Army general to lead Germany’s coronavirus crisis response team

Peter Schwarz

Major General Carsten Breuer, the commander of the German army’s (Bundeswehr) Territorial Tasks Command, has been appointed head of the coronavirus crisis response team of the future German government. His appointment was announced early on Monday. The crisis team is to be set up this week, although the confirmation and swearing-in of the “traffic light” coalition of the Social Democratic Party, Greens and Free Democratic Party are not due until next week.

Two-star General Carsten Breuer (Photo: KdoTA Presse / CC BY-SA 4.0)

The decision to put an active Bundeswehr general in charge of the COVID-19 crisis team permits only one conclusion: the traffic light coalition does not regard the pandemic as a medical problem, but rather as a security issue.

The purpose of the crisis team is not to protect the population from the virus, but to protect the government from the population. The incoming German government is preparing to declare a state of emergency in order to suppress resistance to its policy based on sacrificing countless lives to ensure increased profits and share prices. It is a policy that plays Russian roulette with the health of an entire generation of children and adolescents.

Major General Breuer has not the slightest medical or virological expertise. What he does bring to the job is decades of experience drawn from international combat missions, and leading command bodies of the Bundeswehr, NATO, the Ministry of Defence and domestic military operations.

Born in 1964, Breuer commenced his military career 36 years ago immediately after graduating from high school. He was trained at various Bundeswehr institutions, the German Army University in Hamburg and a general staff course in the US. He went onto command units in missions in Kosovo and Afghanistan. From 2008 to 2010, he held a leading command post with NATO in Brussels.

Between his various assignments as a troop commander, Breuer was repeatedly appointed to the Ministry of Defence. In 2015, he led the revision of the “2016 White Paper on Security Policy and the Future of the Bundeswehr” for the Ministry headed at that time by Ursula von der Leyen (CDU).

In addition to proposals for massive rearmament and the expansion of the Bundeswehr’s foreign missions, the White Paper advocated the deployment of the Bundeswehr for domestic purposes. The German post-war constitution had set narrow limits to the domestic use of the military due to the disastrous role of the military in the German Empire, the Weimar Republic and the Nazi dictatorship. The revised White Paper demanded that the Bundeswehr “also perform sovereign tasks using powers of intervention and coercion” during domestic missions—i.e., that it could arrest and search people like the police.

Since the beginning of 2018, Breuer, as commander of the Territorial Tasks Command, has been personally responsible for the Bundeswehr’s domestic operations, which have been massively expanded since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the Bundeswehr, there are currently 8,000 soldiers available for pandemic duties, of which 3,950 are currently deployed. Although these troops often perform logistical, medical or administrative tasks, the main aim for those in charge is to accustom the population to the use of the military in all spheres of society.

At the start of the pandemic the WSWS had already warned: “But regardless of how much medical assistance the army actually provides, the deployment serves another goal. Leading generals are openly declaring that the key issue is imposing military-police control over the population and defending the institutions of the capitalist state.”

According to a report in the magazine Der Spiegel at the time, the Green Party-CDU coalition in the state of Baden-Württemberg had already considered “officially declaring a state of emergency and calling in the Bundeswehr because of the catastrophic staffing levels in the police force.”

In a guest article for Der Spiegel, the FDP politician Marco Buschmann, who is due to be sworn in as Minister of Justice next week, warned at the time of revolutionary uprisings: “The small amount of time bought by the state, society and the economy at an enormous price, will soon run out. ... Then at some point revolution will be in the air.”

The appointment of General Breuer as head of the coronavirus crisis response team confirms the warnings of the WSWS. The SPD, Greens and FDP are determined to continue the irresponsible “profits before lives” policy of the previous government and anticipate massive resistance.

On November 18, based on their majority in the Bundestag, they passed a new version of the Infection Protection Act, which massively restricts the measures needed to combat the pandemic. Although 100,000 people had already died from COVID-19, the explosive rise of the fourth wave of infection was unmistakable and scientists warned urgently of a catastrophe, they did not deviate from their course.

They refused to extend the existing “epidemic situation of national scope” and shifted responsibility for COVID-19 measures to the state governments, whose hands were effectively tied by the new law. Restrictions on going out, the prohibition of major events, restrictions to travel, the closure of daycare centres and schools, and other lockdown measures that had proven highly effective in the past are now explicitly ruled out.

The pandemic has since spiraled completely out of control. Daily infection rates are many times higher than in previous waves, the virus is spreading almost unchecked in schools, numerous intensive care clinics have reached the limits of their capacity, long queues are forming in front of vaccination centres, and the number of fatalities every day is equivalent to the crash of a jumbo jet. The spread of the more infectious Omicron variant has made the situation even worse.

On Friday, Germany’s stock markets, which have soared in the pandemic and reached record highs, reacted. At some times, the Dax and EuroStoxx50 fell as sharply as they did during the stock market crash that accompanied the first wave of the pandemic in March 2020. The Dax closed down 4.2 percent.

For the traffic light coalition, this is one more reason to stick to their murderous course. The coalition’s coronavirus policy is geared exclusively to the interests of big business and the banks. Like the US government and other capitalist governments around the world, its concern is not how many lives will be lost, but rather what will take place the next day on the stock exchanges and how best to delay any action until the end of the Christmas shopping period.

That is why the new coalition has appointed a two-star general with 36 years of military experience to the chancellor’s office as head of its crisis response team.

Indigenous people in Australia twice as likely to be infected with COVID-19

John Mackay

A third wave of COVID-19 infections in Australia has seen a 45-fold increase in the spread of the virus among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Even before the arrival of the Omicron variant, they were being infected with the Delta strain at twice the rate of non-indigenous people.

Australian Medical Assistance Teams in Wilcannia offering door-to-door COVID-19 vaccinations and testing. (Source: Wilcannia On The Baaka Darling River Facebook)

By last week, some 7,000 infections had been reported among indigenous people, with 14 recorded deaths, 700 hospitalised and 80 in intensive care units. Most of the deaths were under the age of 60. Until mid-June, only 153 indigenous people had been infected, with no deaths.

Just half of indigenous people over the age of 16 are double vaccinated, compared with around 80 percent across the population nationally.

The increasing number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in indigenous communities was both predicted and preventable. The warnings of health experts and community leaders were ignored, resulting in the failure to protect these populations from the pandemic.

Indigenous people have a high prevalence of chronic health conditions as a result of widespread poverty-level living conditions, which include overcrowded housing, poor access to quality food and limited access to medical care. Prevalent health conditions, such as diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular and depression and other mental health disorders, are also known to increase the risk of hospitalisation or death due to COVID-19.

With the spread of the virus from Sydney to rural and remote New South Wales in August, the town of Wilcannia in the state’s west was among the first communities put at risk. Some 152 people were infected—more than 20 percent of the town’s total population and almost 40 percent of the indigenous community.

At that time, Wilcannia had the highest transmission rate in the country. The town’s hospital had one ventilator and the nearest intensive care unit was approximately 200 kilometres away in Broken Hill. The life expectancy for an indigenous man and woman in Wilcannia is 37 and 42 years respectively, more than 40 years less than their city and non-indigenous counterparts.

Repeated warnings about the catastrophic impact that the pandemic would have if it was allowed to reach indigenous communities were ignored by federal and state governments.

In March 2020, the Maari Ma Aboriginal Health Corporation wrote to the federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Ken Wyatt expressing “grave fears” if the pandemic reached far western NSW. The letter, leaked to the Guardian, stated: “Basic mathematics says that by the time our first hospital patient presents, around 100 cases will already exist in the community, and this based on best case modelling.”

This October, leaked minutes from an emergency meeting one year before the outbreak and reported by New Matilda, revealed that the NSW Liberal-National Coalition government ignored pleas from the Wilcannia community about the state of overcrowding. The government dismissed the proposals to prepare for the spread of the virus.

The government refused to lock down the town before the virus arrived, or to purchase tents and sleeping bags to address chronic housing shortages. Overcrowding was deemed “not the issue” by the NSW Department of Health and the Department of Family and Community Services, which were meant to be in charge of the safety of the community during the pandemic.

It was not until the community in Wilcannia was infected that roadblocks were imposed, and lockdown measures implemented. This left the locked-down community in overcrowded housing, thus accelerating the spread of the virus throughout the town.

Contrary to the state and federal governments’ declaration that the transmissibility of the Delta variant made zero-COVID outcomes unattainable, Wilcannia declared the last two infected people free of the virus in October. That was a testament to the effectiveness of lockdowns and public health measures in preventing the spread of infections.

The ending of lockdown restrictions through the state and the opening up of regional travel now risks the virus again spreading to Wilcannia and other indigenous communities.

The contemptuous lack of planning continued as infections hit elsewhere in NSW, causing unnecessary death and suffering. Rural and Remote Medical Services in the Walgett region in the state’s northwest was forced to cancel its first vaccination clinic for 60 patients because its Pfizer vaccine doses were sent to the wrong place. The rollout was described as chaotic. Many Walgett residents could have had at least the first vaccination before the outbreak in the town occurred.

Late last month cases in the NSW central northern town of Moree rapidly increased to 70 during the course of a week following an indigenous man’s funeral. Some 20 percent of the 13,000 Moree Plains population is indigenous. The region’s double vaccination rate of 83.5 percent is far lower than the state average of 92.5 percent, and the indigenous rate is far lower again. Moree Hospital has a COVID-19 ward with just eight beds available.

The Northern Territory (NT) in northern central Australia has the highest proportion of indigenous residents in its population. The NT Chief Health Officer Dr Hugh Heggie has blamed anti-vaccine and religious groups for significant vaccine refusal. He warned of the potential need for mass mortuaries in the form of “shipping containers and even meatworks” if the virus spreads into rural regions with low vaccination rates. These regions, which include 72 remote communities, are grossly ill-equipped to handle COVID-19 patients, increasing the risk of mortality.

Rural NT nurse Stacey Niarchos told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: “The risk is we are not going to have the resources to adequately look after the amount of acutely unwell people we’re possibly facing.” The only hospital in her region of East Arnhem is the 30-bed Gove District Hospital. For some people, that is 300 kilometres away, with roads that are often dirt tracks, inaccessible for large parts of the year due to bad weather.

Niarchos said she was worried the virus would spread like “wildfire.” There are no permanent clinical staff in remote communities other than Aboriginal health workers. Remote nurses attend outreach clinics, spending a few days in each area. Bad weather can prevent planes from landing to medically evacuate people and cannot land at night.

The nurse’s warnings have come to pass, with more than 50 infections being recorded in recent days, predominately in Aboriginal communities. This is the largest outbreak of COVID-19 in the NT since the beginning of the pandemic.

The rapid lifting of already limited lockdown measures across the country, by Labor and Liberal-National governments alike, risks a massive public health catastrophe, with deaths rising in an over-burdened healthcare system. These reopening measures mirror the “let it rip” or “herd immunity” policies being imposed in most countries around the world.

FedEx locks out Australian workers fighting for improved wages and conditions

Terry Cook

In a highly provocative move, global logistics company FedEx last week locked out workers taking part in rolling four-hour stoppages called as part of a long-running dispute for a new enterprise agreement (EA). The action involves 3,000 drivers across Australia.

The previous EA expired on June 30, 2020, but the Transport Workers Union (TWU) agreed with management to defer negotiations until April this year under the pretext of the COVID-19 pandemic. This prevented workers from taking industrial action to press for their demands under favourable conditions of a surge in delivery volume.

A FedEx truck (Wikimedia Commons)

TWU national secretary Michael Kaine said that after FedEx refused to “consider the reasonable solution” the union had “brought to the table,” the union called “responsible” four-hour stoppages, staggered across FedEx depots around the country.

FedEx responded to this limited industrial action—intended by the TWU to avoid serious disruption to the company’s operations—by standing down workers who participated for the remainder of that shift and the entire following shift. After denouncing the lockout as inflicting “self-harm to the company,” the union has called no further action.

Ahead of the lockouts, FedEx told the media its pay offer, of 9.25 percent over three years, was the “most competitive offer made by any company in our sector.”

Globally, in the year ending June 2021, FedEx recorded revenue of $US84 billion and net income of $5.23 billion, up from $69.2 billion and $1.29 billion the previous year.

Yet the proposed pay increase barely exceeds the current official consumer price index (CPI) of 3 percent and in no way compensates for the rapidly increasing prices of essentials, including fuel, food and rent.

Because the proposed three-year agreement will not be backdated to the expiry of the previous EA, workers will receive no wage increase for 2020 and will be unable to take industrial action again until at least 2024.

FedEx can only make such outlandish claims about the generosity of its paltry pay offer because the TWU has in recent months brokered regressive two-year EA deals, including similar meagre wage outcomes, with FedEx’s competitors.

The union’s agreement with trucking company Toll provides pay increases of 2.75 percent in 2021 and up to 4 percent, linked to CPI, in 2022. The Global Express agreement has increases of just 2.5 percent in 2021 and 3 percent in 2022, while the StarTrack deal contains two 3 percent increases from 2021. Under all these deals workers will miss out on any wage rise for 2020, when the previous EAs expired.

FedEx is touting an offer to increase its superannuation contributions during the three-year period of the agreement, to reach 13 percent in 2024. Not only is this below increases agreed by other delivery companies. Such payments do nothing to boost the immediate income of workers but are fed into union-run superannuation funds to be made available to big business for investment purposes.

FedEx, like its competitors, is determined to retain the ability to outsource work and engage labour hire rather than using full-time employees or directly-employed owner-drivers. Outsourcing and contract hire provides the company with a highly flexible workforce, allowing it to drive down labour costs at workers’ expense.

The TWU claims to be opposed to such arrangements and to be fighting for “job security.” However, at no time during bargaining with FedEx, or any of the other delivery companies, has the union demanded or fought for the abolition of outsourcing and contract hire. In fact, the proliferation of these work arrangements is the outcome of years of EAs in which the union bargained away clauses that inhibited the drive by big business for ever-more exploitative conditions.

In the recent disputes, the TWU has merely called for caps on outsourcing, in reality accepting and further enshrining what amounts to a two-tier system of pay and conditions. The 25 percent cap on outsourcing proposed by FedEx, while lower than figures agreed to by the union at Linfox (30-40 percent) and Global Express (40 percent), still means vast amounts of work can be sent to outside contractors.

Workers engaged by many of the contract delivery companies typically receive minimum award rates, in some cases 25 percent less than those directly employed, and are deprived of many other entitlements.

During bargaining, workers asked FedEx for an assurance that overtime would be offered to full-time employees and directly engaged owner-drivers before being outsourced, but the company said it did not “consider these matters appropriate for inclusion in a negotiated enterprise agreement.”

FedEx has been able to persist in its attacks on the workers, including its latest lockout provocation, only because the TWU has worked to isolate the dispute, containing previous limited strikes to one workplace or another, in order to suppress the development of a broader movement of workers.

In response to mounting anger among drivers, the TWU threatened a “national day of strike action” across FedEx, Toll, Linfox, BevChain, Global Express and StarTrack, where workers were fighting for similar improvements in pay and working conditions.

From the outset that the union had no intention of allowing this mass strike to proceed. Even before setting a firm date for the supposed day of action, the TWU rushed to push through regressive deals at four of the six companies. One day before the strike, the union announced a “pause” on industrial action at FedEx, so the October 21 “national day of strike action” was limited to workers at StarTrack.

FedEx workers carried out a 24-hour strike on October 25, less than a week later.

Having brokered deals with the other major trucking companies, the TWU claims the continued attacks by FedEx are “ideological warfare imported from America.” Likewise, Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus spoke outside a company depot last week, saying: “It is un-Australian to lock out workers and the ultimate sign of disrespect to the people who make this company successful.”

On the contrary, FedEx is utilising Australia’s “Fair Work” legislation, which allows employers to impose lockouts almost instantaneously while workers are compelled to go through a protracted process before taking any form of industrial action.

These draconian laws, which also prohibit all industrial action except during narrow enterprise bargaining periods, were introduced by the former Labor Party government in 2009 with the full support of the unions, which have enforced them in dispute after dispute.

What the TWU seeks to obscure through nationalistic blather is that what is taking place is part of a global offensive. The financial and corporate elites in every country are using the pandemic to massively restructure their operations, slash wages and demolish working conditions, and will resort to the most repressive measures to achieve this end.

The unions, including the TWU, are conscious that this assault is provoking a major upsurge in the global class struggle. Workers around the world are beginning to break out of the union straitjacket, creating the conditions for a powerful unified international counter-offensive by the working class.

To take forward the fight for decent wages, safe working conditions and secure, permanent jobs, FedEx workers have to make a decisive break with the TWU, which serves as an industrial police force for management.

Harvard graduate student union pushes through contract with cut in real wages

Josh Varlin

Graduate student-workers at Harvard University ratified a four-year contract with the university that will result in a cut in real wages in a vote that ended November 27. The deal meets neither student-workers’ needs nor the union’s original demands.

Striking Harvard graduate students in 2019 (WSWS Media)

According to the Harvard Graduate Students Union–United Auto Workers (HGSU–UAW), 73.3 percent of the 2,615 union members voted on the deal. Of those who voted, 70.6 percent (1,353 members) voted for the contract and 29.4 percent (564 members) voted against. Factoring in abstentions, only 51.7 percent of union members voted for the contract, which will cover 4,900 student workers.

The HGSU–UAW claimed the most success on wage increases, with the contract including a 5 percent wage increase for 2021 (retroactive to July 1), 4 percent next year, and 3 percent in 2023 and 2024. The union originally proposed a three-year deal with 5.75, 4.5 and 3 percent raises.

While touted as a success by the union, this wage structure represents an effective pay cut of 1.2 percent this year thanks to skyrocketing inflation, currently at 6.2 percent. If inflation continues at or anywhere near this level, the rest of the contract will see even greater cuts, leaving future student-workers even more exploited.

The situation is even worse for hourly workers, whose hourly wage will go up to $20 and will increase by $0.50 each year for the next two years, a meager 2.5 percent increase. Most of these workers are given limited hours per week, and most international students are not legally able to work outside of the university.

Just prior to the October strike, Harvard announced that it had posted a budget surplus of $283 million the prior fiscal year, despite declining revenue. Moreover, the stock market rally brought its endowment, already by far the largest university endowment in the world, to a staggering $53.2 billion, a 27 percent increase.

Significantly, the contract does not even mention arguably the most important labor-related issue: the pandemic. There are some provisions for remote work, but only if agreed to by a supervisor. It is unlikely that teaching assistants can take meaningful advantage of this “option” if classes continue in-person.

The emergence of the new Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, underscores that the pandemic is far from over. Initial evidence indicates that Omicron is more transmissible than the Delta variant and may be vaccine-resistant. Whatever the precise qualities of Omicron, its plethora of mutations make clear that future variants will inevitably evolve, potentially becoming more resistant to vaccines and natural immunity, as long as the virus runs rampant anywhere on the globe.

The contract follows protracted negotiations between Harvard and the HGSU, during which student workers voted overwhelmingly to strike and struck for three days while the union led the struggle into a dead end. Under these conditions, the ratification of the deal (as well as substantial abstention) should be interpreted less as support for the deal itself than as a recognition by student-workers that the struggle had reached an impasse within its current framework.

It is worth reviewing the last semester or so in this light. Over the summer, members narrowly voted to extend their contract, in large part because the union provided no meaningful alternative. This occurred during a rebellion against the UAW at Volvo Trucks in Virginia by 2,900 autoworkers, which saw workers vote down three union-backed contracts and form the Volvo Workers Rank-and-File Committee before the UAW claimed the third contract had passed by a handful of ballots in a re-vote.

The HGSU then held a strike authorization vote that lasted until September 30, which returned 91.7 percent (1,860 members) voting in favor of a strike. After weeks of delaying, the union eventually called a strike for October 27, during midterms and freshman parents’ weekend at Harvard College, but limited it to three days in advance.

After yet more delay, the HGSU called a second strike for November 16, only to scuttle it at the last minute after announcing a tentative agreement. A bargaining committee member on November 15 said the deal was necessary “even if the members won’t like it” due to an alleged lack of engagement from members, even though the union strung along purported negotiations, limited strikes in advance and made clear to all involved that they would prefer to avoid strikes if possible.

US corporate profits hit new record

Shannon Jones

As the death toll from the pandemic continued to mount, US corporations enjoyed the widest profit margins in more than 70 years during the second and third quarters of 2021.

US corporate profits before adjustments rose to a record high of $3.14 trillion at a seasonally adjusted annual rate in the third quarter of 2021. After tax and adjustments for inventory, profits rose to a record high $2.74 trillion, according to the most recent figures reported by the US Commerce Department.

A sign for a Wall Street building, Wednesday, May 19, 2021, in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

These numbers, released as the official pandemic death toll in the US nears 800,000, are the direct product of the government’s prioritization of profits over human lives. This was underscored again Monday when President Biden declared there would be no public health measures taken besides vaccines in the face of the spread of the Omicron variant, despite warnings by scientists it may be resistant to vaccines.

Fueled in large part by the government’s mass injections of cash into the economy, profits of domestic nonfinancial corporations increased $67.5 billion in the third quarter and a massive $221.3 billion in the second quarter of 2021. Compared to the final quarter of 2019, the last reporting period prior to the onset of the global pandemic, profits are up an astonishing 39.6 percent. In dollar terms, the annual increase in profits since before the start of the pandemic has been over $500 billion, based on US Commerce Department figures.

Profit margins, that is the share going to profits out of each sales dollar, are at their highest level since 1950, during the early part of the post-World War II economic boom. Nearly two thirds of publicly traded US corporations have reported higher profit margins this year compared to 2020. One hundred of the largest have booked profit margins at least 50 percent above last year’s levels.

The spread of COVID-19 has been used by the ruling class to effect a further vast transfer of wealth from the working class into the coffers of the corporations and very wealthy. Pandemic financial assistance went disproportionately to the rich while the US Federal Reserve has been pouring trillions into the financial markets while keeping interest rates at near zero.

Amid soaring profits, according to figures released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics earlier this month, real average hourly earnings for all employees decreased 0.5 percent from September to October 2021. With inflation rising at the fastest pace since 1990, year-over-year real wages fell 1.2 percent, seasonally adjusted, from October 2020 to October 2021. When combined with a 0.3 percent decrease in the average workweek, there was a 1.6 percent fall in real weekly earnings.

While inflation has had the impact of lowering real wages for workers, corporations, for the most part, have been able to pass higher prices onto consumers. Major retailers such as Walmart, Home Depot and Target saw higher third quarter profits, despite supply chain issues and labor shortages. Walmart’s stock is up 25 percent for the year and Target’s is up 47 percent.

Procter and Gamble, a supplier of home and personal care products, reported a massive 24.7 percent profit margin for the third quarter, with $14.3 billion in net earnings for fiscal 2021. In April, the company announced major price increases for its line of products. Rather than give a price break to consumers, P&G decided to reward investors instead by buying back some $3 billion of its own stock.

Among the big winners were oil companies, whose profits rebounded from last year’s slump amidst rising petroleum prices. ExxonMobil had net income of $6.8 billion in the third quarter of 2021 while Chevron, the second largest US oil company, reported an adjusted profit of $5.7 billion, its best result in eight years and 17 times greater than its earnings one year ago.

The glaring contradiction between soaring profits and the precarious circumstances in which millions are living, facing the danger of infection while soaring inflation erodes incomes, is fueling a wave of working class militancy. On the side of the ruling class, the increase in strikes is raising fears that workers are breaking free from the grip of the corporatist trade unions after decades in which the class struggle has been suppressed. There is the concern that workers will seek significant wage increases, undermining the financial house of cards that has been created by the continual pumping of cheap money into financial markets.

This has already been the case at many companies, including US farm and heavy equipment company John Deere, hit by a bitter five-week strike by members of the United Auto Workers. However, rather than demanding Deere divert money from profits to restore previous concessions forced on workers, the UAW imposed a rotten contract falling far short of workers’ demands and shutting down the strike by 10,000 Deere workers. The UAW used threats and lies to get the contract ratified, falsely claiming the company did not have money to provide adequate wages increases, including the restoration of decades of concessions.

This was despite the fact that the company reported net income of $6 billion for the fiscal year ending October 31, more than double the previous year’s total of $2.8 billion. The company’s previous record was $3.5 billion in 2013. Deere is predicting net income of $6.5 to $7 billion for the current fiscal year.

Cereal maker Kellogg is threatening to hire permanent scab replacements for 1,400 striking workers at five plants across the US. The company reported operating profits of $447 million in the third quarter of 2021, up 9.1 percent from the same period last year. However, management has refused to meet workers’ demands for the elimination of the hated multi-tier wage structure that leaves 30 percent of the workforce at a “transitional level” with lower pay and benefits, as well as grueling 7-day and up to 16-hour work schedules.

The bumper profits for US corporations amid the worst health catastrophe in 100 years is due to the policies of a criminal ruling class that at every point has prioritized profits over human lives. There is no level of death that will make the government change course, because policy is entirely subordinated to the profit interests of the wealthy.

This has been the case since the start of the pandemic, when the ruling class decided to conceal the dangers posed to the population by the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in order to shore up financial markets and forestall a stock market collapse.

PRB Policy Communication Fellowship 2021/2022

Application Deadline: 10th December 2021.

Eligible Countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Haiti, India, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Rwanda, Senegal, South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Yemen, and Zambia.

About the Award: The PRB Policy Communication Fellows Program seeks to train the next generation of leaders shaping policy in their countries. The fellowship is hosted in partnership with African research and advocacy experts to encourage South-South collaboration and knowledge exchange.

The year-long fellowship program engages participants through a blended learning approach. Fellows are required to attend a weeklong training workshop, complete instructional curricula online, and submit assignments throughout the fellowship.

Eligible Fields of Research: 

• Family planning and/or reproductive health (FP/RH).
• Contraceptive use/behavior.
• Maternal and child health (MCH), specifically family planning/MCH integration.
• Population growth.
• Adolescent reproductive health.
• Poverty, health equity, and connections with reproductive health.
• Gender issues, specifically gender-based violence (GBV), early marriage, and male engagement in family planning.
• Population, health, and environment interrelations.

The goals of the Policy Fellows program are to:

1. Understand the process by which research informs the policy environment.
2. Learn how to communicate research to policy audiences in a way that encourages action.
3. Improve participants’ communication skills using a variety of formats and platforms.

The Policy Fellows program, initiated in the 1980s, has close to 400 alumni. Policy Communication Alumni Fellows are highly respected in the field and actively engaged in advocacy work. The program aims to bridge the gap between research findings and the policy development process. While research often has profound policy implications, it must be communicated effectively to a variety of non-technical audiences in order to have an impact.

Type: Research, Fellowship

Eligibility: 

• All participants must be citizens of developing countries that are supported by USAID population and health funding.
• In addition, participants must be currently enrolled in doctoral programs at reputable academic institutions, and between their 3rd and 5th year of studies.
• PRB gives priority to applicants whose dissertation research is focused on the topic areas noted above and who are in an early stage of their career.
• This program takes place in English, and applicants must demonstrate that they can effectively communicate their research in English through their application materials.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of PRB Policy Communication Fellowship: 

• Fellows will learn, firsthand, local advocacy priorities and policy landscapes and how to tailor their research messages to relevant policy audiences. Fellows are mentored throughout the program on different strategies to effectively communicate their findings to non-technical audiences.
• The Policy Fellows program is committed to providing an enriching, cutting-edge experience for participants that reflects the diverse and constantly evolving landscape of policy and communications.
• PRB covers travel, lodging, and per diem expenses for each Fellow to attend the workshop.
• Policy Communication Assignments: During the 2021-2022 academic year, Fellows will apply the skills learned at the workshop to prepare written assignments and an oral presentation for policy audiences, based on their dissertation research. Throughout the assignments, Fellows will receive individual feedback from policy communication experts on their work.

Duration of Program: 1 year

How to Apply for PRB Policy Communication Fellowship: Applicants must submit the following to PRB and AFIDEP:

• A cover letter stating why you wish to participate in this program.
• An application form. Application-Form-2021-22.pdf
• An updated resume with a full list of educational and other professional activities.
• A two- or three-page summary of the applicant’s dissertation research.
• Two letters of reference sent directly from the person writing the reference (via e-mail).

Application forms, program information, and answers to common Frequently Asked Questions about the program can be found on AFIDEP and PRB’s website.

Completed applications, letters of reference, or questions about the program should be sent via e-mail to: policyfellows2021@afidep.org.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Belgium ARES Masters and Training Scholarships 2022/2023

Application Deadline: 28th January 2022 at 12pm

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Students from African and  developing countries

To be taken in: Belgium

About the Belgium ARES Scholarship: Each year, the Academy of Research and Higher Education (ARES) grants an average of 150 fellowships in the framework of the Masters and 70 fellowships in the framework of the internships to the nationals of the countries of the South.

Eligible Countries: Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cuba, Ecuador, Ethiopia (only for courses in English ), Haiti, Indonesia, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Peru, Philippines, DR Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Vietnam.

Accepted Subject Areas (Masters): 

• Master of Specialization in Development, Environment and Societies
• Specialization Master in Human Rights
• Master of Specialization in Aquatic Resource Management and Aquaculture
• Master of Specialization in Risk and Disaster Management
• Specialized Master in Integrated Management of Health Risks in the Global South (IManHR)
• Specialized Master in International Development
• Master of Specialization in Transfusion Medicine
• Specialized Master in Microfinance
• Master of specialization in integrated production and preservation of natural resources in urban and peri-urban areas
• Specialized Master in Public Health Methodology
• Master of Science in Public Health – Methods of Research Applied to Global Health
• Master of Science and Environmental Management in Developing Countries
• Specialized Master in Transport and Logistics

Accepted Subject Areas (Training): 

• Internship in control and quality assurance of medicines and health products
• Research Initiation to Strengthen Health Systems
• Internship in Geographic Information System
• Internship in secondary resource development for sustainable construction
• Methodological internship in support of innovation in family farming

Type: Masters, Training

About the Belgium ARES Scholarship: Within the framework of the Belgian policy for development cooperation, the Minister for Development Cooperation and the Directorate-General for Development Cooperation entrust the Belgian Higher Education Institutions with the preparation of Postgraduate Programmes (Advanced Masters) and Training Programmes that are specifically oriented towards young professionals from developing countries.

International Courses and Training Programmes are part of the global study programmes of the Higher Education Institutions. They are open to all students who satisfy the conditions of qualification, but aim at proposing training units that distinguish themselves by their openness towards specific development issues.

Eligibility: The following will apply for the selection of holders of scholarships:

1. Originally from a developing country. To be eligible, applicants must reside and work in their own country at the time of filing;
2. Only nationals of the following countries are eligible to apply for scholarships ARES: Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cuba, Ecuador, Ethiopia ( only for courses in English ), Haiti, Madagascar, Morocco, Niger, Peru, Philippines, DR Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Vietnam ;
3. Either under the age of 40 for courses and under 45 for training periods at the start of training;
4. Either holds a diploma comparable to a diploma of the second cycle of Belgian university education. However, for certain types of training, different requirements may be set out, which will be specified below;
5. Demonstrates a professional occupation in a developing country of at least two years after completing his / her second cycle or three years after the end of his / her studies when the candidate holds a post-graduate diploma a university in an industrialized country;
6. A good knowledge of written and spoken French. For courses organized in another language, it is necessary to have a good knowledge of the language of the course, written and spoken. The candidate will also be asked to commit to learning French in order to participate in everyday life in Belgium;
7. Apply for a single training

Selection Criteria: 

• The academic curriculum
• For courses, priority will be given to candidates who are already holders of a diploma third cycle, save in exceptional circumstances duly justified in the application.
• Priority will be given to candidates who have not already received a grant in Belgium.
• Professional experience
• Belonging to a partner institution: The commitment of the candidate in development activities
• Nationality requirements
• Gender equality
• The future reintegration prospects

Number of Scholarships: Belgium ARES grants 150 scholarships for participation into the masters and 70 scholarships for participation into the training programmes.

Value of Belgium ARES Scholarship: Travel (internal and external), Monthly living allowance, Indirect mission costs, Installation costs, Tuition fees, Registration fee, Insurance costs, Housing allowance, Allowances for dependents, Return fees, In 1st session completion bonus (June).

Duration of Scholarship:  For the duration of the program

How to Apply: Would you like to submit an application form and receive a grant? Are you unsure about your eligibility?

Follow these guides :

• 01/ Procedure for submitting applications
• 02/ Admissibility criteria
• 03/ Application form

It is important to go through the Application requirements and procedures on the Scholarship Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Important: Applying for a Belgium ARES Masters and Training scholarship is absolutely free of charge. ARES does not charge any fee at any stage of the application or selection process. You may raise any question or concern about persons or companies claiming to be acting on behalf of ARES and requesting the payment of a fee by emailing ARES at maryvonne.aubry[at]ares-ac.be.
Any application containing cash will be automatically rejected.

German government rejects lockdown despite spread of Omicron variant

Gregor Link

The global spread of the more infectious Omicron variant of the coronavirus coincides in Germany with a wave of infections from the Delta variant which is more catastrophic than ever before in the course of the pandemic. While daily new infections reached record levels of over 75,000 a day last week, infections with the new variant have already been found among travelers returning from South Africa in the states of Hesse, Lower Saxony, North-Rhine Westphalia, and Bavaria.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Wikimedia Commons)

The situation in the hospitals is already totally disastrous. Of the 4,459 COVID intensive care patients nationwide, more than half are on ventilators. According to the Divi intensive care register, there are 27 children among the intensive care patients and their number has recently increased exponentially. Since the beginning of the pandemic, a total of 138,567 people have been treated with COVID-19 in an intensive care unit.

The official number of COVID-19 deaths in Germany has now surpassed 100,000. In the past week alone, 470,000 people were newly infected and 1,790 died. There are currently between 200 and 300 deaths every day. In many hospitals, the intensive care units are at their limit. Seriously ill and intubated patients have to be relocated nationwide by specially converted Airbus A310 and A400M military aircraft, because they can no longer be cared for in neighbouring federal states.

Last weekend alone, 80 people from Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia were flown out to the north and west of the country by air force troop carriers. As a nurse told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland group of newspapers, decisions have to be made that amount to a “creeping triage.”

The Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that normal operations can no longer be maintained in more than 75 percent of all hospitals in Germany. Planned operations are being postponed. The Hamburg intensive care doctor Stefan Kluge described conditions as “latent triage,” because it is “not about hip operations, but, for example, urgent vascular operations in which an aneurysm could burst.”

The internist Michael Hallek (University Hospital Cologne) already told the Ärzteblatte a week ago that “soft triage” is taking place, which “occurs, for example, when a heart attack patient who cannot find a hospital with a free intensive care bed is driven around for an hour in an ambulance.”

With the mobilization of the German army, the federal and state governments are reacting to the consequences of their own policies of mass infection and spending cuts. While the health authorities of North Rhine-Westphalia approve carnival celebrations and soccer games with tens of thousands of participants without masks, hospitals in Berlin and Brandenburg are on the verge of collapse. It has long been foreseeable that due to the current COVID-19 infection numbers, thousands more patients will require hospital care, which will involve relocation, including to other European countries.

Virologists, epidemiologists and medical professionals have been warning of such a scenario for months. Several weeks ago, they issued a damning letter urgently demanding “early action” in order to prevent a further increase in COVID-19 infections. “The actual fourth wave has now begun,” stated the head intensive care physician Christian Karagiannidis, one of the first signatories, as early as October 21.

But instead of organizing a hard lockdown to prevent further infections, the government declared the maintenance of public life and economic activity to be its top priority and thus approvingly accepts the deaths of hundreds of thousands more people.

The tone was set by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who appealed for people to get vaccinated and “voluntarily” restrict their contacts in a guest article for the Bild, “so that schools and day care centres do not close again, so that we do not have to shut down public life completely.” On Friday, Steinmeier said in an address to the German Schoolmasters’ Congress, “It must now be our top priority to keep day care centres and schools open.”

This policy of mass infection, pursued by all parties, is in direct contradiction to all the findings of serious scientists.

“With such high numbers, short-term effects would only be expected in the event of a total lockdown,” affirmed Professor Markus Scholz, epidemiologist at the University of Leipzig. School lessons in their current form are “a major pandemic driver,” according to Scholz, who insisted, “Hard lockdown and schools closed—only that can help.”

Even the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, which is considered to be close to the government, issued a statement on Saturday calling for “immediate action” to be taken to achieve “significant contact reductions” and for the school holidays to be brought forward. In addition, a “nationwide reestablishment of vaccination centres” and a “further strengthening of outreach vaccination offers” is necessary so that “by Christmas, in addition to first and second vaccinations, around 30 million third doses are possible.”

In order to end the “exponential increase in new infections,” the scientists concluded, it is necessary “to significantly reduce the number of contacts for a few weeks from the beginning of the coming week.” This must “also apply to vaccinated and recovered people who ought to receive a booster vaccination during this time.”

But the members of the planned traffic light coalition government made it clear again last week that they do not intend to do anything to even mitigate the looming wave of mass deaths. Free Democrats (FDP) general secretary Volker Wissing referred on Friday to the “toolbox of the federal states”—which the Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and FDP had restricted by voting to amend the law just days earlier.

Green Party co-leader Annalena Baerbock said they would wait ten days to “watch” the progress of the pandemic and vaccinations. No immediate measures are necessary, she added, but merely a further meeting between heads of the federal and state governments.

There is growing resistance among workers and young people to this criminal policy, which consciously gives the profits of the economy priority over the lives of the population.

“Steinmeier appeals to ‘voluntary action’ and the traffic light coalition watches people die,” wrote Twitter user Andrea Z. in a popular post. “We are not people; we are numbers, and we must pay. End of story. They send us into the pandemic with as little hesitation as they used to send us into wars. It’s the same terrible kind of person.”

The paediatrician Dr. Werner explained, “Tens of thousands of children are infected with COVID - because their infection protection is not taken care of! In my 25 years as a paediatrician, there has never been an infectious disease that made so many children so seriously ill in such a short period of time. The house is on fire and the infection of children must not go on like this! Paediatricians and parents must stand together.”

Carsten, a supporter of the fight for safe education, remarked on the amendment of the Infection Protection Act by the traffic light coalition: “There is a direct causal relationship between the prohibition of efficient non-pharmaceutical measures such as contact restrictions and the number of deaths from SARS-CoV-2. Greens, SPD and FDP should be on trial for a crime against humanity.”

As for the German courts, however, they declared shutdowns and curfews unconstitutional during the pandemic and played a central role in even removing mask mandates in school classrooms.