of the marketplace. Platforms will control everything from production to logistics to even primary activities like agriculture and farming. Data gives power to platforms to dictate what needs to be manufactured and in what quantities.

Singh argues that the digital platform is the brain of the whole system. The farmer will be told how much production is expected, how much rain is expected, what type of soil quality there is, what type of (genetically engineered) seeds and are inputs are required and when the produce needs to be ready.

This is not idle speculation. The recent article ‘Digital control: how big tech moves into food and farming (and what it means)’ (on the grain.org website), describes how Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others are moving in on the global agrifood sector.

Those traders, manufacturers and primary producers who survive will become slaves to platforms and lose their independence. Moreover, e-commerce platforms will become permanently embedded once artificial intelligence begins to plan and determine all of the above.

It is a clear concern that India will cede control of its economy, politics and culture to these all-powerful, modern-day East India companies.

Of course, things have been moving in this direction for a long time, especially since India began capitulating to the tenets of neoliberalism in the early 1990s and all that entails, not least an increasing dependence on borrowing and foreign capital inflows and subservience to destructive World Bank-IMF economic directives.

But what we are currently witnessing with the three farm bills and the growing role of (foreign) e-commerce will bring about the ultimate knock-out blow to the peasantry and many small independent enterprises. This has been the objective of powerful players who have regarded India as the potential jewel in the crown of their corporate empires for a long time.

The process resembles the structural adjustment programmes that were imposed on African countries some decades ago. Economics Professor Michel Chossudovsky notes in his 1997 book ‘The Globalization of Poverty’ that economies are:

“opened up through the concurrent displacement of a pre-existing productive system. Small and medium-sized enterprises are pushed into bankruptcy or obliged to produce for a global distributor, state enterprises are privatised or closed down, independent agricultural producers are impoverished.” (p.16)

The game plan is clear and JACAFRE says the government should urgently consult all stakeholders – traders, farmers and other small and medium size players – towards a holistic new economic model where all economic actors are assured their due and appropriately valued role. Small and medium size economic actors cannot be allowed to be reduced to being helpless agents of a few digitally enabled mega-corporations.

JACAFRE concludes:

“We appeal to the government that it should urgently address the issues raised by those farmers asking for the three laws to be repealed. Specifically, from a traders’ point of view, the role of small and medium traders all along the agri produce value chain has to be strengthened and protected against its unmitigated corporatisation.”

The struggle for democracy

It is clear that the ongoing farmers’ protest in India is not just about farming. It represents a struggle for the heart and soul of the country. As the organisation GRAIN says on its website, there is an intensifying fight for space between local and territorial markets and global markets. The former are the domain of small-scale independent producers and enterprises; the latter are dominated by large-scale international retailers, traders and the rapidly growing influential e-commerce companies.

It is therefore essential to protect and strengthen local markets and indigenous, independent small-scale enterprises, whether farmers, hawkers, food processers or mom and pop corner stores. This will ensure that India has more control over its food supply, the ability to determine its own policies and economic independence: in other words, the protection of food and national sovereignty and a greater ability to pursue genuine democratic development.

Instead of this, we could for instance see India eradicating its buffer food stocks at the behest of global traders and agrifood players. India would then bid for them with borrowed funds on the open market. Instead of continuing to physically hold and control its own buffer stocks, thereby ensuring a degree of food security, India would hold foreign exchange reserves. It would need to attract foreign reserves and maintain ‘market confidence’ to ensure this inflow.

This is one intention of the recent farm legislation and constitutes a recipe for further dependency on foreign finance, unpredictable global events and unaccountable corporations. But mainstream economic thinking passes this subjugation off as ‘liberalisation’.

How is an inability to determine your own economic policies and surrendering food security to outside forces in any way liberating?

It is interesting to note that the BBC recently reported that, in its annual report on global political rights and liberties, the US-based non-profit Freedom House has downgraded India from a free democracy to a “partially free democracy”. It also reported that Sweden-based V-Dem Institute says India is now an “electoral autocracy”. India did not fare any better in a report by The Economist Intelligent Unit’s Democracy Index.

The BBC’s neglect of Britain’s own slide towards COVID-related authoritarianism aside, the report on India was not without substance. It focused on the increase in anti-Muslim feeling, diminishing of freedom of expression, the role of the media and the restrictions on civil society since PM Narendra Modi took power.

The undermining of liberties in all these areas is cause for concern in its own right. But this trend towards divisiveness and authoritarianism serves another purpose: it helps smooth the path for the corporate takeover of the country.

Whether it involves a ‘divide and rule’ strategy along religious lines to divert attention, the suppression of free speech or pushing unpopular farm bills through parliament without proper debate while using the police and the media to undermine the farmers’ protest, a major undemocratic heist is under way that will fundamentally adversely impact people’s livelihoods and the cultural and social fabric of India.

On one side, there are the interests of a handful of multi-billionaires who own the corporations and platforms that seek to control India. On the other, there are the interests of hundreds of millions of cultivators, vendors and various small-scale enterprises who are regarded by these rich individuals as mere collateral damage to be displaced in their quest for ever greater profit.

Indian farmers are currently on the frontline against global capitalism and the colonial-style deindustrialisation of the economy. This is where ultimately the struggle for democracy and the future of India is taking place.

Syria: The Price Of Resistance

Chandra Muzaffar

Few nations in recent decades have been targeted by a superpower the way the United States of America has subjected Syria to various forms of attack. Apart from military assaults and acts of political subversion aimed at overthrowing the government in Damascus, the US has also imposed crippling economic sanctions upon Syria, sometimes regarded as the crucible of human civilisation. These sanctions which intensified in the last few years have impacted adversely upon a huge segment of the population. They culminated in the Caesar Act of 2020 which prohibits any country or entity from engaging in any economic activity with any firm or institution in Syria. For transgressing the Act, the violating party can also be subjected to punitive action by the US.

The wide-ranging sanctions would be one of the primary causes of the humanitarian crisis confronting the Syrian people today. Many of them are in dire need of the essentials of life. Making ends meet has become a major challenge for even the middle-class. It must be emphasised that before the mainly orchestrated unrest beginning in 2011, the government was able to provide for the basic needs of the population and managed one of the best-run health services in West Asia and North Africa (WANA) that provided free medical care to the poor and marginalised.

Yet the mainstream Western media which is echoed by the media in most parts of the world has created the erroneous impression that the humanitarian crisis in Syria is due entirely to the mismanagement and corruption of the Bashar Assad government. While there are acts of omission and commission for which the government should be held responsible, they pale into insignificance compared to the intervention and manipulation by the US elite, Israel and their allies, such as Britain and France and those in WANA. The unjust imposition of sanctions aside, these actors from the West and WANA are also guilty of engineering a sectarian war between the Sunni majority and the Shia minority which failed miserably and of sponsoring terrorist groups such as ISIS that caused death and destruction on a massive scale between 2011 and 2017. These organised and well-funded terrorist groups were defeated by the cohesive strength of the Bashar government and its security forces buttressed by the determined support provided by the Hezbollah, Iran and Russia. On top of all this, Syria’s economy has also been robbed of millions of dollars by the systematic US theft of its oil in the north east of the country which is under opposition control.  The truth about this theft, or about how sanctions, war and terrorism have contributed to the immense suffering of the Syrian people and the current humanitarian crisis has not been highlighted in the media but it is a reality that the Syrians a are painfully aware of.

The media has also distorted the first bombing of the Biden administration on 25th February 2021 against a militia in Syria allegedly backed by Iran. Most newspapers and television networks claimed that the bombing was in retaliation to a February 15th rocket attack in northern Iraq by that Syrian militia which killed a contractor working with the US military. Since the US bombing took place on Syrian territory, the Syrian government rightly condemned it as a violation of its territorial integrity. China and Russia also condemned it from the perspective of national sovereignty. The western media as a whole side-stepped the sovereignty issue and instead presented the US bombing as a response to Syrian-Iranian aggression. Both Syria and Iran denied any involvement in the February 15 rocket attack arguing that they sought a period of calm to encourage as it were the Biden administration to restore the earlier nuclear deal with Iran which president Trump had unilaterally aborted.

But the Western media’s agenda against Syria is so heavily skewed that it will not entertain any other interpretation of the US’s military action. The power of this biased agenda became even more blatant recently when the media ignored completely a huge scandal involving the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ (OPCW) investigation into the alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria in 2018. When the OPCW published its final report in March 2019, some OPCW inspectors involved in the actual investigation raised fundamental and substantive questions about the report’s conclusions.  These questions cast doubt about the claims of Western governments and the Western media of Syrian government involvement in the chemical attack. The inspectors wanted their views heard by the OPCW management which refused to grant them a hearing. Instead it chose to publicly condemn the inspectors for speaking out.

It is because of the unbecoming conduct of the OPCW leadership that five of its former inspectors and the first Director-General of the OPCW Jose Bustani decided to express their deep concern in a public statement recently. The statement has also been endorsed by outstanding public figures such as Daniel Ellsberg, Noam Chomsky, Richard Falk and John Avery Scales. It is telling that the statement has received so little attention from the media.

If news that is favourable to Syria within the context of the geopolitics of WANA is blocked out of the media, it is because those who dominate the region want it that way. The US, Israel and their allies do not want the truth about the interplay of politics and power in WANA to be known to the people. It is because Syria which is linked to Hezbollah and Iran has been consistent in opposing the hegemonic power of the US, Israel and their allies in WANA that it has had to pay such a high price. It is a price that the triumvirate of resistance is prepared to pay because it cherishes the independence and integrity of the citizens of WANA and the people of the world.

Eviction ban in England extended to end of May, as tens of thousands of renters remain in crisis

Barry Mason

As part of its reckless reopening of the economy, with everything to be fully reopened by June, the UK Conservative government is to end its ban on private sector evictions for rent arrears on May 31. The ban on evictions was introduced in March last year and has been extended several times.

The government was forced into maintaining an eviction ban out of fear of the social backlash to hundreds of thousands of people being made homeless in the midst of a pandemic.

With Prime Minister Boris Johnson declaring that the current lockdown will be the last, a massive wave of homelessness is set to hit the UK in England and Wales when the ban is lifted in just over two months.

On March 10, Housing Minister Robert Jenrick announced that the evictions ban, that had been due to end March 31, would end May 31. The Tory government came under pressure from housing organisations and charities for the new extension because of the high number of renters who have fallen into rent arrears as a result of the impact of Covid-19 on jobs and incomes.

A homeless person in Manchester city centre sleeps as the temperatures reached freezing in January 2019 (credit: WSWS)

The Welsh Labour Party-run devolved government last week extended current restrictions on evictions to the end of June. The Scottish National Party government announced that the eviction ban extension will last until September 30. However, the ban on evictions in Scotland only applies to those in areas subject to the higher level 3 and 4 Covid restrictions, meaning that evictions can proceed in areas where there are lesser restrictions in tiers 0, 1 and 2.

In what is falsely described as a major concession, landlords and letting agents in England will, from May, have to give six-months’ notice of eviction, meaning that physical evictions can still start in November. However, those tenants with over 6 months’ accumulated rent arrears will still be able to be evicted after May 31 with just four weeks’ notice. Those deemed guilty of anti-social behaviour will also be able to be evicted with four weeks’ notice. The other main exemption is that landlords will be able to evict with just three months notice those deemed to have breached immigration rules under the “Right to Rent” policy.

Housing charity Shelter warned that many tenants remain in a precarious position. In a press release, Shelter chief executive Polly Neate stated, “These extensions will come as a relief to the frightened renters who’ve been flooding our helpline with calls. While the threat level from the virus is still high, it’s right that renters can stay safe in their homes.

“But as we follow the roadmap out of lockdown, the destination for renters remains unknown. The pandemic has repeatedly exposed just how broken private renting is, leaving many people hanging onto their homes by a thread. And, although the ban and longer notice periods are keeping renters safe for now, they won’t last forever.”

Shelter issued a March 16 press release based on a poll carried out for the charity by data analysis firm YouGov. The survey found around 14 percent of the population in England, around six million people feared homelessness because of big reductions in incomes and job losses following on from the pandemic.

Shelter predicted, “With people’s incomes slashed, job losses mounting and people hanging onto their homes by a thread, the charity expects the pressure on its frontline services to grow.”

The poll showed those renting privately were those most concerned about becoming homeless, with more than one in four (27 percent) expressing such fears. Nearly half (47 percent) of private renters were depressed or anxious about the housing situation compared to 26 percent of the general population.

A quarter of private renters (2 million people) have suffered a cut in their incomes over the last six months leading to problems paying their rent. Over the last month, the survey showed, 24 percent of private renters have had to borrow money to meet their rent, while 18 percent had missed meals or cut back on food and 12 percent had cut back on heating in order to cover rent costs.

Over the last year, said Shelter, around two-thirds of calls to its emergency helpline were from those homeless or under risk of becoming homeless.

These findings were echoed in a report by debt charity StepChange. It highlighted that 150,000 private renters were at risk of eviction due to the financial hardships of the Covid-19 pandemic leading to rent arrears. The report noted, “Renters are in need of urgent help to avert a crisis of widespread housing insecurity, homelessness and long-term problem debt.”

StepChange’s research showed half of private renters (3.7 million people) have seen a fall in their income since March last year—the beginning of the pandemic. Over the same period, the number of those who have fallen behind with their rent has doubled to 460,000.

The report noted, “our research reveals £25bn of arrears and borrowing directly attributable to Covid has been built up since the start of the pandemic, with more than 19 million people (38% of British adults) having faced a loss of income in this period. Meanwhile, the number of people in severe problem debt stands at 1.8 million, up from 1.4 million in September.”

StepChange called for “a further extension to give renters more chance to get back on their feet,” while noting, “however the report finds this alone would not be enough to hold back the rising tide of debt many private renters are battling—one in five expects it to take at least six months until they can even afford all their household bills again.”

Speaking to the report’s findings, StepChange CEO Phil Andrew said, “The pandemic has taken an enormous financial toll on many households, but renters have been particularly badly hit: they are more likely to work in sectors affected by Covid, more likely to have lost income and more likely to have suffered mental ill-health. At the outset of the pandemic the Housing Secretary stated that no-one should lose their home because of the pandemic, but a year on this is a very real prospect for hundreds of thousands of people.

“The Government’s continued suspension of rental evictions until the end of May is a positive step, but this alone will only serve as a stay of execution for those with unmanageable rent arrears.”

Many MPs benefit from extortionate rents in the private sector, with much of the government’s personnel landlords themselves. Compared to the figure of five percent of the general population estimated to be landlords, for Parliament the figure is around 20 percent. For government ministers the figure is around 25 percent. The percentage of landlord MPs is highest for the Tories at 24 percent, followed by the Lib Dems (18 percent), Scottish National Party (9 percent) and Labour (8 percent).

The pandemic has also revealed the staggering level of people rough sleeping. A parliamentary Public Accounts Committee reviewed the impact of the Everyone In initiative, in which local authorities were given £3.2 million to offer accommodation to rough sleepers to help them to self-isolate in hotels or hostels at the start of the first national lockdown in March 2020. Rough sleepers were accommodated because to leave them on the streets would add to the risk of spreading Covid-19 at a time when it was feared that the pandemic could overwhelm the National Health Service.

The report found that over 37,000 rough sleepers had been offered accommodation up to January this year. This figure for rough sleepers was around nine times more than previous estimates of rough sleepers obtained by carrying out snapshot surveys in autumn each year.

Jenrick has recently pledged an extra £212 million to house 6,000 rough sleepers by the end of the current parliament but this should be judged by his previous pledges. In October last year, he announced that 3,300 homes would be ready to house people by March this year, but they have failed to materialise. Responding to the broken promise co-founder of the Museum of Homelessness, Jessica Turtle said, “The picture could not be more grim. Our Dying Homeless Project showed the awful results of people stuck in inadequate emergency accommodation for far too long with a 37-percentage increase in deaths of homeless people who are indoors, not on the streets.

“It’s pure negligence not to develop proper solutions to homelessness so people no longer have to choose between horrible, possibly fatal, emergency accommodation or the streets.”

Australia’s spy agency drums up wartime atmosphere

Mike Head

Mirroring the Biden administration’s escalation of accusations and provocations against China, Australia’s domestic spy chief last week declared that “espionage and foreign interference” by hostile governments would replace terrorism as the country’s greatest security threat by 2025.

In an “exclusive” front-page interview with the Murdoch media’s Australian, Mike Burgess, the director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) gave what the newspaper called “a stark assessment of global strategic conflict, primarily competition between the US and China.”

Given that ASIO’s latest annual “threat assessment,” issued a few days earlier, had said the “terrorist threat remains at PROBABLE,” Burgess’s interview was intended to create an atmosphere of imminent war dangers and preparations. “Probable,” he said, “means people would lose their lives” but the foreign threat would soon exceed that risk and “the level of activity coming at us and against us will be relentless.”

ASIO headquarters in Canberra (Source: Wikipedia)

In his earlier “threat assessment” presentation, Burgess claimed that ASIO had cracked a major spy network that had recruited a government official with access to classified defence technology, in what ASIO described as a “nest of spies.”

Briefed by ASIO and its partners, the Australian said: “Security sources had confirmed the country behind the spy ring was not China, but senior operatives in the intelligence community strongly speculated that Russia, which has long seen Australia as a backdoor to gathering intelligence on the US, was the nation state in question.”

In his interview, Burgess highlighted an alleged threat to critical infrastructure, which he said had not been previously reported publicly. He claimed that there was a danger involving the pre-planting of undetected malicious software into critical infrastructure, which could be activated at a later date to cripple power grids, phone networks, water supplies and other economic and military assets.

“If tensions don’t reduce—and it is a competitive world out there, so that competition is heating up—we do have to turn our mind to it, and we are concerned about the pre-placement of sabotage,” Burgess told the Australian.

Such unsubstantiated allegations dovetail with the US-instigated bans imposed by Australia and other American allies on Huawei and other Chinese telecommunications companies, and with the blocking of practically all investment by Chinese or Hong Kong-based companies in Australian facilities.

Burgess’s media performance came on the heels of this month’s prediction by the head of the US Indo-Pacific command, Admiral Philip Davidson, that the US could face war with China over Taiwan within five years. The ASIO chief’s intervention followed the first leaders’ summit of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, an alliance between the US, Japan, India and Australia against China.

Burgess’s remarks also coincided with a declaration by the Biden administration that it would not tolerate China applying “economic coercion” to Australia, adding that accusation to Washington’s long list of supposed crimes being committed by Beijing.

That allegation, reiterated by Biden’s top foreign policy officials during their aggressive confrontation with their Chinese counterparts in Alaska last Friday, places Australia’s population even more on the frontline of any catastrophic US war against China.

Yet, the charge of “economic coercion” flies in the face of the record. Chinese steel mills are continuing to buy Australian iron ore at massive levels and high prices, further inflating the fortunes of Australian iron ore magnates like Gina Rinehart, Andrew Forrest and Clive Palmer.

Moreover, it is the US, supported by Australia, that is waging economic warfare against China. The Biden administration has not lifted any of the punitive tariffs and other penalties imposed under Trump on Chinese exports, investment and corporations.

Australia’s Huawei ban was one of 14 grievances against Australia issued by the Chinese government last November. The list also included the blocking of 10 Chinese investment proposals across infrastructure, agriculture and animal husbandry sectors, ASIO and police raids on Chinese journalists and academic visa cancellations, and “spearheading a crusade” in multilateral forums targeting China’s affairs in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

In his “threat assessment” speech, delivered at ASIO’s headquarters on March 17, Burgess highlighted the agency’s aggressive use of the “foreign interference” laws passed in 2018 amid a media scare campaign, fueled by ASIO, against alleged Chinese “interference” in Australian politics. He said the ASIO-Australian Federal Police Counter Foreign Interference Taskforce had investigated over 30 cases, and laid the first foreign interference criminal charges late last year.

“Prosecutions are only one weapon,” Burgess emphasised. “Our advice helped Home Affairs deny and cancel a number of visas. And often, merely questioning a spy or their proxy is enough to make them pack up and flee the country, because they know their cover is blown.”

Late last year, Burgess noted, “parliament passed legislation allowing us to be more flexible in our use of less intrusive tracking devices, and to compel suspected spies to attend interviews.” That legislation allows ASIO to secretly interrogate teenagers as young as 14, rather than 16, and extends ASIO’s coercive questioning powers beyond alleged terrorism-related activity to suspected “foreign interference,” “espionage” and “politically-motivated violence.”

Burgess reported that ASIO was already using those police-state powers, which the opposition Labor Party backed, and would ask for new powers and resources when it needed them.

Significantly, Burgess foreshadowed demands for further measures to combat the use of encryption for privacy and political reasons. He claimed that in the past year alone the proportion of ASIO’s “intelligence coverage” in “priority counter-terrorism cases” that had been “damaged” by end-to-end encryption on internet communications platforms had risen from 90 to 97 percent.

The continual expansion of police and spy agency powers on the pretext of countering foreign “enemies” is a warning that the drive toward war will be accompanied, as in World War I and II, with increased suppression of working class discontent, directed particularly against socialists.