Application Deadline: 12th September 2024 at 11:59 PM, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).
Eligible Countries: All (except Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao)
To be taken at (country): Tsinghua University, Beijing, China (students live and study together on the campus of Schwarzman College, a newly-built, state-of-the-art facility, where all classes will be taught in English.)
Fields of Study: Masters degree programmes in one of these three disciplines:
Public Policy
Economics and Business
International Studies
What will be taught: Business, Social sciences, Leadership skills
About the Award: The Schwarzman Scholars program will allow the world’s best and brightest students to develop their leadership skills and professional networks through a one-year Master’s Degree at Tsinghua University in Beijing, one of China’s most prestigious universities.
With a $350 million endowment, Schwarzman Scholars will be the single largest philanthropic effort ever undertaken in China by largely international donors. The extraordinary students selected to become Schwarzman Scholars will receive a comprehensive scholarship.
Schwarzman Scholars was inspired by the Rhodes Scholarship, which was founded in 1902 to promote international understanding and peace and is designed to meet the challenges of the 21st century and beyond. Blackstone Co-Founder Stephen A. Schwarzman personally contributed $100 million to the program and is leading a fundraising campaign to raise an additional $350 million from private sources to endow the program in perpetuity. The $450 million endowment will support up to 200 scholars annually from the U.S., China, and around the world for a one-year Master’s Degree program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, one of China’s most prestigious universities and an indispensable base for the country’s scientific and technological research. Scholars chosen for this highly selective program will live in Beijing for a year of study and cultural immersion, attending lectures, traveling, and developing a better understanding of China.
Type: Masters Degree
Offered Since: 2015
Eligibility: The following criteria must be met by all candidates:
Undergraduate degree or first degree from an accredited college or university or its equivalent. Applicants who are currently enrolled in undergraduate degree programs must be on track to complete all degree requirements before orientation begins on August 1, 2024. There are no requirements for a specific field of undergraduate study; all fields are welcome, but it will be important for applicants, regardless of undergraduate major, to articulate how participating in Schwarzman Scholars will help develop their leadership potential within their field.
Age. Applicants must be at least 18 but not yet 29 years of age as of 1 August 2024
Citizenship. There are no citizenship or nationality requirements
English language proficiency. Applicants must demonstrate strong English Language skills, as all teaching will be conducted in English. If the applicant’s native language is not English, official English proficiency test scores must be submitted with the application. Acceptable test options are:
Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL PBT)
Internet-based Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL iBT)
International English Language Testing System (IELTS)
This requirement is waived for applicants who graduated from an undergraduate institution where the primary language of instruction was English for at least three years of the applicant’s academic program.
Number of Awardees: Up to 200 exceptional men and women will be accepted into the program each year.
Value of Schwarzman Scholars:
Semi-finalist interview expenses, such as economy class air or train travel, group meals, and one night in a hotel if needed, will be arranged and covered by the program.
Expenses for successful Schwarzman Scholars are also FULLY covered by the program.
It will include Tuition and fees, Room and board, Travel to and from Beijing at the beginning and end of the academic year, An in-country study tour,
Required course books and supplies, Lenovo laptop and smartphone, Health insurance, and
A modest personal stipend.
Duration of Scholarship: 1 year
How to Apply for Schwarzman Scholars: There is no fee associated with applying to the Schwarzman Scholars program. To apply, you will need to complete and successfully submit an online application form, including all required documents and essays before the deadline date.
Visit the official website (link below) for complete information on how to apply to this scholarship programme.
In the opening days of the 2024-25 school year, at least two schools were forced to shut down due to SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks. This is only the tip of the iceberg, as 1.3 million Americans are currently being infected daily, and most US schools have yet to reopen. For instance, in New York, Michigan and many other northern states, districts typically start after Labor Day.
On Monday, August 12, Jefferson-Abernathy-Graetz (JAG) High School in Montgomery, Alabama closed, moving to remote learning. Fifteen educators reported COVID-19 infection after last week’s two-day orientation. Officials said they would reassess the situation and possibly reopen the building by Friday, at which point they said masks and disinfectant wipes would be made available to students.
The same day as the Alabama closure, Humboldt schools in western Tennessee called off classes at Stigall Primary. Officials informed parents by letter that the school would be closed for “sanitizing” due to an “uptick in COVID.” A later report said an undisclosed number of students and staff tested positive for COVID-19, while others were symptomatic.
“Everyone’s like, ‘COVID is back, COVID is back’,” said Jessica Williamson, a parent of a first grader at Stigall. “I just feel like it didn’t really go anywhere,” she told local media. “Those are little kids. They’re the most prone to put things in their mouths, to touch each other, to just share germs,” Willamson said.
Why, indeed, is “COVID back”? The response of the Tennessee school to the outbreak provides a partial answer.
The district said it was carrying out a “deep clean, disinfecting every surface,” according to Ginger Carver, the communications director for the school district. She added that teachers and staff would follow protocols to keep the classrooms and common areas disinfected. “When students move from class to class, teachers will be wiping down the desks, the desktop surfaces. They’ll be using disinfectants. Basically, the protocols that we were doing back when COVID was full blown,” she said. Humboldt schools reopened on Wednesday.
In other words, COVID is returning with the new school year because no action is being taken to combat the main cause of COVID transmission, the aerosolization of the virus. Furthermore, schools are being reopened almost immediately despite high community spread.
As scientists have demonstrated and nearly five years of COVID deaths have underscored, the key to fighting COVID is disinfection of the air. Without the use of HEPA filtration in all indoor spaces and other mechanisms, including Far-UV light, schools will dramatically exacerbate the spread of the disease. Despite the use of these methodologies by the ruling elites to protect themselves—at the Davos Economic Summit or at the White House, for instance—no such measures are in place for millions of schoolchildren.
White House COVID Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha speaking at an event in 2023 with multiple UV lamps disinfecting the air. [Photo: Joey Fox/@joeyfox85 via Twitter]
The Biden administration, with the full support of the Republican Party, has deprived schools of the funds necessary to make schools safe and prioritized spending for war. The Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds allocated to schools beginning in 2020 were purportedly aimed at counteracting COVID. However, they fell far short of addressing the urgently required but costly upgrading of air quality in schools. ESSER amounted to a financial band-aid to districts reeling from decades of budget cuts and inflation.
A House of Representatives study prior to COVID showed that US school buildings were so antiquated and dangerously unsafe that outlays of $145 billion per year were required to modernize and maintain them. The costs of air disinfection would no doubt significantly increase that figure. For its part, the Biden/Harris administration allowed ESSER to end while funneling more than $1 trillion into its rapidly expanding wars against Russia in Ukraine and its military build-up against Iran and China.
Death and disease have been normalized, while mitigation measures as important and effective as masking have been demonized by the right wing among both Republicans and Democrats. This is another reason COVID is back to greet returning students.
An important new study in The Lancet has shown the critical importance of face coverings to prevent transmission in indoor spaces. As Bill Shaw reported on the WSWS:
Face coverings dramatically reduce the load of SARS-CoV-2 in exhaled breath from infected persons. The reductions reached as high as 98 percent, with variations according to the type of face covering worn.
Despite this clear research, neither these schools nor others will require masking when they reopen, spurring new outbreaks of COVID.
Reacting to the new school-related outbreaks, healthcare expert and data analyst Greg Travis posted on X/Twitter Wednesday, “FYI since 2020 more children have died of their SARS-CoV-2 infections … than from all other infectious pathogens COMBINED Stop pretending that SARS-CoV-2 spreading in schools is only a problem for parents, teachers, bus drivers, etc. It is killing kids.”
It is killing and disabling parents, staff and family members as well. JAG High School in Montgomery was the workplace of beloved school custodian Morris Pitts, who died of COVID on November 29, 2020. Pitts was one of eight educators from Montgomery whose lives were taken over a matter of weeks. State, local and federal government officials turned a blind eye to the rampaging virus to keep students in school and parents at work.
The criminal “let it rip” policy of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Biden’s ending of the Public Health Emergency in May 2023 has left the working class abandoned to the ravages of the disease and the growth of Long COVID.
In that vein, Montgomery parents were also instructed—in the most milquetoast language—that when their children develop symptoms, “it’s best to keep them at home.”
Education unions, including the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and National Education Association (NEA), have said nothing about the inevitable superspread resulting from the beginning of a new school year in the midst of a record summer surge. As their websites testify, the AFT and NEA are instead hyper-focused on getting out the vote for Harris/Walz in November in order to maintain their lucrative role as labor contractors and government partners.
Clare, a member of the Alabama Educators Rank and File Committee who protested the unsafe conditions in schools on the Montgomery County Court House steps in October 2020, denounced the failure of schools and health authorities to protect children. She noted that she is herself currently recovering from the virus and had been told by a Veterans Administration nurse, “Just treat the symptoms.” She angrily related that the nurse “had the nerve to say the common cold is just a variation of coronavirus, an extract of COVID. She refused to test me, telling me people are not dying as before and that I’d be alright. They denied me a test. I think they just don’t want to pay for tests anymore.”
Referring to the Montgomery educators who formed “No Plan, No Personnel” and then the Alabama Educators Rank-and-File Committee, Clare said, “This was the problem from the beginning, they have no plan. They should know we might have to go remote at any time because nothing has been done to make the schools safe.”
Clare said a recent family funeral resulted in at least eight members of her family contracting COVID in the summer surge. Bitterly refuting the claims that the virus has mutated to a mild, non-threatening disease, she said, “I felt like I was dying, I never felt like this before. On my third day, it was not a headache—it felt like a migraine. I had body aches from my head through my spine to my feet. I couldn’t breathe and was nauseous. It’s been two and a half weeks now, and I’m fatigued from just doing simple things. It’s debilitating. I get so tired I can’t even pick up the phone.”
While these two schools have been forced to close, right-wing administrators around the country are vowing to keep schools running no matter the cost. On July 31, Arizona State Superintendent of Education Tom Horne told ABC News that despite the surge across his state, “If anybody talks about closing school, I will fight it as hard as I can.” He added, “Closing of the schools that occurred last time was an unbelievable disaster.” His contemptuous disdain for the health of students and their communities was buttressed by his referencing of the CDC’s prescription to treat COVID “like a common respiratory virus.”
While the fascist right is pushing for prohibitions on school closures and outright anti-vaccination policies, the dismantling of the public health system has been bipartisan. It began with Trump but was then spearheaded by the Biden administration. Both ruling class parties insist that workers should report to work, whether or not they are sick. Under the Biden/Harris administration over 800,000 Americans died from COVID, while millions more suffered debilitating Long COVID, for which the long-term generational impacts of annual reinfections will not be fully grasped for years or decades to come.
The two schools in Tennessee and Alabama are the only sites currently reporting outbreaks, but this has more to do with lack of media coverage than lack of COVID. For instance, in a San Diego high school, the administration sent a cart around with free COVID tests (although well past their 2022 expiration dates).
Another reason for the return of COVID arises from the years of right-wing disinformation campaigns to spread confusion and conspiracy theories within the population, cultivating the most backward and fascistic conceptions. This has resulted in a terrible decline of vaccination rates for all preventable diseases, not just COVID, which will continue to worsen the impact. The share of kindergarten children with a vaccine exemption has increased in 36 states since the pandemic began. Twenty-one states have banned student COVID-19 vaccine mandates, both Republican- and Democratic-dominated states, including Michigan, Ohio, and New Hampshire.
On Wednesday, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) as a result of the surging mpox outbreak of the deadlier “clade Ib” viral strain in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and across Africa.
A colorized transmission electron micrograph of mpox particles (red) found within an infected cell (blue), cultured in the laboratory [AP Photo/NIAID]
The declaration by WHO follows a similar one issued by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) the previous day, which marked the virus’ spread as a Public Health Emergency of Continental Security. It is the first time the spread of a disease has been categorized as such since the agency was established in 2017.
As part of the WHO announcement, Tedros commented,
The emergence of a new clade of mpox, its rapid spread in eastern DRC, and the reporting of cases in several neighbouring countries are very worrying. On top of outbreaks of other mpox clades in DRC and other countries in Africa, it’s clear that a coordinated international response is needed to stop these outbreaks and save lives.
This year alone, there have been 17,451 cases of mpox in 13 African Union member states, of which 2,822 are confirmed and 14,719 are suspected, which have resulted in 517 deaths, a case fatality rate of 2.95 percent. The total number of cases exceeds the totals for both 2022 and 2023, when mpox previously threatened to spread across the world.
In addition to the high number of cases, the location of new cases spurred on the decision to declare a PHEIC. According to the WHO press release:
In the past month, over 100 laboratory-confirmed cases of clade 1b have been reported in four countries neighbouring the DRC that have not reported mpox before: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. Experts believe the true number of cases to be higher as a large proportion of clinically compatible cases have not been tested.
In addition to the outbreaks in Africa, one case involving the mpox clade I strain was reported in Sweden on Thursday. A statement from the Public Health Agency of Sweden notes, “A person who sought care at Region Stockholm has been diagnosed with mpox caused by the clade I variant.”
The statement then attempted to downplay the dangers involved, claiming that, “the fact that a patient with mpox is treated in the country does not affect the risk to the general population,” a risk which it asserts is “very low.”
In fact, no such claims can be made. Unlike the mpox clade IIb strain which was largely responsible for cases of mpox in 2022 and 2023 and which spreads primarily through sexual contact, the current strain spreads merely through being in close quarters.
While mpox is not generally contagious while a given infected person is not symptomatic, it is still critical to know precisely when they developed the infection to know how many others might have been exposed.
Arguably the most critical piece of information, currently unknown to the public, is how the patient traveled from Africa to Sweden. Did they travel via land, air, sea? In what cities did they lay over? How packed were the cars, buses, trains, ships or planes on which they traveled? Given the immense danger the current strain poses to the health of everyone who catches the disease, not performing mass contact tracing and testing for the pathogen is criminally irresponsible at best.
As part of the PHEIC declaration, the WHO also announced that it has allocated $1.45 million for “surveillance, preparedness and response activities” regarding the multi-continent epidemic. It is also asking for an additional $15 million in donations from its members to fully fund the initial stages of its response to the virus.
Among the most important immediate needs, according to the WHO, is for mpox vaccines to be sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the vast majority of current cases have been detected. Both vaccines currently in use for the virus are approved by the agency, and last week Tedros initiated an Emergency Use Listing in order to bypass any problems distributing the vaccines if a given nation has not yet had its national regulatory bodies approve them.
The unserious response by the Swedish government to the outbreak will, however, likely be mirrored by every other major world power. One of the most devastating consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the world’s population is the complete dismantling of public healthcare infrastructure in essentially every country, especially testing and contact tracing to find and isolate infected individuals, cutting vectors of transmission for diseases.
Mpox has also been detected in wastewater in San Fransisco. Wastewater has been among the most consistent methods for detecting the presence of COVID-19 throughout the pandemic, and the detection of mpox is extraordinarily alarming. It indicates the real possibility that the virus, possibly the more lethal clade I or IB strains, has crossed the Atlantic.
Rather than stop the spread of deadly viruses, the world’s governments have no interest in addressing the threat of COVID-19 or mpox because it cuts across the financial interests of the corporate and financial interests which these figures represent.
The work of the WHO itself suffers from this pressure. When it ended the PHEIC regarding COVID-19 last year, it was not because the pandemic was over or contained, or that a mass and effective vaccination campaign had succeeded, but due to the diktats of, above all, American capitalism to keep workers on the job to further enrich the financial oligarchs.
That world governments no longer care about public health was further exposed this week when the US provided $20 billion to Israel to continue its genocidal campaign against the population of Gaza. While Tedros must beg for $15 million to save lives, Israel is given essentially a blank check for tanks, planes, bullets and bombs to continue its slaughter of a defenseless population.
And the less said the better about figures such as the fascistic owner of Twitter/X, Elon Musk, who received a $45 billion pay package from Tesla in June.
The genocide has also made Gazans especially susceptible to diseases that had largely been suppressed or eliminated in the enclave. Since the start of the genocide 10 months ago, the population has had to deal with polio, measles, cholera, scabies, chickenpox, lice, impetigo and various skin diseases because of the squalid conditions. An mpox outbreak among the population would be catastrophic.
In July, a long-running Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care released its shocking finding that between 1950 and 2019 up to 256,000 people in facilities including boarding schools, youth justice centres, foster care and psychiatric hospitals, were the victims of abuse and neglect. This is more than one in three of the estimated 655,000 people who were institutionalised during this period.
People arrive at Parliament in Wellington, New Zealand, on Wednesday, July 24, 2024, for the tabling of a wide-ranging independent inquiry into the abuse of children and vulnerable adults in care over the span of five decades wrote in a blistering final report. [AP Photo/Charlotte Graham-McLay]
The inquiry was launched by the previous Labour Party-led government in late 2018 following many years of demands and petitions for justice from survivors of abuse. Its final report, based on testimony from nearly 3,000 survivors, and more than a million documents, reveals criminal actions carried out on a vast scale by state agencies and churches, with devastating consequences. The number of victims equates to more than 5 percent of New Zealand’s current population of 5 million people.
The royal commissioners—Judge Carol Shaw, Dr Andrew Erueti and Paul Gibson—describe their findings as “a national disgrace.” They note: “These gross violations occurred at the same time as Aotearoa New Zealand was promoting itself, internationally and domestically, as a bastion of human rights and as a safe, fair country in which to grow up as a child in a loving family.”
In fact, the widespread, routine and prolonged abuse, in many cases amounting to torture, is an unanswerable indictment of capitalism. The brutal conditions documented by the royal commission are inseparable from the decades-long assault on workers’ wages and living standards and the gutting of social services, in order to transfer more wealth to big business and the rich. This has been accompanied by racist scapegoating of Māori and other minorities, and the promotion of militarism and “tough on crime” policies by successive Labour and National Party governments.
Hundreds of thousands of children from impoverished families, and people suffering mental and physical disabilities, were deemed unproductive and a burden on society, and effectively thrown on the scrap-heap.
The 3,000-page report details the appalling suffering endured by generations of young people, including:
● The willful neglect of babies “left in cots with no hugs, physical interaction or other expressions of care.”
● Racist abuse towards Māori and Pacific Island people, who “experienced harsher treatment across many settings.”
● The use of “seclusion rooms” where vulnerable and young people could be held for weeks or even months, and “where they were at risk of being sexually and physically abused by staff.”
● “Physical abuse was prevalent across all settings. In some cases, staff went to extremes to inflict as much pain as possible using weapons and electric shocks.” In addition, “Staff often pitched children and young people against each other, encouraging peer-on-peer abuse. This involved vicious attacks and humiliating rituals, which staff ignored.”
● Sexual abuse, including rape, is described as “commonplace” in both state and religious facilities. It was used to “punish and intimidate,” and in some cases “abusers organised the sexual abuse of survivors by trafficking them to members of the public.”
● Severe neglect of deaf and blind people, who were denied the ability to learn sign language and braille.
● “Over-medicalisation, lobotomies, sterilisation, invasive genital examinations and experimental psychiatric treatments without informed consent.”
● Hundreds of psychiatric patients and young people who died in care are believed to be buried in unmarked graves across the country.
Lifelong trauma was inflicted upon survivors, many of whom turned to drug abuse and some committed suicide. More than 30 percent of children and young people held in “social welfare institutions” went on to serve prison sentences later in life.
Many survivors faced ongoing difficulty establishing and maintaining relationships, inability to find a job, periods of homelessness, and increased likelihood of joining a criminal gang. In 1999, researcher Moana Jackson estimated that 85 percent of Mongrel Mob members and 88 percent of Black Power members (the country’s two biggest gangs) had been wards of the state.
Māori, who are one of the poorest sections of the working class, are over-represented among the victims. During the 1970s, several of the facilities looked at by the royal commission were 70 or 80 percent Māori, even though Māori were only about 12 percent of the population. As in Australia and Canada, the New Zealand state has disproportionately separated indigenous children from their families and housed them in punitive institutions.
Scores of institutions were named by the royal commission. The highest levels of physical abuse were reported at Wesleydale Boys’ Home and Ōwairaka Boys’ Home, two orphanages in Auckland, which no longer operate. The highest levels of sexual abuse were reported at Dilworth School in Auckland (Anglican), Marylands School in Christchurch (Catholic) “and at Catholic institutions in general.”
Lake Alice psychiatric facility, which closed in 1999, features prominently in the commission’s report. Its child and adolescent unit was notorious for abuse that occurred during the 1970s, including sexual abuse and electro-shock therapy as a form of punishment. The state has so far reached settlements with 202 Lake Alice survivors, averaging $70,000 each.
Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital building (2003) [Photo: Pawful]
No staff at Lake Alice were ever held accountable, however. Dr Selwyn Leeks, who was in charge of the child and adolescent unit, moved to Australia and continued working there until 2006; he died at the age of 92 in 2022. One former nurse, John Corkran, was charged but the High Court last year ordered a permanent stay on the prosecution due to the 91-year-old’s poor health.
For decades, the rampant abuse in such facilities was covered up. The commissioners’ summary says: “The State and leaders of faith-based institutions knew, or should have known, about the abuse and neglect that was happening. They failed not only in their duty to keep people in their care safe from harm, but they also failed to hold abusers to account.”
Within church-based organisations, “Religious beliefs were often used to justify the abuse and neglect, and to silence survivors. Hierarchical and opaque decision-making processes impeded scrutiny and making complaints.” When abusers were identified they were often shielded and “relocated and went on to continue abusing people in care elsewhere.”
The National Party-led government, the opposition Labour Party and the rest of the political establishment are now engaged in a cynical damage control exercise. In response to the royal commission’s report, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon declared: “I say to the survivors, the burden is no longer yours to carry alone. The state is now standing here beside you, accountable and ready to take action.”
The government has issued apologies and is promising “redress” for survivors, in line with the commissioners’ recommendations, although what form this will take remains unclear. The aim is to make a show of “learning the lessons” and deflect public attention from the appalling conditions that still exist for many oppressed youth.
While the royal commission’s report calls for police investigations and prosecutions for past crimes, it is clear that the political and religious leaders responsible for the systematic cruelty inflicted on generations of young people will not be held to account.
The abuse uncovered by the inquiry is not confined to the distant past. Approximately 56,000 cases of abuse and neglect occurred in the period from 1999‒2019. The commissioners note that “most of the factors that led or contributed to abuse and neglect during the Inquiry period continue to persist.”
Last year, more than 20 staff members of Oranga Tamariki, the state’s child welfare agency, were stood down after videos emerged of brutal “fight clubs” among teenage inmates at the Korowai Manaaki youth justice facility. Staff had encouraged boys to fight each other. Police also launched an investigation into “sexual misconduct” by some of the staff members.
Significantly, the royal commission’s report devotes more than 100 pages to a “boot camp” called Te Whakapakari, which operated on Great Barrier Island with state funding from 1988 until 2004, under successive Labour and National Party governments. The program emphasised “military style discipline, subservience, self‑sufficiency and hard physical labour.”
Allegations of abuse were first made about the program in 1989, and more were made during the 1990s, prompting internal investigations. Despite this, state agencies continued to refer young people to the program, most of them aged 14 to 17 and from families affected by violence, drug and alcohol problems.
Victims told the royal commission horrifying details of repeated beatings and rape committed by Whakapakari staff, who sometimes carried out these crimes at gunpoint. The Ministry of Social Development received 176 allegations of abuse from 40 different claimants regarding the boot camp. According to the commission’s report, police failed to properly investigate allegations of rape made against the program’s founder John da Silva, who died in 2021 aged 86.
The current National Party-led government is reintroducing military-style boot camps for teenage offenders: a pilot program began last month, around the same time that the royal commission released its report. During the 2023 election campaign, Prime Minister Luxon glorified military personnel as “our best leaders and mentors” and asserted that the new boot camps would turn young people’s lives around.
In fact, as the royal commission report warns, people with military backgrounds who worked with children “brought with them a culture of command and control, punishment, physical violence and verbal abuse.”
Luxon and his ministers have dismissed such concerns. As the country’s economic and social crisis deepens—with one in five children already living in poverty and one in 10 households relying on charity to survive—the government intends to deal with the fallout by significantly expanding the prison system and introducing harsher punishments for “violent youth offenders.”
The Labour Party has denounced the boot camps policy as “cruel,” despite having supported such programs in the past. Labour sought to compete with National on “law and order” in the 2023 election, promising to build two new juvenile prisons.
The promotion of boot camps also dovetails with the bipartisan policy to funnel working class youth into the armed forces as they prepare for war. The government is supporting the US imperialist-led militarisation of the Indo-Pacific region against China, and has deployed troops to Britain to train Ukrainian conscripts to fight against Russia. Wellington also backs the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza and has provided troops to assist with the US-led bombing of Yemen.
The militarisation of society, which is taking place in every country, is inevitably leading to the brutalisation of a new generation of young people.
The application deadline for the Coda Story’s 2024/25 Bruno Reporting Fellowships is August 30, 2024.
Tell Me About The Coda Story’s 2024/25 Bruno Reporting Fellowships:
Applications are now open for the 2024-25 Bruno Reporting Fellowships to fund an enterprise feature relevant to Coda Story’s topics of interest. The 2024-25 Fellowships support two 10-month reporting projects that culminate in a notable story to be published on Coda’s website and editorial partners’ websites.
Also, the Bruno Reporting Fellowship is designed to benefit early career journalists working in countries where journalism is under-resourced and the issues pertinent to Coda’s editorial concerns are under-scrutinized.
Which Fields are Eligible?
Journalism
Type:
Fellowship
Who can Apply For The Coda Story’s 2024/25 Bruno Reporting Fellowships?
Additionally, applicants must meet the following eligibility criteria:
Open to early career journalists working in under-resourced countries.
One fellowship is available for a Georgian reporter focusing on Coda’s collaboration with Stranger’s Guide magazine.
One fellowship is available for a reporter of any nationality currently living in exile, focusing on the experience of exile in the digital age.
Applicants must have excellent written and spoken English.
Applicants must have a track record of writing reported pieces in English.
Required Documents:
Applicants are also to submit the following documents:
A cover letter introducing yourself and telling us why you deserve the fellowship and what you would like to focus on.
A pitch for one long-form story that you would like to work on during your fellowship and why Coda is the right platform for it.
Resume.
A brief cover letter indicating why the fellowship is right for you.
Three published clips (links or PDFs are fine).
Which Countries Are Eligible?
All countries
Where will the Award be Taken?
Online
How Many Awards?
Not specified
What is the Benefit of the Award?
Also, successful applicants will benefit the following: Stipend of $1000 a month for 10 months.
Coverage of pre-approved expenses separately.
Mentorship, guidance, and editorial support from Coda’s editors and staff.
Opportunity to contribute ideas and produce regular reporting, including at least one long-form piece.
Integration into Coda’s team and newsroom.
How Long Will the Award Last?
10 months
How to Apply:
To apply for the fellowship, please send the documents listed above to bruno@codastory.com
Record-breaking ocean temperatures have induced an ongoing mass bleaching event that puts almost three quarters of the world’s coral reefs at risk, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Coral Reef Watch reported last month.
Research associate Catherine Lachnit checks coral for signs of bleaching on Paradise Reef, Friday, Aug. 4, 2023, near Key Biscayne, Florida [AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee]
This is a further warning of the climate crisis, with the working class and poor across the world bearing the primary brunt of its consequences as global temperatures rise, including in the oceans.
The current global coral bleaching event (GCBE4) is the fourth on record, lasting since February 2023. The NOAA announced it officially in April 2024. The bleaching has affected coral reefs in every major ocean basin and almost 70 countries, including the US (particularly in Florida), Brazil, Panama, Costa Rica, Tuvalu, Fiji and Australia.
Coral bleaching occurs when the corals are no longer able to support vital symbiotic micro-organisms called zooxanthellae. These zooxanthellae algae provide critical nutrients for the coral, without which it cannot survive for long. When the surrounding water temperatures reach higher than the thermal limit allowing for that symbiotic relationship, the coral expels the algae and turns the organism white, a process known as bleaching.
The last such event—GCBE3—occurred from 2014 to 2017, and affected 65.7 percent of the world’s coral reefs. GCBE4 has, as of the latest figures from mid-July, placed 72.9 percent of coral reefs at risk of bleaching. This makes it the most widespread on record. It is well on its way to becoming the most severe, with NOAA having to introduce three additional new heat alert levels since GCBE3.
As one example, the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) in Australia—the largest coral reef in the world—has been affected as part of GCBE4. In 2016, the WSWS warned of the implications of the devastating mass bleaching event of that year, which claimed almost 70 percent of the GBR’s shallow-water coral.
Since then, four mass bleaching events have wreaked havoc on the GBR’s health, with the latest event shaping up to be the most catastrophic of all. A recent paper published in Nature found that GBR ocean temperatures are higher than at any point in the past 400 years. It stated: “The existential threat to the GBR ecosystem from anthropogenic [human-induced] climate change is now realised.”
August 2023 marked an all-time high for global sea surface temperature (SST) at 20.98°C. Those temperatures have continued, with June 2024 measurements coming in at 20.85°C. On average, the Earth’s oceans have warmed around 0.88°C since 1850 levels.
This latest global catastrophe confirms years of warnings by scientists that coral reefs would be increasingly devastated by climate change-induced heat stress. For instance, a 2007 paper published in the journal Science stated that corals would become “increasingly rare on reef systems” due to the global warming expected throughout the 21st century. The authors warned: “Decisive action on global emissions is required if the loss of coral-dominated ecosystems is to be avoided.”
Coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef [Photo by Jorge Láscar / CC BY 2.0]
Despite the role played by natural climate variations such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation in these high temperatures, there is no scientific doubt that the primary cause is greenhouse gas-induced climate change from the burning of fossil fuels.
The health of coral reef systems is vital to the ecological functioning of the planet as a whole. Coral reefs are home to 25 percent of all marine species. Moreover, approximately six million people around the world, largely in impoverished countries, depend on coral reef fisheries for their livelihoods.
These ecosystems also play a vital role in minimising other environmental impacts to millions of people around the world. Coral reefs absorb the worst impacts of storms and floodings in the world’s coastal zones. Globally, 100 to 200 million people living in these communities are at least partially protected from such hazards by coral reefs.
With warmer temperatures caused by climate change, bleaching events like this have become five times more frequent than they were four to five decades ago. This reduces the time between bleaching events in which corals could otherwise recover.
Dr Emma Camp, the leader of the Future Reefs Team at the University of Technology Sydney, explained: “If given a chance, coral are actually resilient and can recover. But as bleaching becomes more frequent and stronger in intensity, we’re really narrowing that window.”
These climate events, already a cause for great concern by the world’s scientists and the population at large, are occurring at approximately 1℃ of global warming. On the basis of totally inadequate government pledges, the world is on track for warming of 3℃ above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II report from 2022, which synthesised over 34,000 peer-reviewed publications, concluded that warming of over 2℃ is enough to threaten over 99 percent of coral reefs with severe damage.
Far from taking the appropriate action necessary for climate change mitigation, the ruling classes around the world have rejected any program that would save coral reefs. The Center for American Progress recently reviewed public statements from all sitting members of the US Congress. It found that 23 percent “publicly deny the scientific consensus of human-caused climate change.” Many, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, receive hundreds of thousands of dollars of donations from oil and gas companies.
But climate change cannot be attributed primarily to the short-sightedness and corruption of individual politicians, parties, or even governments at large. The root cause of climate change is the capitalist mode of production, which subordinates all social needs to private profit and divides the world into rival nation-states.
A study published earlier this year by global consulting firm ICF estimated that a person born in 2024 in the US could lose up to $1 million from the effects of climate change over their lifetime. Current and future generations of people would increasingly face more “difficult decisions about how to pay for food, housing, and other daily expenses.”
This average figure disguises the unequal cost inflicted on working people, who are most exposed to the impact.
Meanwhile, fossil fuel conglomerates such as BP, Shell, and ExxonMobil collectively rake in hundreds of billions of dollars in profits every year. Much of that wealth, beyond being hoarded by a small financial elite, is used to purchase stock buybacks and enrich their investors. Climate change is, in the final analysis, an issue that once again shows the class divide driving the threat to human civilisation.
