About the Award:Sustainable Mobility, defined as, green, efficient, safe and universally accessible movement of people and goods and services from point to point. Sustainable Mobility is a nascent sector that is gaining momentum.
Like Energy, mobility is a fundamental catalyst for any economy. Mobility solutions are a prerequisite of social inclusion by providing access to jobs and essential services such as health care and education.
Developing countries, and particularly Sub-Saharan Africa, host 98% of the 1 billion people in the world without access to transport. Yet an additional 187 million Africans are expected to live in cities over the next decade, suggesting 1.5 million people will move to cities every month[1]. Developing countries will thus continue to confront the largest mobility challenges including access to, and safety of, mobility solutions as well as their efficiency and environmental impact. The most impacted populations are urban and rural low-income households – population segments which also typically lack access to energy. The nexus between energy and mobility can be leveraged to provide access to affordable and safe sustainable mobility services.
Eligible Field(s): The 2021 edition targets projects at the development stage and companies focusing on the following sub-themes of Sustainable Mobility:
• Navigation and mapping tools • Shared mobility • Ride-hailing • Delivery services • Connecting isolated communities • Mass-movement systems • Non-motorised transport • Cleaner vehicles and infrastructure
Type: Entrepreneurship
To be Taken at (Country): African & Asian countries
Number of Awards: Not specified
Value of Award:
• A financial contribution of up to $50,000 per selected entrepreneur • Strategic advisory support • Operational support • Increased visibility for their venture and company
In this 7th edition our associated research centres are:
BioCruces Bizkaia Health Research Institute (BC)
Kronikgune Research Center
Deusto Institute of Technology (DeustoTech)
Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC)
Vall d´Hebron Institut de Recerca (VHIR)
Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO)
Basque Center for Macromolecular Design and Engineering POLYMAT Fundazioa
The Basque Center for Applied Mathematics – BCAM
PLOCAN (Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands)
IAC (Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias)
Biomedical and Health Research Institute (IUIBS)
Institute for Sustainable Agriculture (IAS)
Biodonostia Health Research Institute (Biodonostia HRI)
Fundación para la Investigación del Hospital Clínico de la Comunidad Valenciana – INCLIVA
Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona – ICMAB
Principe Felipe Research Center (CIPF)
Spanish National Center of Biotechnology (CNB)
Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII)
Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO)
Institute of Mathematical Sciences (ICMAT)
Barcelona Graduate School of Economics
Centre for Genomics Regulation
About the Award: Each of these centres will host 1 senior woman researcher with at least 3 years of post-doctoral experience for a six-month fellowship. Applications will be subjected to a rigorous selection process, evaluating the academic merits and leadership of the applicants as well as the scientific quality and expected impact of their research projects. Selected candidates will receive training and integration in a dynamic, multidisciplinary and highly competitive working team, where they will be able to develop their research projects and acquire complementary skills, empowering them to transfer their research results into tangible economic and social benefits.
The main goal is to enable African women researchers and scientists to tackle the great challenges faced by Africa through research in Health and biomedicine, agriculture and food security, water, energy and climate change, mathematics, Information and Communication Technologies as well as Economic Sciences.
Eligible Fields of Study: The preferred areas of research include:
Health and Bio-medicine
Energy, Water and Climate Change
Agriculture and Food Safety
Mathematics, Information and Communication Technologies
Economic Science
Type: Fellowship
Eligibility:
Being a woman
Nationality of an African country.
PhD with at least 3 years of post-doctoral professional experience
Contractual relationship with a university or a public or private non-profit organization based in Africa dedicated to significant scientific research in the areas indicated
Excellent academic record and proven track of relevant research experience
Solid working knowledge of English
Proven experience leading a research group
Beneficiaries of first and second edition are not eligible. Candidates must have already contacted and identified research groups in the host centres to confirm that their proposed research can be carried out in collaboration with those research groups and, when needed, in their laboratories.
Selection Criteria: Applications will be subjected to a highly competitive selection process by the Women for Africa Foundation’s Scientific Committee. The jury will evaluate the following criteria:
The candidate’s research career, curriculum vitae and experience as independent research group leader.
The project’s scientific -technical quality and innovative potential.
The expected and measurable economic or social impact of the research project.
The candidate’s plan to communicate and disseminate the project’s results.
The proper consideration of ethical issues where appropriate.
Successful applicants will present innovative research projects that respond to the needs of African populations and that are likely to be transferred into products or patents for commercial exploitation, or services and public policies which have a social impact in terms of people’s welfare and quality of life, as well as an economic impact in terms of companies’ productivity and competitiveness.
Number of Awards: 19
Value of Award: Successful candidates will have access to the following benefits:
Flight from their centre of origin to the host institution and back
Living allowance of 2.400 Euros gross per month to cover accommodation, personal expense and health and occupational accident insurance coverage.
Duration of Program: 6 months
How to Apply: Only applications submitted in English via the Science by Women microsite at www.mujeresporafrica.es will be accepted. They must include the following documents:
Letter of Interest (max. 1 page)
Full curriculum vitae • Fully filled form
Brief but concise description of the project to be developed in the Spanish
host centre (max. 2 pages)
A letter of the prospective host group’s stating its interest to support the project proposed by the candidate.
To be taken at: Public and Private Universities in Malaysia
Accepted Subject Areas? Field of studies is in the following priority areas:
Science and Engineering
Agriculture and Fisheries
Economics and Islamic Finance
Information and Communication Technology
Biotechnology
Biosecurity and Food Safety
Infrastructure and Utility
Environmental Studies
Health not including nursing, medicine, clinical pharmacy.
Candidates may choose any related course within the field/areas mentioned above
About Scholarship: The Malaysian Technical Cooperation Program (MTCP) was established in 1980 as Malaysia’s commitment to South-South Cooperation through the sharing of Malaysia’s development experiences and expertise with other developing countries.
Type: Masters degree
Selection Criteria: Applications will be considered according to the following selection criteria:-
High-level academic achievement
The quality of the research proposal and its potential contribution towards advancement of technology and human well-being.
Excellent communication, writing and reading skills in English Language
Eligibility: Malaysian Technical Cooperation Programme (MTCP) Scholarship applicants must COMPLY to the following criteria:
Not more than 45 years old at the time of application.
For Master’s Degree Program, applicants should obtain a minimum of Second Class Upper (Honours) or a minimum CGPA of 3.0 at Undergraduate Degree level.
Proof of English Language Proficiency:
Scanned copy of the original proof of English Language Proficiency such as IELTS (minimum total score 6.0); or TOEFL paper-based test with a score of 500 or an internet-based test with a score of 60; or
Applicants obtaining Degrees with English as medium of instructions may also be accepted (evidence is a prerequisite).
Has an excellent level of health certified by a doctor/physician. The cost of the medical check-up shall be fully borne by the applicant.
Scholars must undertake full-time study for postgraduate programs at the selected Higher Learning Institutions (Please refer List of Universities).
Applications are only open to candidates who have received offer letters from universities in Malaysia but have not yet started their studies or those who have registered for no more than one semester for a Master’s Degree.
How Many Scholarships are available? Several
What are the benefits?
This scholarship covers:
Cost of Living Allowance
Book Allowance
Tools Allowance
House Rental Allowance
Family Assistance Allowance
Placement Allowance
Thesis Allowance
Travel Allowance
Practical Training Allowance
End of Study Allowance
Tuition Fees
Medical Claims
Visa Fee
Method of Payment: Participants will receive allowances and other benefits as mentioned above from the Scholarship Division, Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia through their individual savings accounts. Students are advised to open a Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad account.
How long will sponsorship last? For the duration of the programme of study
Application Deadline: 30th July, 2021 at 17.00 hours (GMT+0) Rabat Local time.
About the Award: The ASRIC is mandated to implement Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA-2024) and to promote scientific research and innovation in order to address the challenges of Africa’s socio-economic development. It also mobilizes African research excellence and provides a platform for dialogue among African scientists and serves as a voice of the scientific community in building and sustaining continental research and innovation nexus, that including the building requisite technical capabilities.
On the other hand, the Euro-Mediterranean University of Fes (UEMF), was created in November 2012 and labelled by the Union for the Mediterranean (a union of 43 country members). UEMF is a University of a regional character and is located in the iconic city of Fes, which houses one of the oldest still-functioning universities in the world, “Al Karaouiyine”.
The University was created with aim to promote the values of leadership, entrepreneurship, innovation and solidarity, in furtherance UEMF is a growing centre of excellence in higher education and research with more than one and half thousand students, 24% of which are scholarship recipients. Meanwhile, international partnership agreements signed in 2018 with Belgian, French, German, Moroccan and Spanish higher education institutions promise new opportunities for academic exchanges.
Considering the comparative advantage and the common mandate of ASRIC and UEMF “building Africa’s technical competences” the two institutions decided to engage on a long-term scientific collaboration and as of that the UEMF offered Scholarship for African PhD students to undertake studies and research work at UEMF.
Field(s) of Study: The candidate MUST be ready to undertake a research in the following areas:
a. Artificial Intelligence;
b. Additive Manufacturing;
c. Green hydrogen and Power-to-X;
d. Batteries;
e. Sensors.
Type: PhD
Eligibility:
Must be national of the one of the African Union Member State;
Applicants must be less than 35years of age at the end date of this call;
Must have Master’s Degree (in science or engineering), Diploma or Engineering Diploma or any other equivalent diploma (baccalaureate + 5); and
The candidate must demonstrate remarkable ability and devotion along with experiences in conducting research in the selected field of study.
Eligible Countries: African countries
To be Taken at (Country): Morocco
Number of Awards: 10
Value and Duration of Award: The scholarship includes; tuition fees of about $9,000, accommodation, annually one return ticket from your home country with a maximum contribution of $1,000 during summer vacation, and a stipend allowance of $1,000 monthly for 11 months every year.
How to Apply: The application form to this call should be completed and submitted before the deadline of the call. The following also to be attached to the application form (Download Application Form HERE):
a. An updated CV;
b. A certified copy of the baccalaureate;
c. A certified copy of the master’s diploma or the engineering diploma or any other equivalent diploma (Bac + 5);
d. A copy certified transcript(s) of all university-level coursework completed corresponding to the diploma or masters;
e. A copy of the Master (or equivalent) thesis or dissertation;
f. A certified copy of the international passport.
g. 2 personal passport size photographs
All application and supporting documents should be submitted to the ASRIC Secretariat by email to asric.au@yahoo.com and CC austrc@africa-union.org before the call deadline.
For any further inquiries, contact:
African Union Scientific, Technical and Research Commission Plot 114 Yakubu Gowon Crescent, Abuja, Nigeria Email: asric.au@yahoo.com and CC austrc@africa-union.org Telephone: +234 806 589 1643
The US actually began its war on the people of Afghanistan back during the presidency of Jimmy Carter, who foolishly followed the advice of his Russia-hating, rabidly anti-Communist Polish emigre National Security Director Zbigniew Brzezinski.
Brzezinski, in mid-1979, successfully convinced the gullible Carter to launch Operation Cyclone, a $20-billion, 10-year CIA effort to fund and train the Islamic Mujahideen– largely ethnic Pashtun fighters based in neighboring Pakistan — to undermine the Soviet-backed Communist government in Afghanistan.
A brutal bunch of armed religious zealots, these CIA-backed Mujahideen fighters were successful in undermining the Communist government led by a series of Communist leaders. That, as “Zbig” had hoped and anticipated, led a reluctant Soviet Union to invade the country to prevent the government’s collapse.
Reportedly, that invasion was Brzezinski’s goal. He admitted years later that he had gotten Carter five months before the Soviet invasion, to sign a secret executive order authorizing Operation Cyclone, in hopes of “sucking” the Soviets into “their own Vietnam. ”
The cost of that bloodthirsty bit of realpolitik was Afghan chaos and the rise of the Taliban Another fanatic Islamic group of fighters based in Pakistan, but one not controlled by the CIA, the Taliban managed to win control over much of Afghanistration, including the capital of Kabul, over the next decade. The Taliban government also offered sanctuary to Al Qaeda, a Saudi-based group of Islamic radicals that was overtly anti-America. We know the rest.
Following the 9-11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center in September 2001, the Bush-Cheney Administration launched a major Special Forces invasion of Afghanistan, allegedly to destroy Al Qaeda. In the process, while Al Qaeda wasn’t destroyed, the Taliban were driven from Kabul as its fighters retreated into the countryside and into sanctuary in Pakistan.
The US Afghanistan War was on.
While US forces quickly took control of the country’s cities, and drove Al Qaeda and its leader Osama Bin Laden into the mountains, Bush and Cheney quickly lost interest in that country and shifted troops away to Kuwait and the UAE with plans to invade Iraq. Afghanistan became a “back-burner” war, never fought with more than 100,000 troops — and most of the time with far fewer — but with with lots of bombs, helicopter and fixed-wing flying gunships, and a virtually non-stop aerial bombardment campaign.
“Zbig” got his Soviet quagmire, but the US ended up in an even worse Afghan quagmire — a conflict that stretched out longer than the US war against Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. But it was mostly Afghans who did the bleeding and dying.
The Taliban were never beaten despite all the weaponry including high-tech remote weaponized drones, and the brutality of US forces over the ensuing two decades. Like the Vietnamese who defeated the US in 1974 after over 10 years of even more brutal fighting, the Taliban didn’t try to conquer major cities. They operated in the countryside, harassing US forces and their supposed allies, the US-funded Afghan military, with bombings, roadside IEDs, mines and surprise attacks.
In the end, the US last week pulled most of its remaining forces out in the dead of night from Bagram Air Base outside of Kabul, slipping away quietly to avoid attack without even informing the Afghan military. They left locals to pick through the weapons, supplies and other materiel for hours like locusts landing in a wheatfield,. It was a more disorderly and cowardly exit even than the panicky helicopter evacuation of the US Embassy in Saigon ahead of victorious Vietnamese freedom fighters heading through cheering streets of the city to capture the last vestige of US power in that long-suffering country.
In the years after Vietnam, a series of US governments has sought to rewrite the history of that genocidal US debacle, trying to create a new false narrative that it had just been a noble attempt to “defend freedom,” one that was “fought with one-hand behind our backs” by a US military that was “constrained” from using all its forces and weapons. (Apparently killing three million civilians and Vietnamese patriots was just not enough.)
President Biden isn’t waiting to change the Afghan narrative. He is already claiming the US “achieved its goals” in Afghanistan, and saying that is why he is bringing the last troops home. As he put it at a press conference on July 8:
“The United States did what we went to do in Afghanistan: to get the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and to deliver justice, to get Osama Bin Laden, and to degrade the terrorist threat to keep Afghanistan from becoming a base from which attacks could be continued against the United States. We achieved those objectives. That’s why we went. We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build. And it’s the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country.”
Of course, if that had actually been the US goal when it invaded Afghanistan in 2001 then the troop pullout could have happened in late 2001, not a generation later in mid-2021. (Some of the US soldiers being shipped home now weren’t even born when the US invaded Afghanistan!)
Actually, the US did pull out of Afghanistan in 2001. That was when the US had Al Qaeda forces, including Bin Laden, trapped in the mountains of Tora Bora. Instead of capturing them, though, Bush and Cheney began at that point pulling troops out of Afghanistan and shifting them and America’s war focus to Kuwait, in preparation for a ginned-up and much larger war on the people and government of Iraq.
The trouble is they didn’t stay out after they left for Iraq. Instead, the US changed the goal in Afghanistan to destroying the Taliban (while nurturing Afghanistan’s opium trade). For the next 20 years, American troops, drones and planes destroyed and killed in Afghanistan in an orgy of violence that saw the slaughter of some 875,000 Afghan civilians, the deaths of 2400 US troops, and the expenditure, so far, of over $2.26 trillion for US military operations.
And we still aren’t truly leaving, as Biden says bombings will still continue, as will “over the horizon” attacks on the Taliban.
The events in the Middle East have made a large number of interstate relations of the former “allies” very complicated due to the large-scale operation “Arab Spring”. After the failure of the original idea of creating the Great Middle East, a project in which the main role was played by Washington, in alliance primarily with the Gulf monarchies but also with Turkey, there was a great redefinition of relations within the axis.
Realizing that its interests in the region will not be satisfied in the alliance with the United States, Turkey turned another page in foreign policy, trying to satisfy its own interests, thus at the same time defying the synergistic policy of the NATO pact in the Middle East.
This act was a revolt within the NATO bloc itself. The most concrete results were seen with the realization of the “Turkish Stream” project with Russia and the purchase of modern S-400 anti-aircraft systems from Russia, despite numerous warnings from official Washington.
However, the question arises as to what other choice the Turkish leadership had. The “Arab Spring” project failed, and European leaders were clear that Turkey would not become a member of the European Union. On the other hand, out of its own interests in the war against Syria, Washington continued to support the Kurds and their parastate in northeastern Syria, thus calling into question Turkey’s national interests.
Faced with these problems, Turkey has decided to formulate its own policy, of course paying the price. The coup organized against Erdogan was the best example of how Washington does not forgive betrayal but also neither the change in foreign policy of “allies“. Especially when foreign policy is not in line with the interests of official Washington.
The surviving coup was a good lesson for the Turkish leadership that the United States is a superpower, and that enmity with Washington is costly. This was best felt by Turkish citizens, as Turkey’s economy has weakened significantly, because of the escalation of economic sanctions by the Washington towards Turkey.
However, strong pressure from Washington further united the Turks. The lived experience, regardless of the political differences, united a significant part of the Turkish, primarily nationalist opposition, with Erdogan in relation to United States. Erdogan has begun to pursue an increasingly Turkish-oriented foreign policy. Turkish society, especially its nationalist and secular element reached the historical peak of contempt for US foreign policy.
Turkey, no matter how economically weaker than United States, has shown that it is not a small nation that a “big boss” can discipline simply as it has in some other periods of history. The example of Turkish resistance to subordinate its policy to Washington interests is becoming dangerous, because the Turkish example of sovereignty of foreign policy and rebellion within the NATO pact can be followed by others.
Turkish nationalism got a new impetus by merging what previously seemed incompatible, and that is the greatest merit of US politics. With the failed Gulenist coup against Erdogan, Washington showed that it tried to treat this great nation as Haiti, which awakened Turkish national pride and opened the biggest gap in relations with United States so far.
On the other hand, Russia, which was originally and still is in a geopolitical conflict with Turkey, accepted Turkish sovereignist policy and showed that, unlike America, it wants cooperation with Turkey and want`s to treat Turkey without humiliation. In addition to the aforementioned “Turkish Stream” and the S-400 system, cooperation has also been established in the field of nuclear energy.
It is also very indicative that the last war in the Caucasus passed with the coordination of Moscow and Ankara, for mutual benefit. And guess who was the biggest loss of that war? Again of course the United States!
Russia and Turkey have demonstrated in a simple way who is the boss in the region, and that Washington is incapable of protecting its “allies”. This is especially related to Armenia, whose government is headed by a pro-US prime minister Nikol Pashinyan. Turkey was a demonstrator of force through Azerbaijan, while Russia appeared as a protector, which was another slap in the face for Washington. Turkish society is increasingly mobilizing against United States, especially in the media. The extent to which Turkish society is antagonized in relation to United States is best shown by the new Turkish documentary “Dying Empire”:
South Africa has been rocked by four days of angry protests and riots across the country, in what has been described as the worst disturbances since the end of the hated apartheid regime and minority white rule and the assumption of power by the African National Congress (ANC) in 1994.
South Africa’s two most densely populated provinces, Gauteng, home to Johannesburg, the country’s commercial capital and largest city, and the capital Pretoria, and the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal, were the worst affected. But protests have spread to Northern Cape and Mpumalanga provinces.
As protesters far outnumbered the police, people looted stores, warehouses, store depots and factories, making off with electrical goods, clothes and foodstuffs, while others set fire to shops and offices. The BBC aired a film clip of a mother dropping her toddler from a burning building into the arms of a group of people below.
Soldiers patrol outside a shopping mall in Vosloorus, east of in Johannesburg, South Africa, Wednesday, July 14, 2021. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)
Several of the country’s major highways were blocked after trucks were set alight, prompting South Africa's largest oil refinery to announce the suspension of its operations, blaming the civil unrest and disruption of supply routes in and out of KwaZulu-Natal. This has led to long queues forming outside petrol stations and shops in the eastern port city of Durban and Johannesburg.
The violence has reportedly affected healthcare clinics and the faltering vaccine rollout programme, with medical supplies and medications looted, even as South Africa’s third wave of Covid infections rips through the country. According to official statistics, the virus has killed at least 64,000 people, although excess mortality figures indicate that another 100,000, if not more, have died directly or indirectly due to the pandemic.
At least 72 people have died and more than 1,300 people have been arrested during the protests. While most of those who died were killed by live fire from the police, ten were killed during a crowd crush at the Ndofaya shopping mall in Soweto, Johannesburg, and others were crushed in a warehouse when a stack of goods fell on looters.
The protests were initially triggered by last week’s jailing of former president Jacob Zuma, ordered by the Constitutional Court for contempt of court for initially defying its order to appear at an inquiry into corruption during his presidency from 2009 to 2018. Fearing his actions and those of his cronies were impacting adversely on South Africa’s business interests at home and abroad and costing the ANC electoral support, as reflected in major losses in the 2016 municipal elections, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s faction in the ANC had forced him to resign.
The 79-year-old Zuma is a veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle that he joined when he was 17, serving a 10-year prison sentence on Robben Island in the 1960s alongside Nelson Mandela. Zuma was also a member of the Stalinist South African Communist Party (SACP) until 1990. He has played a major role in the ANC ever since. This, his professed support for the poor farmers and workers, and a significant degree of patronage, has enabled him to retain a measure of popular support, despite being mired for years in scandals and facing a long-postponed trial for fraud, corruption and racketeering.
Zuma and his faction attacked the judicial decision, accusing the court and his political opponents of political bias and imposing a prison sentence without trial that was unconstitutional. After initially refusing to turn himself into the police and calling on his supporters to oppose the sentence, he had given in at the last moment on Wednesday and reported to the authorities. On Monday, the Constitutional Court agreed to hear his petition to rescind its imprisonment order, although it has yet to declare its ruling.
The protests by Zuma’s supporters, largely in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal, rapidly morphed into a wider movement against the ANC government. Millions are angered over its mismanagement of the pandemic and vaccine rollout and an escalating economic crisis that has left many people without jobs, income or financial support from the government, as the top echelons of the ruling party have enriched themselves at public expense.
With one of the highest levels of income inequality in the world, South Africa’s most affluent 20 percent of the population take more than 68 percent of income. According to government statistics, a pale reflection of reality, one third of workers are without work, leading to the pauperisation of millions, while the government has frozen public sector wages, refusing to pay a wage increase due from April 2020 under the 2018 three-year agreement.
While Ramaphosa was forced to acknowledge the widespread anger over social conditions that have turned the country into a powder keg, this did not stop him ordering the army to help the police disperse the crowds, suppress the protests and arrest looters. Addressing the nation on television on Monday, only the second time since the riots broke out, he said, “Let me be clear: we will take action to protect every person in this country against the threat of violence, intimidation, theft and looting.” By this he meant that the army would act to protect big business and the South African bourgeoisie from the enraged masses.
He announced a two-week extension of the limited lockdown measures to counter a brutal third wave of Covid infections at the weekend that include a ban on gatherings and the sale of alcohol, a 9pm to 4am curfew and school closures, seeking to lay the blame for disrupting the vaccination programme on the protesters.
Ramaphosa warned that the country faced the danger of sliding back to the ethnic infighting of the early 1990s when, under apartheid, “sinister elements stoked the flames of violence in our communities to try and turn us against each other.”
Ramaphosa’s faction more openly courts international finance and big business to invest in South Africa and has pledged to root out the corruption endemic within the ANC that has made foreign capital and the international financial institutions reluctant to deal with the country. He has sought to use the courts against his ANC opponents, arguing that what is at stake is the “rule of law.” By this is meant that rule of capitalist law that has allowed Ramaphosa to build up a massive personal fortune, and which sanctions the financial elite’s expropriation of the wealth created by the working class in the form of profit and dividends to shareholders and allows big business to hide its criminality behind the “corporate veil.”
This does not mean that workers should support the nakedly corrupt Zuma or his backers. The factional infighting within the ANC expresses the protracted crisis gripping the entire South African bourgeoisie. The ANC came to power in 1994 in a bid to rescue South African capitalism in a period of rapid transition. As globalisation of production became widespread, the nationalist and autarkic apartheid regime was no longer fit for purpose, amid fears that the rising militancy of the South African working class could spell the end of capitalist rule in the country.
The ANC was chosen as the mechanism to suppress the revolutionary strivings of the black working class, with a black capitalist class being formed to take its place alongside the white capitalists, through programmes of “Black Economic Empowerment” (BEE). This was sanctified politically through the SACP’s Stalinist two-stage theory, which proclaimed the formal end of apartheid as a democratic revolution and a necessary stage before any struggle for socialism.
Ramaphosa’s career, no less than Zuma’s, expresses the trajectory of the ANC and its politics. Once heading South Africa’s largest trade union, the National Union of Mineworkers, he was elected as ANC general secretary in 1991. Soon becoming a multi-millionaire, as a shareholder in the Lonmin mines in Marikana, in 2012 Ramaphosa called on the authorities to take action against striking miners. This greenlighted the security forces firing on the strikers, killing 34 and wounding 78 others.
The path of the ANC from opposition to co-option has been replicated across Africa and the Middle East. The national bourgeoisie, dependent upon imperialism and fearful of revolution from below, cannot resolve the fundamental democratic, economic and social problems confronting the masses. Only the working class can do that. It means breaking with the capitalist politics of the ANC and adopting a socialist and international programme in the closest unity with their class brothers and sisters in the African continent and in the imperialist centres, to take power and overthrow capitalism.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced that face coverings must be worn on London's transport network after the ending of restrictions on July 19 by the Conservative government.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Transport Secretary Grant Shapps had both stressed that government guidance was for passengers to only to wear masks voluntarily on busy services. Khan’s announcement that Transport for London (TfL) would insist that mask-wearing continues on the London Underground, bus, tram, DLR, Overground and TfL Rail network, and in taxis and private hire vehicles, prompted Shapps to claim that he had always “expected, and indeed, wanted” some train, bus and rail companies to insist on mask-wearing on their services.
In reality the hands of both have been forced, not only by massive public opposition, with a YouGov poll showing that seven in 10 people favoured maintaining face coverings on public transport, but above all the threat of industrial action by transport workers.
Passengers on a London Underground Jubilee Line train in June 2021 (WSWS Media)
An indication of the breadth of opposition is provided by an online petition opposing ending the mandatory wearing of face coverings on public transport, which gathered over 120,000 signatures. The petition is on the Organise platform, which allows workers to create petitions anonymously over workplace concerns. It is linked to a letter addressed to Health Secretary Sajid Javid and transport providers, highlighting concerns over the transmission of the virus in enclosed spaces with inadequate ventilation on buses, trains and taxis. It states, “Workers have no choice than to be close to strangers on public transport, and it's especially worrying for workers who are clinically vulnerable, or live with people who are. The staff working in the transport industry need protecting, as do older and more vulnerable people who rely on public transport to get around.”
Comments on the petition page include one that reads simply “Humanity”, while others state, “Essential to protect workers and the public”, “I want to be protected, also we are in such close proximity on tubes and trains, it makes sense to protect each other. Covid has not gone away.”
Such popular sentiment in the working class finds no organised expression. The main transport train unions, Unite and the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) workers union, have responded to the Johnson government’s murderous agenda with a perfunctory call for the mandatory wearing of face masks. They are obliged to acknowledge the huge dangers posed by the government’s actions, but this is not accompanied by any call for a response from the working class. Both unions point to the established agreements with the corporations and government agencies formed from the start of the pandemic and which they claim have ensured their members’ safety. This is under conditions where rail and bus workers have suffering among the highest death tolls of any occupation, with fatalities among London bus drivers three times the national average.
Mike Lynch, general secretary of the RMT, in a July 12 letter to the governments of England, Wales and Scotland, describing the removal of mandatory face masks as “fatal folly” and asked for “reassurances” that other mitigation measures would be maintained.
Unite national officer for transport Bobby Morton described Johnson’s confirmation on July 12 of the scrapping of face coverings as “pigheaded” and “ill-conceived.”
Unite stated that it had briefed its members on their right to invoke Section 44 and 100 of the Employment Right Act, reminding them that they can remove themselves from the workplace if they believe their health is being placed in serious and imminent danger.
This is a fraud. In January, amid a covid outbreak at his garage at Cricklewood, London bus driver David O’Sullivan circulated a leaflet published by the London Bus Rank and File Committee informing bus drivers of their rights under Section 44. Unite denounced this as “unauthorised action” and sided with management during a disciplinary hearing that led to his dismissal.
Khan’s claim that his volte face is based on health considerations and the guidance of the World Health Organisation (WHO) is belied by his actions in promoting the wider abandonment of containment measures in collaboration with the government. Over the last few weeks, he has been at the forefront of promoting mass gatherings around the Euro football tournament, which the WHO has identified as “super spreader” events. He was photographed at Wembley Stadium before the semi-final between England and Denmark alongside the Health Secretary Javid, performing the elbow bump with the accompanying slogan on Javid’s Twitter account declaring: “It's coming home.” The euphoria around the progress of the England side to the final was cynically exploited by the Tories and Labour to generate a false sense of national unity and to stampede public opinion into accepting the lifting of covid restrictions.
Screenshot of Health Secretary Sajid Javid's tweet showng him and London Mayor Sadiq Khan performing the elbow bump at Wembley Stadium before the semi-final between England and Denmark. Javid accompanied the photo with the slogan “It's coming home.”
The maintenance of the face coverings mandate is dictated by the need to preserve the corporatist relations cultivated through the Tripartite Agreement between the unions, TfL, and the private operators from the start of the pandemic against the threat from below.
Far from the “honourable role” Unite now claims the Labour Mayor has played in protecting the lives of bus workers, on April 9, 2020, Unite, TfL and the private operators signed a letter of agreement denying drivers the right to wear face masks, contributing to the 30 deaths in the first wave of the pandemic. The rise in death toll to at least 60 London bus workers has been guaranteed through this ongoing corporate partnership.
On May 17, passenger numbers allowed on board London buses were doubled. Bus drivers have reported the loading signs displaying maximum capacity have been removed. There is widespread anger over the inadequate ventilation in drivers’ cabs and disputes over the claim that they have been properly sealed against exposure.
The extension of face coverings on London public transport is a partial victory which has been enforced under the threat of an emerging opposition, not just on the buses but across all sections of workers. This threat must now be made into a reality.
Every section of the working class is at risk from the “bonfire of the regulations” meant to combat Covid-19. They cannot allow even a nationwide retreat over the scrapping of face coverings to be used to salvage the Tories broader agenda of sacrificing workers health and lives in a new wave of the pandemic to ensure the profits of the corporate oligarchy.
The Labour Party and trade unions are in alliance with the government and its naked policy of herd immunity. Former Labour Health Secretary Ben Bradshaw, interviewed on BBC’s Newsnight July 5, echoed the words of Johnson stating that there will inevitably be more hospitalisations and deaths. The prominent Blairite declared that the problem was the government had not prepared the country for this. The ditching of face coverings on public transport was undermining public confidence, risking the return to work and reopening of the economy being stalled.
Richard Branson answers students' questions during a news conference at Spaceport America near Truth or Consequences, N.M., on Sunday, July 11, 2021. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
On Sunday, July 11, Virgin Galactic successfully sent four passengers to the edge of space using its SpaceShipTwo class vessel VSS Unity during the company’s latest test flight. The entire affair was massively promoted by Virgin Galactic’s founder, billionaire Richard Branson, who took part in the ride, and the American media, who can all now assert that Branson is the first billionaire astronaut.
By the technical definition as laid down by NASA, such assertions are correct. Branson and five others—pilots David Mackay and Michael Masucci, and passengers Sirisha Bandla, Colin Bennett and Beth Moses—were lifted to 86 kilometers (53 miles), just above the 80 kilometer limit recognized by the US space agency as the boundary between our planet’s atmosphere and outer space, before experiencing the weightlessness produced by free fall for four minutes before gliding back to Earth.
This author couldn’t help but recall Woody’s derisive comment about Buzz Lightyear when they first met in Pixar’s Toy Story: “That’s not flying, that’s falling with style.” What Branson did is not space travel, and there is not even much style in his brief and thoroughly pedestrian moment of free fall.
The real significance of Branson’s flight, however, is that it marks yet another milestone in the monetization and privatization of spaceflight and the transformation of what had been considered a global commons, in an earlier period, into a playground for the ultra-rich.
Branson, Amazon founder and Blue Origin owner Jeff Bezos, and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk are only among the most obnoxious and self-promoting representatives of the capitalist class. They do not consider space exploration a scientific endeavor for humanity, but merely a way to enrich and amuse themselves and their fellows among the financial oligarchy.
The design of SpaceShipTwo itself makes this abundantly clear. It is essentially a plane that is carried to 50,000 feet by a mothership, White Knight Two, before being released and firing its rocket for less than a minute, reaching its apogee several minutes later and then coasting back to Earth. Such operations involve technology less sophisticated than the X-15 space plane from 1959, which itself was a testbed for aerodynamic control systems in the upper atmosphere, and is not designed either to go into orbit or lift a payload there.
It is worth comparing Branson’s flight to the earliest spaceflights to better understand just how low the bar has been set. When Alan Shepard became the first American in space in May 1961, he flew to 187 kilometers, more than twice the height of Branson’s flight. When Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, flew in April 1961, he actually achieved orbit on the Soviet Vostok I spacecraft, with a maximum height of 327 kilometers, four times as high as Branson, flying around Earth for 108 minutes before landing by parachute.
In other words, far from the plutocrats advancing the exploration of space, their activities represent a significant backward step compared even to the scientific, technical and social achievements of 60 years ago, let alone the colossal society-wide effort that led to the Moon landings in 1969–72.
Rather than being a demonstration that human reason is capable of understanding the world and harnessing nature to its purposes, space travel, like all aspects of social life, is being subordinated to the most noxious expressions of wealth and excess.
Such realities have not stopped glowing reviews of Branson’s flight in American newsrooms. The Washington Post breathlessly wrote, “Richard Branson completed a daring, barnstorming flight to the edge of space Sunday.” He was referred to as the “swashbuckling billionaire” by the Associated Press. The New York Times had only a modicum more of restraint, asserting, “Richard Branson at last fulfilled a dream that took decades to realize: He can now call himself an astronaut.”
They were joined by a host of media personalities and politicians who were guests at Unity’s takeoff and landing site, including New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, Elon Musk and Late Show host Stephen Colbert. R&B singer Khalid debuted a new song, titled “New Normal,” at the flight’s after-party.
Khalid, Branson and others were attempting to impart the idea that space tourism will become “normal” and routine thanks to their efforts. There are already at least 60 other “space tourists” who have paid $200,000 to $250,000 per ticket to go up and experience free fall inside the vessel for a few minutes, averaging about $1,000 per second of weightlessness. No doubt flights aboard SpaceShipTwo and other similar adventures will become normal, at least for those who are mere multimillionaires.
The bombast also promotes the idea that Branson, Bezos and Musk, and private enterprise in general, provide the way forward for space flight. Unhindered by the bureaucratic red tape of NASA and the US government, so the claims go, the billionaires will take humanity to orbit, and on to the Moon, Mars and beyond! This is the “new normal” they purport to represent.
In fact, it is a testament to the dedication and ingenuity of the hundreds of thousands of scientists, engineers and technicians the world over that so much progress has been made in space exploration over the past half-century, even as funding for space programs has been viciously slashed. The robotic missions to Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto and every other planet in our Solar System, as well as to numerous asteroids and comets, have discovered more about our planetary neighbors and space in general than in centuries of observation from under the cloak of Earth’s atmosphere.
Along with the many scientific lessons learned from such missions—Voyager, Curiosity, Cassini, New Horizons, to name a few—there is also a social lesson: space exploration will always be constricted when it is bound to the resources of one nation or even small groups of nations. The development of genuine planetary exploration, with thousands of robotic missions studying the multitudes of mysteries that still need to be uncovered and the resumption of manned missions beyond Earth’s orbit, requires a coordinated global effort.
The scale cannot be reduced to the whims of a single capitalist, no matter how rich. If a manned space program could only be propelled to the Moon by the competition between the United States and Soviet Union, it will go virtually nowhere driven by competition between Branson and Bezos. They are, moreover, wholly dependent on drawing from the successes of past and present social endeavors, from the rocket science developed by NASA’s army of researchers in the 1960s to the spaceport Branson operates in New Mexico, which the state built for the billionaire at a cost of $220 million.
There is a further and genuinely criminal aspect to the declarations of a “new normal”: hundreds of millions of people live in extreme poverty around the world, and billions have little to no regular income, while 4.06 million lives have been lost in the past nineteen months from the coronavirus pandemic.
Both Branson and Bezos have in fact increased their vast fortunes while standing atop such death. Branson was one of the many capitalists to receive a portion of the £350 billion granted to big business by the government of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in March 2020, even as he told staff of another of his companies, Virgin Atlantic, “to take eight weeks unpaid leave over the next three months, with the cost spread over six months’ salary, to drastically reduce costs without job losses.”
For his part, Bezos has had his wealth rocket to $212 billion during the pandemic, in part as a result of the need for people to buy products online in their effort to avoid the deadly contagion. The world’s billionaires in total last year saw their collective wealth explode from $8 trillion to $13.1 trillion, an increase of 60 percent.
Such wealth was not magically created, but extracted from the backs of workers as they were forced to work through an ongoing pandemic, or “created” through the vast money-printing operation at the US Federal Reserve and other central banks, which now must be realized through stepped-up exploitation of the working class.
Rather than force workers to take unpaid leave, as Branson did, Bezos forced workers back into distribution facilities prematurely, causing the deaths of dozens if not hundreds of Amazon employees. And their fellow-billionaire Musk ordered workers back into his Tesla factory in California in April 2020 in defiance of state and federal lockdowns imposed in response to widespread walkouts by workers seeking to stop the spread of the pandemic.
The social misery and social polarization of the capitalist plague year make clear that free enterprise has failed on Earth. What reason is there to believe that it offers humanity a way forward on the level of the entire Solar System?
