Eligible Countries: All. Mostly developing countries
Fields of Study: Science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and business/entrepreneurship.
About Western Union Scholars Program: The WU Scholars program was created to help give young people a boost toward a better life. The Western Union Foundation believes education is the surest path to economic opportunity. Educational pursuits to gain knowledge and skills for in-demand, 21st century careers are helping people all over the world climb the economic ladder.
As part of this year’s program the Foundation will be rolling out two different scholarship opportunities as part of the overall fund. The first, is an evolution of our evergreen WU Global Scholars initiative that targets international students from low-income countries studying in Australia, Canada, Europe, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom – some of the world’s leading destinations for international scholars. The second, is a renewal our Project Finish Line initiative, launched last year in partnership with Western Union’s Black Advisory Council, to support BIPOC students in the U.S., the majority studying at Historically Black Colleges and Universities in various STEM and business fields.
The Western Union Foundation is again working with the Institute for International Education (IIE) to accept nominations, select awardees, and distribute the scholarships. IIE is accepting nominations for the 2021 WU Scholars program through October 15th, 2021. In order to be invited to formally apply, students must be nominated by a representative from their higher education institution. Eligibility requirements include:
Type: Undergraduate
Eligibility for Western Union Scholars Program:
Must be an international student already enrolled in the 2021-22 Academic Year (or a corresponding timeframe for universities with other semester systems) and preferably residing in one of the following countries of study: US, UK, Europe, Singapore, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand.
This program is open to students in their final or penultimate year of a full-time undergraduate (Bachelor’s) degree program at an accredited higher education institution in any of the countries/regions listed above.
Must be able to demonstrate financial need.
Must be in good academic standing, have high ambitions, and a demonstrated commitment to their chosen field of study.
Must be a student that identifies as black, indigenous, or a person of color currently enrolled in their final (senior) or penultimate (junior) year of their undergraduate or graduate degree program at an accredited College or University in the United States.
Must be able to demonstrate financial need.
Must be in good academic standing, have high ambitions, and a demonstrated commitment to a STEM or business field of study.
Selection Criteria: Candidates will be selected based on criteria relating to the program’s three pillars: Perseverance, Aspiration, and Community.
Number of Awardees: Not specified
Value of Western Union Scholars Program: Selected scholarship recipients will receive USD $2,500 each to contribute toward tuition or school fees at an accredited post-secondary institution.
About the Award: WomEng Africa Innovation Fellowship, powered by WomEng and the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation is a nine-month leadership and business development opportunity for female African innovators with an early stage engineering innovation or startup. The Africa Innovation Fellowship aims to develop the talent pipeline for future cohorts of the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation.
WomEng Africa Innovation Fellowship (AIF) kicks off in November 2021 with virtual sessions focused on idea and business incubation, leadership development and networking. Followed by five months of personalised virtual support with regular check-ins and milestones, ending in April 2022.
Fellowship candidates who apply and are subsequently shortlisted for the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation will receive additional individual coaching and mentoring to support them in getting pitch ready.
Apply now for this unique opportunity to take your innovation to the next level.
Type: Fellowship, Entrepreneurship
Eligibility:
Applicants must identify as women and serve as founders or co-founders.
Individual applicants must be citizens of a country within sub-Saharan Africa*. The main applicant must be a citizen of a country within Sub-Saharan Africa.
The innovation must be based in a country in sub-Saharan Africa.
Applicants must have a Science, Technology, Engineering or Manufacturing (STEM) innovation, though are not required to be an engineering graduate or student themselves.
Applicants must be over the age of 18. There is no upper age limit.
The applicant’s innovation can be any new product, technology, or service, based in STEM.
Applicants should have an early-stage engineering innovation and/or startup.
Applicants must be able to commit for the six month-long programme commencing in November 2021 to April 2022.
Number of Awards: Not specified
Value of WomEng Africa Innovation Fellowship:
Development of your business through personal growth and increased commercial insights.
Exposure to investors in the African landscape.
Interaction with fellow innovators across Africa.
Access to one-on-one mentorship and venture clinics with subject matter experts.
Duration of WomEng Africa Innovation Fellowship:
Applications open: 28 September 2021
Applications close: 15 October 2021
Successful candidates notified: 1 November 2021
Programme Commencement: 16 November 2021
Programme Period: November 2021 to April 2022
Eligible countries: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland/eSwatini, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Tell Me About Women Photograph Mentorship Program:
Women Photograph is pleased to announce that we’re now accepting applications for our 2022 Mentorship Program, which will pair 24 industry leaders (12 photographers and 12 photo editors, curators, and educators) with 24 early-career photojournalists over the course of a year. Mentors include editors, curators, & photographers from The Wall Street Journal, TIME, Reuters, and the National Gallery of South Africa, among others.
What Type of Scholarship is this?
Training
Who can Apply?
We are currently seeking applications from women and nonbinary photographers of any age with less than five years of professional work experience who might be interested in long-term support. For any questions, please contact hello@womenphotograph.com.
Which Countries can apply?
Any
Where will Award be Taken?
Remote
How Many Scholarships will be Given?
24
What is the Benefit of Women Photograph Mentorship Program?
The mentorship program will take place remotely over the course of one year, and requires 3-5 hours of engagement per month. No travel or financial commitment is required to participate. The photographers who stand to benefit most from this program are already at the beginning of a documentary/photojournalistic practice and looking for targeted guidance and mentoring in the early stages of their career.
How Long will the Program Last?
1 year
How to Apply for Women Photograph Mentorship Program:
About the Award: The Fellowships are available in TWO fully-funded tracks:
Atlantic Residential Fellowship: supports applicants in taking the one year MSc Inequalities and Social Science (MISS), with dedicated mentorship, as well as engaging with the wider work of the Atlantic Fellows programme (such as the Annual conference and Non-Residential Fellows activities).
Atlantic Non-Residential Fellowship: a unique opportunity to study via a series of distinct, comprehensive short courses, with both academic and in-the-field work, comprising around seven weeks in total throughout the year. Non-Residential Fellows remain based in their home and professional environments, and travel to attend the Modules. The Non-Residential Fellows will undertake practical project work, and contribute to the Annual Conference and other activities as part of the Atlantic Fellows programme.
Type: Fellowship, Masters
Eligibility:
Applicants for the Non-Residential Atlantic Fellowship must meet the Standard English Language requirements for the LSE. Proof must be included with your final application documents.
Applicants for the Atlantic Residential Fellowship must apply for the MSc Inequalities and Social Science. They must meet all the requirements as set out in the course page.
Separate eligibilities can be read on the application forms of each fellowship.
Number of Awards: up to 9 Residential Fellowships annually
Value of Awards:
Residential Fellowship:
Residential Fellows receive support from a dedicated LSE academic mentor, from the AFSEE Academic Lead through monthly meetings and regular check-ins, and via further opportunities for engagement offered throughout the year.
The Residential track of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme is a funded fellowship. The fellowship includes full tuition fees, an £18,000 stipend to cover living costs while in London, travel to and from Cape Town for the South Africa module, and travel to and from London at the beginning and end of the active fellowship, including reimbursement of visa fees.
Modest financial support is available for Fellows who have family care responsibilities. The programme also has a Resilience Fund to which Fellows can apply in the event of emergencies. Further information is available upon request.
Non-Residential Fellowship:
Each Non-Residential Fellow receives support from a dedicated mentor who has been selected for expertise and experience in the Fellow’s area of focus.
The Non-Residential Track of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme is a funded fellowship. The fellowship includes full tuition fees; a £3,000 grant to support project work; dedicated mentorship; travel to and from London/Cape Town for each Module; accommodation and related costs during Modules; and reimbursement of visa fees.
Modest financial support is available for Fellows who have family care responsibilities. The programme also has a Resilience Fund to which Fellows can apply in the event of emergencies. Further information is available upon request.
Duration of Awards:
Atlantic Residential Fellowship: a full academic year.
Non-Residential Atlantic Fellowship: 12 to 18 months
How to Apply: Please download & fill the Application form of the fellowship you are interested in (links are in the Award Webpage)
About the Award: The Catholic Relief Services International Development Fellows Program, or IDFP, is designed for individuals dedicated to a career in international development. While completing comprehensive training on program management and operations, fellows support CRS’ work in various sectors such as agriculture/livelihoods, health, peacebuilding, emergency response, education, microfinance, or a combination of these.
The fellows’ training focuses on project management, project design and proposal development, partnership and capacity building, monitoring and evaluation, budget and resource management, supply chain and logistics, human resources and security protocols.
Type: Fellowship
Eligibility:
Graduate degree in field relevant and applicable to international development (e.g. Agriculture, Health, Engineering, Business, Public Administration, Finance, Supply Chain)
Fluency in English with strong oral and written communication skills
Professional proficiency in a second language (preference given to major languages spoken where CRS works)
At least six months of work or volunteer experience in a developing country (or 5+ years living in a developing country)
Able and willing to be based in locations with tropical and infectious diseases and limited access to medical facilities.
Skills Required:
Strong interpersonal skills; able to cultivate strong relationships while working with a wide range of individuals in and outside the agency
Effective communicator; able to develop tailored and influential messaging for varied audiences
Proactive; willing and able to take on additional responsibility, challenge assumptions and facilitate change
Results driven; able to set and achieve ambitious goals and instill confidence
Strategic thinker; able to formulate guiding questions, leverage resources and find creative solutions
Discerning; able to maintain focus and provide good judgment amidst complexity and uncertainty
Develops others; able to listen, coach and mentor
Agile; able to operate effectively in a stressful, fast changing environment where security could change unexpectedly
Aligned; able to support and champion the mission, vision, and values of CRS
Motivated; interest in a career in development or emergency relief
Flexible; willing to work in various regions and developing countries around the world
Number of Awards: CRS offers 20-30 fellowships each year.
Value of Award: CRS provides IDFP participants with the following benefits:
Great opportunities for professional growth and development overseas
Stipend, allowances, and furnished housing
Transportation to and from the country
Extensive insurance coverage (medical, dental, life, travel/accident, evacuation and personal household effects)
Paid vacation, sick and personal leave, and 12 paid holidays
Language learning assistance
Duration of Programme: 12 months
How to Apply: We welcome as a part of our staff and as partners people of all faiths and secular traditions who share our values and our commitment to serving those in need.
To be considered for the program, please apply here
Testifying last week before the Brazilian Senate’s Commission of Inquiry (CPI) into the government’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, the lawyer for doctors employed by the health care company Prevent Senior exposed a regime of coercion, intimidation and cover-up surrounding the prescription of so-called “COVID kits” that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of elderly patients.
Lawyer Bruna Morato at the Brazilian Senate (Credit: Roque de Sá/Agência Senado/FotosPublicas)
In August, a complaint signed by 15 Prevent Senior doctors made public that the company, which is an insurance and health care provider for more than 600,000 elderly people, had been functioning as a center of operations for fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro in his campaign for “herd immunity” through mass infection.
Already in April 2020, a “pact” was made between Prevent Senior and the Bolsonaro administration to promote hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, both widely endorsed by the president as “early treatments” against COVID-19 that would facilitate reopening the economy. Prevent Senior’s COVID-19 medical protocols were created in consultation with close medical associates of the president.
Doctors revealed that company officials ordered the prescription of the scientifically discredited drugs as “COVID-19 kits” for symptomatic as well as hospitalized elderly patients without their relatives’ or their own knowledge. The doctors’ lawyer, Bruna Morato, said that this resulted in the deaths of hundreds. Meanwhile, for an unknown number of COVID-19 patients, the cause of death was changed after 10-14 days of hospitalization to falsely claim a higher rate of recovery by COVID-19 patients taking these medications.
Medical staff in hospitals were also ordered to prescribe the ineffective drugs for themselves in case they developed COVID-19 symptoms. During an interview with the whistleblowers on Saturday, the doctors recounted a routine in which they prescribed the “COVID-19 kits,” while having to tell their patients in secret not to take the medications. “They watched who was giving the prescriptions and who wasn’t. It was a situation in which they had control, so there was no autonomy,” a doctor said.
Prevent Senior’s CEO Eduardo Parrillo systematically enforced his reign of terror with the selection of “guardians” loyal to the company, assigned to supervise on-duty doctors and make sure that they were following the company’s orders.
Dr. Walter Correa de Souza, a former doctor at the company, stated, “As someone who worked as a military firefighter for many years, I’ve never seen a hierarchy so tightly enforced as the one inside the company. Not even in the Army.”
Intimidation tactics included hospital coordinators threatening to fire dissenting medical staff who refused to prescribe the quack cures. The lawyer, Morato, said that the company frequently fired personnel who disagreed with their measures.
Prevent Senior’s protocols were enforced as Bolsonaro pressured the health ministry to officially include chloroquine as a COVID-19 medication.
In May 2020, Bolsonaro appointed Army Gen. Eduardo Pazuello as his health minister. The general carried forward the president’s herd immunity campaign, promoting chloroquine. He later transformed Manaus into a death trap, in January 2021, by refusing to send oxygen supplies to the capital of Amazonas, despite several warnings.
The CPI session with lawyer Morato also revealed that a hospital director recommended and supervised cutting off oxygen supplies for patients hospitalized for more than 10 to 14 days, stating that “death is also a form of discharging [the patients].”
In March-April 2020, Prevent Senior’s directors coordinated a secret experiment on elderly patients, treating them like “human guinea pigs.” After they were secretly medicated with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, their results were “rounded out to match Bolsonaro’s speech,” as ordered by Dr. Rodrigo Esper who was coordinating the macabre experiment.
Esper and his bosses published the “study” in a pre-print version after “rounding out” the data to falsely show that no one died as a result of taking the drugs. In reality, nine patients died who had taken the drugs, double the number of the group that had received a placebo.
Morato further made the connection between the company’s barbaric actions and the campaign supported by the ruling elite to reopen the economy, despite the predicted surge in cases and deaths. Referring to Bolsonaro’s closest medical associates, “completely aligned with the economic interests of the Finance Ministry,” Morato stated that “they referred to an ‘ideological alignment.’ in which the economy cannot stop, and so what they had to do is to give people hope. That hope had a name: hydroxychloroquine.”
These macabre experiments could not have been carried out without the support of the company’s CEOs, the Parrillo brothers, who implemented a company-wide system of coercion and intimidation to conduct the experiments on the elderly during the pandemic.
Morato and Prevent Senior doctors have also revealed that the “guardians” frequently sang a hymn with their hands on their chests during company events. The Parrillo brothers played their guitars as the guardians were ordered to sing.
The lyrics include the following passages: “We were born to live, Fighting until we die, ... And together we will win, With swords and cannons, We are the guardians.” The ritual is inspired by the Nazi Waffen SS, a paramilitary group selected for their “pure blood” to protect Hitler.
Morato stated that the SS-inspired motto, “obedience and loyalty,” was instituted in 2015, and is promoted to this day by company officials.
The Parrillo brothers are members of the rock band Doctor Pheabes, having opened for major rock bands such as Black Sabbath and The Rolling Stones during music festivals like Lollapaloza and Rock in Rio. The band released its latest album in 2019 called “Army of the Sun,” a direct reference to the Waffen SS.
Such figures could only have felt free to carry out these abominable acts under conditions in which entire governments are ever more openly arguing for the deaths of millions to be treated as the new “normal” to which people will have to get accustomed during the pandemic.
If Bolsonaro and Boris Johnson in the UK could perform their mass experiments on millions to achieve herd immunity, it would appear only natural for such elements to do the same.
Since April 2020, when these barbaric acts were directly coordinated by Nazi sympathizers in the company’s management, governments throughout the world have defended ever more openly the reopening of schools and the economy, resulting in the deaths of millions globally.
On Tuesday, the mayors of Brazil’s two biggest cities, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, announced the lifting of mask mandates in the coming weeks, justifying it on the grounds that vaccination rates would be high. The mayors’ criminal measures were declared as the Delta variant is ripping through the US and the UK, showing that even with most of the population having taken double shots, thousands of people will continue to die each week.
Following in Bolsonaro’s footsteps, since April of last year, state governors have given ever more open support to the government’s campaign of herd immunity through mass infection. The motto “the cure can’t be worse than the disease” was fully endorsed by the Workers Party (PT), with Governor Camilo Santana of Ceará being one of the first to reopen his state’s economy after the first wave, followed by his fellow PT governors in Bahia and Rio Grande do Norte.
That is the reason why, after the practices at Prevent Senior were made public, efforts were intensified to contain and cover up the episode. The São Paulo attorney general declared that “we must respond rapidly but judiciously to give a prompt response to the population but also not to harm the company.” He concluded by saying that “we have to be surgical.”
The investigations by the CPI in Brazil are an effort to shift the blame for the country’s 600,000 deaths from the entire political establishment, which carried out wholly inadequate mitigation measures while forcing children back into schools and workers back into factories in order to make profits for the rich.
Meanwhile, instead of issuing a public apology, the company is doubling down against the doctor whistleblowers, showing how confident company officials are that they will go unpunished. Prevent Senior is currently blaming the doctors for giving the prescriptions themselves, trying to turn reality on its head, and declared in September that the whistleblowers were the criminals for accessing patients’ records.
The fact that such individuals are given power on medical boards is an expression of a diseased social order, that puts profit above all else, including human life. That they are able to maintain political office is a sign that the ruling class is preparing to confront the mass struggles of the working class with openly anti-democratic and violent methods of repression.
The British government intends to stop all investigations into crimes carried out by British forces during and after Northern Ireland’s three decades of armed conflict known as “The Troubles”. The move, announced in a parliamentary command paper “Addressing the Legacy of Northern Ireland’s Past”, has been analysed by a team of Northern Ireland academics and deemed more wide-ranging than that offered to Chile’s military in 1978 under the bloody dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.
A mural in Belfast commemorating the victims of the Ballymurphy Massacre in 1971, when 11 unarmed civilians were killed by British soldiers. (Credit: photograph of work by public artist R. Ó Murchú--Flickr PPCC Antifa)
The proposal amounts to an unconditional amnesty for British agents, informants and services personnel, as well as members of paramilitary groups, and seeks to draw a legal veil over the role of the British government and its intelligence services during the decades long dirty war in its oldest colony. Should the paper become law, the only people at risk of prosecution from further investigations are those seeking to place new information in the public domain.
Introducing the paper, Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis indicated the government felt under pressure on the issue. “Time,” wrote Lewis, “is not on our side”.
“Without movement very soon, we... will fail to explain the complexity of the Troubles in an unbiased way and from all perspectives to the children of Northern Ireland today, condemning them to carry a partial view of the Troubles that acts as a barrier to community integration and understanding.”
Explaining the truth “in an unbiased way” for Lewis means doing the opposite. The problem for Lewis is that even the slow-moving legal investigations already in motion threaten to reveal far more than the British government can tolerate of its murderous and vile methods in Ireland. Any threat to prosecute individual soldiers brings with it the danger that the personnel in question can, in their defence, bring out the role of their military superiors and of the British government.
Paragraph 34 states explicitly that “the PSNI [Police Service of Northern Ireland] and Police Ombudsman Northern Ireland would be statutorily barred from investigating Troubles-related incidents.” This would “bring an immediate end to criminal investigations... and remove the prospect of prosecutions.”
In paragraph 37 the government claims it is “committed to providing greater certainty for all those directly affected by the Troubles and to enable all communities in Northern Ireland to move forward.” But the only certainty is that no-one will be held to account, and no-one blamed. Judicial reviews and civil cases would also be barred. These, according to the government, “involve an approach that can create obstacles to achieving wider reconciliation.”
In place of legal proceedings, the government proposes a new Information Recovery Body which would result in families and relatives being offered a file rather than a court case. The government claimed it was committed to “full disclosure” while taking steps to ensure “no inadvertent disclosure into the public domain of information that could threaten national security”, i.e., nothing that the comprises the intelligence services.
Over five decades ago, in 1969, the British Labour government despatched thousands of troops to reinforce the pro-British Ulster Unionist government in the six counties of Northern Ireland. The unionists were seeking to suppress a popular movement for civil rights. Since Ireland’s partition in 1921, Northern Ireland had been ruled as a semi-dictatorship through emergency powers, fascistic loyalist mob violence, elections gerrymandered to ensure unionist victory, and systematic discrimination against Catholics, particularly the working class, in all areas of social life.
Over the next three decades, the six partitioned counties were permanently occupied by tens of thousands of British troops and the border with the Republic of Ireland was heavily militarised, while British forces, backed up by Northern Ireland’s police and paramilitary state forces, conducted a “low intensity” dirty war against Irish republicans. A vast security, surveillance, infiltration, assassination, and propaganda operation was unleashed. In all, over the course of the Troubles, some 3,500 people were killed and 40,000 injured by British forces, the Ulster Defence Regiment, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, loyalist and nationalist paramilitaries. Countless more suffered, and continue to suffer, lifelong physical and mental trauma.
The Troubles only came to an end in 1998 when the British government, seeking to unwind its military commitment and with Northern Ireland facing economic ruin and unable to attract investment, put together a deal backed by US and European capitalism to offer Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army’s (IRA) political wing, a route to power-sharing devolved government along with their unionist opponents. The Northern Ireland Assembly has operated fitfully, with all its activities divided on sectarian lines, ever since.
Along with the 1998 Good Friday agreement came mechanisms to allow some legal investigations of both the unresolved killings and the numerous outrages of the Troubles. A number of high-profile public inquiries were set up, invariably delivering partial but nonetheless damaging reports.
A public inquiry was authorised in 1998, for example, into the January 30, 1972, Bloody Sunday shootings in Derry in which 13 people died. The Saville inquiry finally reported in 2010, accusing British paratroopers of shooting unarmed civilians. One anonymous solder was eventually charged, but the case against “Soldier F” was dropped earlier this year.
Earlier this a year, a coroner’s inquest returned a verdict on the Ballymurphy massacre –the shooting of ten unarmed civilians in Belfast’s Ballymurphy estate in 1971 during Operation Demetrius—the internment without trial of hundreds suspected of membership of the IRA. The inquest verdict only came about due to relentless and determined campaigning by relatives and supporters of the murdered residents. Yet no one is to face charges.
An Historical Enquiry Team (HET), staffed with as many as 100 detectives, operated from 2006 to 2014 only to be wound up after an official inquiry conceded it was not investigating “state involvement cases” with the same rigour as others. The HET was replaced with a cheaper Legacy Investigation Branch which has convicted no-one since it started work. Half of the 19 cases it has investigated, of 953 outstanding, involve the military.
Some of the most sensitive cases are under investigation by Operation Kenova, the police investigation into the murderous activities of the British agent in the IRA’s security unit, known as “Stakeknife”, Freddie Scappaticci. The operation has expanded its activities to include over 200 cases. Headed by former police chief Jon Boutcher, Kenova has so far amassed over 50,000 pages of evidence covering 17 murders and 12 kidnappings. Over 300 people have been interviewed.
Since 2019 Boutcher has also been investigating the Glenanne gang of the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force, which included members of the Northern Ireland security forces. The Glenanne gang is suspected of carrying out as many as 90 attacks, including those that cost the most lives of any single atrocity during the Troubles, the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings.
On May 17, 1974, in a coordinated attack, three bombs exploded in the packed streets of rush hour Dublin at two-minute intervals. A fourth device exploded in the town of Monaghan, near the border, one-and-a-half hours later, as a diversionary tactic for when the attackers would be crossing the border into the six counties. 33 people, as well as an unborn child, were killed in the attacks, while 258 were injured. No one has ever been charged for the atrocities and the British government has refused to release relevant documents.
Two years earlier, two British agents, Kenneth and Keith Littlejohn, were involved in a British intelligence operation which exploded two bombs in Dublin simultaneously with a Dáil Éireann debate on criminalising Sinn Fein. Two people were killed and around 100 injured in an attack blamed on the IRA. The Offences against the State (Amendment) was due to be thrown out until the bombs went off in earshot, swinging the outcome. The Littlejohn affair was covered extensively at the time by the Trotskyists of the Socialist Labour League, who published a pamphlet “Anatomy of Dictatorship - the Littlejohn Affair”.
These are not only issues of historic sensitivity. The amnesty paper follows the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act 2021 which places a six-year time limit on legal action against crimes carried out by British troops overseas. As such, the paper is part of British preparations for major new conflicts abroad and dictatorial measures to confront the working class at home.
The command paper was subjected to an excoriating analysis by a team of legal and human rights academics from Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Ulster, the Model Bill Team—who had viewed the Stormont House Agreement of 2014 as capable of producing legal mechanisms compliant with current human rights practice.
Among the team’s most startling findings was the result of a comparison between the British government’s proposed amnesty and similar moves worldwide, including a 1978 amnesty passed by Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet, which the team noted is “widely regarded as one of the most egregious examples of amnesty”. The British government's proposal, like Pinochet’s, covers “serious human rights violations including extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention, torture and disappearances”.
However, the British proposal goes much further. Unlike in Chile, no offences are excluded, no time limits imposed, and all current proceedings will cease, including all judicial and investigative processes.
The team also noted that the Information Recovery Body, put forward to give a pretence of moving investigations forward, will be entirely voluntary and therefore be ignored, while its powers to extract documentation from the state will be less than currently exist.
By contrast, coupled with moves to tighten the Official Secrets Acts, the team noted that “journalists, legacy investigators and human rights defenders who put evidence of human rights violations into the public domain... would be the only people liable to be prosecuted for conflict-related matters.”
Despite rising infection levels, schools are systematically dismantling all protective measures against transmission of the coronavirus. These include social distancing rules, quarantine orders and even testing. Over the last two weeks, a number of state governments took another significant step down the road to mass infection of unvaccinated children with the elimination of mandatory mask-wearing in the classroom. This policy, in the interest of securing the profits of big business, endangers the health and lives of hundreds of thousands of students and teachers.
School in NRW (Source: www.instagram.com schuelerstreik_nrw)
The states of Bremen, Hesse, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony-Anhalt have already abandoned compulsory mask-wearing for all grades since the start of the school term. It has also been lifted for grades one and two in Lower Saxony and up to grade four in Saxony. In Rhineland-Palatinate and Thuringia, mask requirements are controlled by reference values of a “corona traffic light,” which are set so high that the requirement to wear masks only comes into force when it is already too late.
Other German states have followed suit: Brandenburg lifted obligatory mask-wearing on August 23 at elementary schools; Saarland on October 1 for all classes; in Berlin, grades one to six; and in Bavaria on October 4.
But the remaining states will follow this trend in the coming days and weeks: In Baden-Württemberg, the requirement to wear a mask will be dropped on October 18, in North Rhine-Westphalia on November 2, and in Schleswig-Holstein it will be relaxed in November after the fall vacations. Saxony and Lower Saxony—where the requirement has already been dropped for the lower grades—have already announced that they want to relax it even further.
This policy of mass infection by all federal and state parliamentary parties deliberately endangers the lives and health of hundreds of thousands of children and young people. Since the end of the summer holidays, a clear increase of case numbers among children and young people is underway. In the 5- to 14-year-old group, the incidence level is currently 178 (per 100,000) and in the 15- to 34-year-old group it is 89. According to the Robert Koch Institute, the number of outbreaks in schools “increased again very significantly from the beginning of August to mid-September 2021.”
The same picture is emerging in the United Kingdom and the United States, where schools have opened fully just as they did after the summer vacation. In the UK, at least one in 20 children has now been infected—an average of one child per classroom.
It is also clear how dangerous the consequences of a coronavirus infection can be, even for children and young people. In the UK, around 40 children are hospitalized every day due to the virus. By July, 25 had already died and since the end of the summer vacations, 10 more have succumbed. In Indonesia, about 100 children are currently dying every week, and in Brazil, 1,518 schoolchildren have already fallen victim to COVID-19 this year. Eleven under-18s have already died in Germany.
The abolition of the requirement to wear masks is part of a worldwide policy of the ruling class to remove any protective measures against the virus. Here in Germany, it is being pushed by all federal and state parliamentary parties. From the Left Party to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), all have supported the reopening of schools and ensured the lifting of the requirement to wear a mask. In the federal election campaign, all the chancellor candidates spoke out against another lockdown to save lives.
In particular, the nominally “left” parties are pushing an aggressive reopening policy. Left Party-led Thuringia has had the highest incidence level of any state for almost the entire pandemic. Just a few weeks ago in a tweet, state Premier Bodo Ramelow defended this policy—which has already led to more than 4,400 deaths in Thuringia—as “scientific”— immediately garnering massive opposition.
The removal of all safeguards is a thoroughly anti-scientific policy, designed solely to return to “normality” to keep production running and profits flowing. Scientists, on the other hand, warned against ending the mask requirement. Virologist Melanie Brinkmann, for example, condemned it as “premature,” citing the high number of unvaccinated children.
Eberhard Bodenschatz of the Max Planck Institute explained, “If we now drop the mask requirement after the elimination of mandatory testing in many situations, we will basically be in an undisturbed life as we were before the pandemic ... So why shouldn’t the pandemic come back?”
The trade unions have played a central role in the unsafe reopening of schools and the dismantling of the last protections. Around the world, they have helped support the reopenings and sabotaged any protest against them. On Monday, Education and Science Union (GEW) President Maike Finnern declared, “Schools should stay open.”
Protest is being voiced from many sides against the dangerous measures, which contradict any scientific findings. In Baden-Württemberg, the VBE education association warned against ending the mask requirement too soon. Its chairman, Gerhard Brand, declared, “We shouldn’t rush into anything; the pandemic situation and vaccination rate are unchanged.” In Berlin, almost 2,000 people signed a petition against the end of mandatory mask wearing in schools in a short period of time.
The growing resistance to dangerous policies is taking on more concrete forms outside the major parties and unions. Lisa Diaz, a mother from the United Kingdom, called for a one-day school strike for October 1, which was supported by thousands of parents, workers and young people worldwide, who tweeted their agreement and sent statements of solidarity.
Members of the armed forces have now been deployed to assist ambulance services across the whole of Britain.
It was announced yesterday that 110 personnel will be sent to Wales from October 14, after the local government made a Military Aid to the Civil Authorities (MACA) request. Another 97 soldiers have been supporting ambulance services in the east, north-east, south central and south-west of England since August. In Scotland, 114 soldiers have been carrying out non-emergency driving work for the last two weeks.
Ambulance's outside Bournemouth hospital's accident and emergency unit. September 2021 (WSWS Media)
Britain’s ambulance services have been under acute strain for months. Figures released by the Office for National Statistics show that, in England, the number of emergency calls answered in August was more than in any other month on record, except for July. Ambulances consistently failed to reach patients in the two most urgent categories within the required times.
An analysis by health charity the Nuffield Trust found that, of the 10 percent of incidents which fell under the highest “category 1”, including cardiac arrest patients who have stopped breathing, fewer than 75 percent were reached within eight minutes, the percentage target laid down in performance standards. The last time this figure was met was in January 2014.
The same pattern was repeated, but with even longer waiting times, in less urgent categories.
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said the ambulance service is “operating at its highest level of escalation.” The number of people in Scotland suspected of having a serious condition waiting more than 10 minutes for an ambulance has more than doubled since 2019.
In Wales, the number of 999 calls rose by over 25 percent between January and June this year and has only increased further since then. With its second-worst response time on record, the Welsh ambulance service failed to respond within the 8-minute deadline for “category red” emergency calls in over two out of five cases during August this year. The 57.6 percent response rate is significantly behind the target of 65 percent, which has not been met for over a year.
This all translates into potentially fatal delays in reaching patients with life-critical conditions.
Some patients in Scotland have waited up to 40 hours for an ambulance. This led to at least one pensioner dying, and another 86-year-old woman lying on her kitchen floor for eight hours with a broken hip awaiting an ambulance.
A woman in Grimsby who had suffered a stroke in March had to wait over 10 hours for an ambulance when she collapsed at home in October. Her husband said, “She needed to be up at the hospital straight away in case there was another stroke. We are in a mess and it needs sorting.”
Writing in Pulse magazine, GP trainer Dr Shaba Nabi said she had “never been more scared for the health and well-being of my loved ones.”
Dr Nabi told how, after she had waited three hours for an ambulance to arrive at her surgery to attend two patients who had collapsed with chest pains, she reluctantly advised them to travel to hospital by car.
The same week, she witnessed an elderly man lying bleeding on the pavement. “Because he was alert, awake and breathing, my immediate thought as I went to help was ‘this man’s not getting an ambulance for love nor money’—despite his obvious need for one. I spoke to ambulance control who confirmed my fears and advised me to call 111. When I questioned how a lone GP would have the ability to ‘scoop and dispatch’, they had no answer.”
A COVID patient in Scotland who began to struggle with breathlessness eventually died due to the delay in dispatching an ambulance after calling the NHS 24 hotline. The Scottish Public Service Ombudsman (SPSO) found there was an “unreasonable” delay in calling the ambulance. Although the call handler had followed the correct protocols, these were clearly “not fit for purpose”, the SPSO found.
The pressures placed on ambulance crews are enormous. A paramedic in Falkirk, Scotland, told the Daily Record that working conditions were so bad it was causing some staff to suffer insomnia and panic attacks. They reported having to work two or even three hours past the end of their shift, and facing 15-hour days with no breaks due to the volume of calls.
“I have never experienced working conditions like it. Even during the height of the pandemic, it wasn’t this bad. The service isn’t in crisis, the service is totally broken. And I worry that it’s beyond fixable.”
According to the paramedic, “Not a day goes by that myself or a colleague breaks down before, during or after a shift.”
The deployment of hundreds of soldiers marks the severity of the breakdown of Britain’s emergency medical services, but will do little to solve it.
Since the army staff have not had the requisite training, they are unable to drive using the flashing blue lights. This means they can only be sent to non-emergency calls. However, should the patient they are attending develop more serious symptoms the military driver is unable to transport them to hospital at high speed. In such emergency cases, an ambulance with a trained paramedic driver would then need to be dispatched.
Army drivers’ lack of skills and experience resulted in accidents within two days of their introduction in Scotland. Two soldiers out of the Leverndale ambulance station in Glasgow were involved in crashes.
Even when patients are safely delivered to the hospital, they face further delays in receiving necessary treatment as overstretched accident and emergency (A&E) departments struggle to find beds for seriously ill patients. A trade union representative commented, “If there are 50 more ambulances, it just means 50 extra joining the queue [at hospitals].”
Brecon-based ambulance technician, Paul Amphlett, told the ITV News, “Bringing the army in isn’t going to solve the problem. The patients are going to be coming in to the hospitals because they'll obviously be helping out to pick these patients up, but they’re still going to be stuck in the car parks, we’re still going to be waiting with them, babysitting them, so it really isn’t going to solve the problem overall.”
A survey by the Royal College for Emergency medicine found that, in August, half of emergency departments were forced to keep patients outside in ambulances every day, up from a quarter in October 2020 and just under a fifth in March 2020. Half said they were required to treat patients in the corridors every day.
NHS figures show that nearly a quarter of A&E patients in England were not seen within four hours in August, versus 13.7 percent in August 2019. In Scotland, in the week to September 12, 28.5 percent of patients were not seen within four hours.
Dr Katherine Henderson, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, commented last month, “This is a disaster. This is a system that is on the edge.”
The crisis in the ambulance service and A&E departments has been exacerbated by the pandemic, allowed to run rampant by the official policy of mass infection, but had been building for years due to government underfunding.
A 2017 report by the National Audit Office found that increased funding for urgent and emergency activities had “not matched rising demand”. NHS Providers and the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives report that England alone faces a recurrent funding shortfall for ambulance services of close to £240 million.
