28 Feb 2021

SAP Young Professional Program 2021

Application Deadline: Ongoing

Application Deadline: The Young Professional Program is a free initiative delivered by the SAP Training and Development Institute. The program, which lasts for 3 months, is designed to give recent graduates the certifications and soft skills required to begin a career as an SAP Associate Consultant. At the end of the training, SAP TDI will work very closely with the YPP graduates to introduce them to a host of opportunities with SAP customers and partners to work as an SAP Consultant.

About the Award:

Eligible Field(s):

Type:

Eligibility:

  • Candidates must have the legal right to work in the country they select (below);
  • Candidates must be currently unemployed or employed in a part time/non-permanent role not related to career aspirations;
  • Candidates must be educated to at least Bachelor level in a field related to Business Administration / Management Information Systems / Engineering
  • Candidates will preferably have graduated within the last 3 years with a GPA in the top quartile – proof of this may be requested;
  • Candidates must have a keen interest in starting an SAP-related career involving travel;
  • Candidates should be fluent in English, both written and spoken;
  • The program will commence early – March 2021 and full-time availability from 9am – 6pm from Monday – Friday throughout the training period is essential. The Program will last for 3 months.
  • Due to the spread of Coronavirus this training will take place online in a virtual live classroom format. Please ensure you have strong enough internet at home to be able to participate in this program.

Please share an English version of your resume while applying for this program

To be Taken at (Country): See below

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award:

  • Start your journey to become an SAP Consultant;
  • Gain globally-recognised associate-level SAP Certifications;
  • Learn directly from SAP experts;
  • Experience classroom and workshop-based training in SAP Technologies;
  • Develop the soft skills needed to prepare you for successful job applications;
  • Benefit from introductions to job opportunities within the SAP Ecosystem to help secure a position after the training. Please note this program does not guarantee you a job at the end of it.

Duration of Award: 3 months

How to Apply:

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

Visit Award Webpage for Details

AFRIKA KOMMT! Fellowship Program 2021/2023

Application Deadline: 2nd April 2021

Eligible Countries: Sub-Saharan African countries

To Be Taken At (Country): Germany, Candidate’s home country

About the Award: Nineteen of Germany’s leading businesses have committed themselves to a common cause. In 2008, they launched the AFRIKA KOMMT! initiative for economic and capacity development. The programme trains young, future managers from Sub-Saharan Africa on-site with German companies. The main idea behind the initiative is to create a win-win-situation for the programme participants and the partnering companies. Thus, the initiative lays the foundation stone for sustainable economic cooperation with Africa and aims at forming stable cooperative partnerships for the future.

Type: Internship, Career Fellowship

Eligibility: Candidates need to fulfil the following formal eligibility requirements:

  • University degree in a relevant subject (please see individual company profiles below)
  • Postgraduate degree (e.g. MBA) is an advantage
  • Two to five years of relevant work experience
  • Excellent English language skills
  • Basic knowledge of the German language is an advantage
  • Not older than 35 years and physically fit
  • Female candidates are welcome

Selection Criteria: Besides the specific technical expertise relevant to the partner company, the programme requires candidates to have the following set of general skills and attributes:

Language and communication skills:

Excellent English skills
Strong oral and written communication skills
High willingness to learn German

Professional skills:

High leadership potential
Strong self-motivation and self-starter mentality
High level of dedication, commitment and target-orientation
Strong capacity for teamwork

Personal attributes:

High level of enthusiasm, flexibility and resilience
Outstanding intercultural competencies
Ability to adapt to new environments quickly

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: At the heart of the AFRIKA KOMMT! fellowship programme is an eight-months practical training in a leading German enterprise benefiting both, fellows and partner companies – a classic win-win situation:

The programme fellows benefit through:

  • gaining first-hand practical experience in a leading German enterprise
  • being exposed to leadership concepts and management techniques in practice
  • becoming acquainted with working processes and business culture in German enterprises
  • extending their international management competencies
  • initiating networks of cooperation partners between Sub-Saharan Africa and German companies

The partner companies benefit through:

  • establishing networks of cooperation and trust in promising future markets in Sub-Saharan Africa
  • extending their experience with the working and business culture in Sub-Saharan Africa
  • improving their knowledge about cultures, markets, countries etc. in Sub-Saharan Africa

The AFRIKA KOMMT! fellowship programme also includes: Language course, Travelling expenses (Flights, Visa, local travels etc), Monthly living allowances, Accommodation, Insurance, Trainings and Study tours, Alumni activities, Certificate

After five completed programme years, a significant number of the participants now work in the branch office of their respective partner company in Africa.

How to Apply: Applications can only be submitted through the online application system.

Please read the application requirements carefully. You will find all necessary information in the Application Guide AFRIKA KOMMT! 2021 – 2023

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

US Dept of State’s OneBeat Virtual Music Exchange Program 2021

Application Deadline: 10th March 2021 5:00 PM EST.

About the Award: The programme is sponsored by the US State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and produced by Bang on a Can’s Found Sound Nation. It celebrates musical collaboration and social engagement. 

This year’s virtual edition is in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fellows will receive a $1 500 honorarium as well as a small subsidy for purchasing necessary audio equipment and enhanced internet connectivity tools.

Type: Training

Eligibility: OneBeat will convene 70 musicians (aged from 19 to 35) from up to 44 countries and territories in two separate virtual exchanges, which will take place as follows: 12 July to 6 September and 20 September to 17 November.

Selection Criteria: OneBeat is looking for applicants who excel in the following areas:

  • Musical proficiency and innovation.
  • Performance, composition, improvisational, production and/or technological skill.
  • Social engagement – musicians who have used music to serve their communities or greater societies. This might consist of guiding young people in music education, addressing social-political issues, reviving dying musical traditions, etc.
  • Collaboration – applicants’ willingness to reach across cultural and musical divides in creating original music or re-interpreting traditional music, while respecting the essence of each tradition.

Eligible Countries: Albania, Algeria, Barbados, Bolivia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Brazil, Cambodia, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Ethiopia, Greenland, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mali, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestinian Territories, Philippines, Russia, Senegal, South Africa, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Turkey, United States, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Zimbabwe

To be Taken at (Country): Online

Number of Awards: 70 

Value of Award: Fellows are responsible for providing their own smart device (computer, tablet, phone) with a camera in order to attend virtual meetings and activities. A small technical subsidy will be made available to Fellows based on need and on a case-by-case basis. This subsidy will go towards additional data/wifi needs should it be necessary.

Duration of Award: Each OneBeat Virtual fellowship involves 28 working days over 8-weeks to allow for asynchronous offline interaction and development time.

How to Apply:  Interested artists can apply here. Successful applicants will be notified by 21 May.

Please see the FAQ’s for more details. Applicants will be considered for both fellowship dates, but assigned to only one virtual residency once selected. Applicants may list a date preference, but preferences cannot be guaranteed.

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

Visit Award Webpage for Details

27 Feb 2021

Pandemic May Have Left Over 250 Million People With Acute Food Shortages in 2020

Robin Scher


Beyond the questions surrounding the availability, effectiveness and safety of a vaccine, the COVID-19 pandemic has led us to question where our food is coming from and whether we will have enough. According to a United Nations World Food Program (WFP) report, COVID-19 might have left up to 265 million people with acute food shortages in 2020. The combined effect of the pandemic as well as the emerging global recession “could, without large-scale coordinated action, disrupt the functioning of food systems,” which would “result in consequences for health and nutrition of a severity and scale unseen for more than half a century,” states another UN report.

In the United States, “food insecurity has doubled overall, and tripled among households with children” due to the pandemic, states a June 2020 report by the Institute for Policy Research (IPR) at Northwestern University, which relied on data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey. In a recent interview with CBS News, IPR Director Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach warned that these statistics would likely “continue to hold,” with the numbers indicating particularly dramatic rises in food insecurity among Black and Latinx families. Indeed, families of color are being disproportionately impacted. According to an analysis of new Census data by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), 22 percent of Black and 21 percent of Latinx respondents reported not having enough to eat, compared to just 9 percent of white people.

Globally, the effects of COVID-19 on food security are equally, if not more, severe. According to a CBS News report, WFP Director David Beasley told the UN Security Council in April 2020 that the world is on “the brink of a hunger pandemic.” He added, “In a worst-case scenario, we could be looking at famine in about three dozen countries, and in fact, in 10 of these countries we already have more than one million people per country who are on the verge of starvation.”

“The number of chronically hungry people increased by an estimated 130 million last year, to more than 800 million—about eight times the total number of COVID-19 cases to date,” wrote Mark Lowcock, the under-secretary-general and emergency relief coordinator at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and Axel van Trotsenburg, managing director of operations at the World Bank. “Countries affected by conflict and climate change are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity. Empty stomachs can stunt whole generations.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) warns that climate change “is likely to diminish continued progress on global food security through production disruptions that lead to local availability limitations and price increases, interrupted transport conduits, and diminished food safety.” The same might be said about the pandemic, which has made it abundantly clear: climate resilience, food security and global health are closely intertwined.

In terms of food security, another major concern is the pandemic-related school closures that have occurred across the globe, with UNICEF reporting that more than 1.6 billion children and young people have been affected. Schools provide a food lifeline for children; for so many, that is where they get their only nutritious meal of the day. In January, the UNICEF Office of Research—Innocenti, and WFP released a new report that found that more than 39 billion in-school meals have been missed worldwide since the pandemic began, with 370 million children worldwide having missed 40 percent of in-school meals.

In early 2020, when COVID-19 was still a looming specter rather than the deadly virus we’re more familiar with today, the threat of food insecurity was a practical problem. Scenes of shoppers descending on aisles to stock up on supplies were a common sight. As CNN reported in March 2020, supermarkets around the world rationed food and other products such as toilet paper and cleaning supplies, in an effort to curb stockpiling.

In Vermont, for instance, a steady increase in food insecurity since the start of the pandemic has correlated to employment levels, according to a survey conducted by the University of Vermont between March and April 2020. Approximately 45 percent of respondents “had lost their jobs, been furloughed or had their hours reduced during the pandemic,” and a further two-thirds of survey participants who recorded scarcity of food in their households “had experienced job losses or work disruptions since the outbreak of the pandemic,” according to the survey. Vermont is just one example; the impact has been felt across the U.S. During the week before Thanksgiving in 2020, the Guardian reported that 5.6 million U.S. households “struggled to put enough food on the table,” while referring to the analysis of the Census data by CBPP.

As the pandemic continues to upend lives across the world, it has impacted the entire food supply chain. With factory and supermarket workers being highly susceptible to COVID-19, there’s been a concomitant decline in food production and a rise in prices. As Scott Faber, senior vice president of government affairs at the Environmental Working Group (EWG), reported, farmers in the U.S. were already facing labor shortages prior to the pandemic, and with tightened immigration as well as the heightened risk and poor compensation associated with these jobs, “food processors and farm labor contractors may struggle to find other workers willing to risk their lives to work in meat plants, packing sheds or produce fields.”

The pandemic has exposed the weakness of the industrialized global food system, which depends on long, complex transportation chains and cross-border travel. “[T]he monstrous and unsustainable food industry known as Big Ag… relies on the horrendous treatment of laborers, a wasteful allocation of resources, worldwide environmental devastation—and in a pinch, can quickly devolve into near-collapse of the entire system, as evidenced by the delays, shortages and pressure during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the deepening hunger crisis in America,” April M. Short, a fellow at the Independent Media Institute, recently wrote in Salon. “Among the many necessary systemic changes 2020 has illuminated is the need to majorly restructure the way we cultivate and access food in our communities.”

It didn’t take the pandemic to reveal the inefficiency and injustice of our food system: globally, a third of all food is wasted, while nearly 690 million people were undernourished in 2019—almost 60 million more people than in 2014. But the pandemic has underscored the matter: According to OCHA, “the number of acutely food insecure people could increase to 270 million due to COVID-19, representing an 82 percent increase compared to the number of acutely food insecure people pre-COVID-19.”

And the disruption of transportation has shown that the long distances it normally takes for food to get from one place to another can be a serious liability during a crisis. “[F]ood banks are under tremendous pressure to meet the skyrocketing demand,” said a CNN article quoting from a letter Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, Feeding America CEO, and Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, wrote to then-Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue in April 2020. “At the same time, however, we are seeing literally tons of agricultural goods being discarded because of the shutdown of so much of the economy.”

Consumer demand has shifted from eating out at restaurants and food services away from home, and food supply chain operations have had to be retooled. And that impact has been felt within the transportation sector. Forbes reported that Andrew Novakovic, an agricultural economist at Cornell University, “points to a number of weak spots in the food transportation system that could be aggravated by the increased demand for food.” A shortage of truck drivers is one potential weak spot, says Novakovic. Although he concedes there is debate on this matter, Novakovic maintains that “[t]rucking companies are finding it much harder to recruit [those] long haul drivers.” China, which was the first country to be hit by the virus, offers insight into the prolonged impact of the pandemic on transportation and food systems. The lockdown in the Hubei province of China, which is home to 66 million people, led to a shortage in delivery of animal feed as well as refrigerated containers full of imported vegetables, fruit and frozen meat in February 2020, according to an article in the Conversation.

In addition to shifting consumer demand, the pandemic has also made us take a closer look at where our food comes from and how it impacts not only the lives of food workers but also the lives of animals trapped in the food system. According to a new public opinion survey conducted by Lake Research Partners and commissioned by the animal rights group American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, “[t]he vast majority (89 percent) of Americans are concerned about industrial animal agriculture, citing animal welfare, worker safety or public health risks as a concern.” The survey also found that “85 percent of farmers and their families support a complete ban on new industrial animal agriculture facilities—almost twice the level of support expressed by the general public.” This finding shows key support for the Farm System Reform Act, legislation that was introduced in 2019 by Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey that, among other reforms, seeks to put a moratorium on new or expanding factory farms.

Food insecurity has long been a pressing issue, particularly for developing countries. However, as Mir Ashrafun Nahar, a research associate at the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling, explained in a Financial Express article, “the COVID-19 pandemic has made it more acute.” In response, Nahar argues for a policy-based approach that includes “subsidy based transportation systems for agriculture” to support supply chains, as well as policies aimed at cutting down on agricultural production costs in order to help farmers recover from the effects of the pandemic.

With the pandemic still affecting food supply, though, there are a number of logical measures for reducing the impact of the virus and maximizing output. “First, OSHA [the Occupational Safety and Health Administration] and the USDA must be directed to issue emergency standards that require employers to provide personal protective equipment, enough space to work without spreading the virus, and housing and transportation options that will reduce the spread of the virus,” wrote Faber.

Proposed in April 2020, Faber’s suggestions, unfortunately, remained unaddressed under the Trump administration. Faber’s relief measures further include the expansion of USDA programs to purchase surplus commodities to offset supply chain disruption; redirecting food that might be destroyed toward food banks; and increasing the standard SNAP benefit (food stamps) by 15 percent. And, echoing Nahar, Faber also proposes adopting policies that will help to alleviate financial burdens faced by farmers and food suppliers, as well as offering subsidy support.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental economic group with 37 member countries, said that the pandemic “has laid bare pre-existing gaps in social protection systems” in a report published in June 2020. “While the impacts of COVID-19 are still unfolding, experience so far shows the importance of an open and predictable international trade environment to ensure food can move to where it is needed,” the OECD report states. “The biggest risk for food security is not with food availability but with consumers’ access to food: safety nets are essential to avoid an increase in hunger and food insecurity.”

Another problem is the lack of media coverage about the food insecurity being witnessed around the world, particularly during the COVID-19 era. As the Economist recently pointed out, journalists in 2020 “wrote more than 50,000 articles about the canceled Eurovision song contest, but only around 2,000 about drought and hunger in Zambia.”

Fortunately, beyond the failings of a state-led response to the pandemic, some positives have emerged at a community level. With restaurants and supermarkets becoming less viable options, there has been a growth in demand and supply of local food. According to HuffPost, farmers have seen “a massive rise in demand for local produce.” The result of this trend is that consumers who are able to access local food are changing their behavior toward procurement and consumption of food permanently.

Things are changing on a federal level, too. In a recent article about how the U.S. food system could be transformed during the Biden administration, New York Times food correspondent Kim Severson noted that “[h]unger relief is a pressing issue” for Tom Vilsack, who has been confirmed by the Senate to become the agriculture secretary in Biden’s Cabinet, a job the former Iowa governor also held under the Obama administration. However, while Severson notes that Vilsack has his critics, President Biden has already made changes at the top, signing an executive order meant to deliver relief to families and businesses amid the COVID-19 crisis, including “expanding and extending federal nutrition assistance programs” to “[a]ddress the growing hunger crisis facing 29 million Americans.” His proposal to Congress includes a $3 billion package to “help women, infants and children get the food they need” and “access to nutritious food for millions of children missing meals due to school closures.”

For meaningful reform to the food system to occur, change is going to have to happen at every level: from federal, state and local governments, to Big Ag, small farmers and everyday consumers. With the future looking ever more uncertain due to the climate crisis—one of President Biden’s top priorities—adapting to new ways of producing and transporting food will be key to our survival.

Canadian Support for the Dictatorship in Haiti

Yves Engler


Canada is supporting a dictatorship in Haiti. And our government is not just offering some vague assistance, but rather is paying for the central instrument of that dictatorship’s repression. Ottawa is backing a violent police force that keeps Jovenel Moïse’s regime in power.

Last week a public letter was released criticizing Canada’s “support for a repressive, corrupt Haitian president devoid of constitutional legitimacy.” It was signed by three current MPs and three former MPs, as well as Noam Chomsky, David Suzuki, Naomi Klein, Roger Waters, El Jones and 500 others.

The letter notes that Canada “continues to fund and train a police force that has violently repressed anti-Moïse protests. The Canadian ambassador in Haiti has repeatedly attended police functions all the while refusing to criticize their repression of protesters. On January 18 ambassador Stuart Savage met the controversial new head of police Leon Charles to discuss ‘strengthening the capacity of the police.’”

In November Moïse appointed Charles head of the police. The former military man oversaw the police in the 17 months after the 2004 US, France and Canada-sponsored coup against elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and thousands of other elected officials. At that time the US Naval Academy-trained Charles publicly referred to a “war” the police waged against the pro-democracy sector. A 2004 University of Miami human rights report found that Charles “routinely [gave] orders to stop political demonstrations” while an early 2006 Council on Hemispheric Affairs report noted that “he oversaw the gunning down of unarmed pro-Aristide Lavalas demonstrators by his own men, even … planting weapons on the innocent victims’ corpses.” Thousands were killed in political violence after the overthrow of Aristide.

Even before the 2004 coup Charles was close to the country’s oligarchs. He reportedly participated in a July 2003 meeting organized by leading sweatshop owner and opposition figure, André Apaid, where he tried to bribe “several Lavalas street leaders in Cité Soleil” to join the opposition. In “Loyal to Washington, New Police Chief Léon Charles Specializes in Counter-Insurgency Intelligence Gathering and Repression” Haiti Liberté editor Kim Ives writes, “under Léon Charles in 2004 and 2005, the Haitian police became a virtual private army of Haiti’s bourgeoisie, which provided officers with weapons and money.”

Charles oversaw the reincorporation of hundreds of human rights abusing former soldiers into the police force. At the time US officials privately reported, according to cables released by WikiLeaks, “Charles was unwilling or unable to discipline or arrest officers that everybody knows are corrupt and colluding with the kidnappers.”

Amidst significant criticism of his appointment, ambassador Savage met Charles. Even if one questions whether the meeting with Charles was designed to bolster a police force that’s maintaining a dictatorship, why exactly is Canada’s ambassador in Haiti meeting the head of the police? Does Guatemala’s ambassador in Ottawa meet the head of the RCMP?

Unfortunately the answer to why a Canadian ambassador would meet with the head of Haiti’s police is obvious.

Much to the delight of Haiti’s über class-conscious elite, Ottawa took the lead in strengthening the repressive arm of the Haitian state after the 2004 coup. Since then Canada has pushed to increase the size of the Haitian National Police (HNP) from 5,000 to over 15,000.

But the population has identified police as a leading threat to their safety. Haitian prisons are full of poor individuals in pre-trial limbo. In 2017 Le Regroupement des Haïtiens de Montréal contre l’occupation d’Haïti explained that the UN-US-Canada effort to “develop and professionalize the existing National Police… will actually translate into more repression of the Haitian people … The power to maintain order…is really the power to defend the status quo, the power to keep intact the dominant order…One cannot pretend to ‘reinforce’ the rule of law when the state, by its nature and orientation, exists only to defend without compromise the interests of the dominant class and of a certain political class.”

Canadian officials have previously suggested that strengthening the HNP was good for business. After meeting Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe in 2014 Canada’s International Development Minister, Christian Paradis, linked strengthening the HNP to “attracting private investment”. Paradis said, “we discussed the priority needs of the country as well as the increased size of the Haitian National Police (PNH), in order to create a climate to attract private investment.”

Through its diplomatic and policing support for Jovenel Moïse, notes the public letter, Canada is “propping up a repressive and corrupt dictatorship in Haiti.” More than that, it is supporting a police force (with the emphasis on force) that is imposing an extremely inequitable economic order.

Is this how Canadians want their “aid” dollars used?

War Mongering for Artificial Intelligence

Binoy Kampmark


The ghost of Edward Teller must have been doing the rounds between members of the National Commission on Artificial Intelligence.  The father of the hydrogen bomb was never one too bothered by the ethical niggles that came with inventing murderous technology.  It was not, for instance, “the scientist’s job to determine whether a hydrogen bomb should be constructed, whether it should be used, or how it should be used.”  Responsibility, however exercised, rested with the American people and their elected officials.

The application of AI in military systems has plagued the ethicist but excited certain leaders and inventors.  Russian President Vladimir Putin has grandiloquently asserted that “it would be impossible to secure the future of our civilization” without a mastery of artificial intelligence, genetics, unmanned weapons systems and hypersonic weapons.

Campaigners against the use of autonomous weapons systems in war have been growing in number.  The UN Secretary-General António Guterres is one of them.  “Autonomous machines with the power and discretion to select targets and take lives without human involvement,” he wrote on Twitter in March 2019, “are politically unacceptable, morally repugnant and should be prohibited by international law.”  The International Committee for Robot Arms Control, the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots and Human Rights Watch are also dedicated to banning lethal autonomous weapons systems.  Weapons analysts such as Zachary Kallenborn see that absolute position as untenable, preferring a more modest ban on “the highest-risk weapons: drone swarms and autonomous chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons”.

The critics of such weapons systems were far away in the Commission’s draft report for Congress.  The document has more than a touch of the mad scientist in the bloody service of a master.  This stood to reason, given its chairman was Eric Schmidt, technical advisor to Alphabet Inc., parent company of Google, which he was formerly CEO of.  With Schmidt holding the reins, we would be guaranteed a show shorn of moral restraint.  “The AI promise – that a machine can perceive, decide, and act more quickly, in a more complex environment, with more accuracy than a human – represents a competitive advantage in any field.  It will be employed for military ends, by governments and non-state groups.”

In his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 23, Schmidt was all about “fundamentals” in keeping the US ascendant.  This involved preserving national competitiveness and shaping the military with those fundamentals in mind.  But to do so required keeping the eyes of the security establishment wide open for any dangerous competitor.  (Schmidt understands Congress well enough to know that spikes in funding and outlays tend to be attached to the promotion of threats.)  He sees “the threat of Chinese leadership in key technology areas” as “a national crisis”.  In terms of AI, “only the United States and China” had the necessary “resources, commercial might, talent pool, and innovation ecosystem to lead the world”.  Within the next decade, Beijing could even “surpass the United States as the world’s AI superpower.”

The testimony is generously spiked with the China threat thesis.  “Never before in my lifetime,” he claimed, “have I been more worried that we will soon be displaced by a rival or more aware of what second place means for our economy, our security, and the future of our nation.”  He feared that such worries were not being shared by officials, with the DoD treating “software as a low priority”.  Here, he could give advice on lessons learned in the spawning enterprises of Silicon Valley, where the principled live short lives.  Those dedicated to defence could “form smart teams, drive hard deliverables, and move quickly.”  Missiles, he argued, should be built “the way we now build cars: use a design studio to develop and simulate in software.”

This all meant necessarily praising a less repressible form of AI to the heavens, notably in its military applications.  Two days of public discussion saw the panel’s vice chairman Robert Work extol the virtues of AI in battle.  “It is a moral imperative to at least pursue this hypothesis” claiming that “autonomous weapons will not be indiscriminate unless we design them that way.”  The devil is in the human, as it has always been.

In a manner reminiscent of the debates about sharing atomic technology in the aftermath of the Second World War, the Committee urges that the US “pursue a comprehensive strategy in close coordination with our allies and partners for artificial intelligence (AI) innovation and adoption that promotes values critical to free and open societies.”  A proposed Emerging Technology Coalition of likeminded powers and partners would focus on the role of “emerging technologies according to democratic norms and values” and “coordinate policies to counter the malign use of these technologies by authoritarian regimes”.  Fast forgotten is the fact that distinctions such as authoritarianism and democracy have little meaning at the end of a weapon.

Internal changes are also suggested to ruffle a few feathers.  The US State Department comes in for special mention as needing reforms.  “There is currently no clear lead for emerging technology policy or diplomacy within the State Department, which hinders the Department’s ability to make strategic technology decisions.”  Allies and partners were confused when approaching the State Department as to “which senior official would be their primary point of contact” for a range of topics, be they AI, quantum computing, 5G, biotechnology or new emerging technologies.

Overall, the US government comes in for a battering, reproached for operating “at human speed not machine speed.”  It was lagging relative to commercial development of AI.  It suffered from “technical deficits that range from digital workforce shortages to inadequate acquisition policies, insufficient network architecture, and weak data practices.”

The official Pentagon policy, as it stands, is that autonomous and semi-autonomous weapons systems should be “designed to allow commanders and operators to exercise appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force.”  In October 2019, the Department of Defence adopted various ethical principles regarding the military use of AI, making the DoD Artificial Intelligence Centre the focal point.  These include the provision that, “DoD personnel will exercise appropriate levels of judgment and care, while remaining responsible for the development, deployment, and use of AI capabilities.”  The “traceable” principle is also shot through with the principle of human control, with personnel needing to “possess an appropriate understanding of the technology, development processes, and operational methods applicable to AI capabilities”.

The National Commission pays lip service to such protocols, acknowledging that operators, organisations and “the American people” would not support AI machines not “designed with predictability” and “clear principles” in mind.  But the note of warning in not being too morally shackled becomes a screech.  Risk was “inescapable” and not using AI “to solve real national security challenges risks putting the United States at a disadvantage”.  Especially when it comes to China.

Culpability and Recalibration: MBS and the Killing of Jamal Khashoggi

Binoy Kampmark


It was a brutal way to go, and it had the paw prints of the highest authorities.  On October 2, 2018, Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi Arabian insider turned outsider, was murdered by a squad of 15 men from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.  He was dismembered and quite literally cancelled in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

This state sanctioned killing was a vile, clumsy effort against a journalist and critic of a person who has come to be affectionately known in brown nosing circles as MBS, the ambitious, bratty Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.  Since then, every effort has been made on his part, and his followers, to repel suggestions of guilt or involvement.

It is worth remembering how the narratives were initially developed.  First, the killing was denied as a libel against the kingdom.  “Mr Khashoggi,” claimed an official statement from the Saudi authorities, “visited the consulate to request paperwork related to his marital status and exited shortly thereafter.”  Then, his death was accepted, but deemed the result of a dreadful accident in which the men in question had overstepped.  The death subsequently became the work of a blood thirsty gang of sadists who had acted on their own volition or, as US President Donald Trump called them, “rogue killers”.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al Jubeir was a model of dissembling grace, telling news networks that it had all been a “tremendous mistake” which the Crown Prince was “not aware” of.  “We don’t know, in terms of details, how.  We don’t know where the body is.”

Statements of this nature run the risk of being totally implausible while also being revealing.  It certainly showed a level of audacity.  But in the exposure of the operation, the Saudi intelligence services also risked looking amateurish and startlingly incompetent.  As a reward for their activities, 11 of the crew were tried by the Saudi government, eight of whom were convicted of murder.  Their names have never been released.

Investigations into the murder are generally of the same view: the operation was authorised by the Crown Prince or certainly someone in the highest reaches of the Saudi government.  The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Agnès Callamard, thought as much.  In June 2019, the rapporteur published a report finding that the execution “was the result of elaborate planning involving extensive coordination and significant human and financial resources.  It was overseen, planned and endorsed by high-level officials. It was premeditated.”

The latest publication to stack the shelves of the Kingdom’s culpability comes in the form of a declassified US intelligence report submitted to Congress by the Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines.  The authors of the short document are clear about the lines of responsibility.  “We assess,” goes the Executive Summary, “that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.”  This conclusion was arrived at given the role of the Crown Prince in “the decision making in the Kingdom”, the participation “of a key adviser” along with members of bin Salman’s protective detail, and his “support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad, including Khashoggi.”

Sombrely, the compilers of the report can only state the obvious.  “Since 2017, the Crown Prince has had absolute control of the Kingdom’s security and intelligence organizations, making it highly unlikely that Saudi officials would have carried out an operation of this nature without the Crown Prince’s authorization.”

The details of the report corroborate other findings.  The team sent to Istanbul had seven members of Muhammad bin Salman’s protective guard, the Rapid Intervention Force.  It would have been hard to envisage the participation of these men in an operation without approval of the Crown Prince.  Members of the squad also included those from the Saudi Centre for Studies and Media Affairs (CSMARC) based at the Royal Court.

The only note of slight uncertainty to come in the report is the state of mind Saudi officials were in terms of harming Khashoggi.  It was clear that the Crown Prince saw the journalist “as a threat to the Kingdom and more broadly supported using violent measures if necessary to silence him.”  What was less clear that “how far in advance Saudi officials decided to harm him.”

The neglected, and no less obscene aspect of the Khashoggi affair apart from his extrajudicial killing, is the business as usual approach taken by various powers towards Saudi Arabia.  President Trump was merely the frankest of them all, not wishing to cloud lucrative weapons deals and the ongoing security relationship.  “The United States,” he promised in a statement, “intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region.”

The Biden administration prefers dissimulation and forced sincerity.  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken saw the need to “recalibrate” rather than “rupture” the relations between the two countries.  “The [US] relationship with Saudi Arabia is bigger than any one individual.”  It was sufficient for the US to illuminate the issue of Khashoggi’s killing.  “I think this report speaks for itself.”

Just to show he has been busy recalibrating away, Blinken announced a visa restriction policy named after the slain Saudi – the Khashoggi Ban.  Some 76 Saudi nationals have received bans for having “been engaged in threatening dissidents overseas, including but not limited to the Khashoggi killing.”

Ahead of the report’s release, President Joe Biden called his Saudi counterpart, King Salman, making much of human rights and the rule of law.  But doing so did not mean holding the Crown Prince to account for his misdeeds.  What mattered was “the longstanding partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia”.  The Royals, to that end, can rest easy.  There will be no substantial change in the arrangements between Washington and Riyadh, merely a heavy layering of cosmetics. That’s recalibration for you.

World Food System Linked to High Levels of Hunger , Obesity and Health Problems

Bharat Dogra


Serious distortions of  world food system are reflected in rather curious statistics that as many as a billion people suffer from hunger but almost double this number also suffer from obesity. However it should be clarified that obesity is not generally the result of  overeating as much as this is the result of unhealthy foods churned out and promoted on a vast scale by the food industry. Hunger is linked to many- sided injustices and inequalities, of course, and several distortions of the systems of producing and distributing food.

According to WHO data for 2020 for entire world, in the case of children under 5 years of age, 45% of deaths are linked to undernutrition. 47 million children are wasted, over 14 million are severely wasted, 144 million are stunted while 38 million are overweight.

There are several factors which can cause increasing hunger. As small farmers face increasing distress and many of them lose their land or are displaced, this will increase hunger. Landless people in rural areas of many countries are highly vulnerable to hunger and lack of adequate food. Climate change and increasing water stress are likely to contribute in a big way to growing seriousness of hunger and undernutrition.

Conflict areas are emerging as biggest zones of hunger and undernutrition in our troubled world. A combination of conflict and drought has time and again led to a large number of avoidable hunger deaths, in some cases several hundred thousand deaths in a single country in a single year. Underlying this often are also important factors of injustice and inequality. Leading agencies like the World Food Program have been warning about the possibility of increasing hunger deaths  in several trouble zones, particularly after the hunger situation worsened in Covid times.

The problems relating to safety of food has worsened greatly following the spread of farming based on heavy use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, insecticides, herbicides etc. in most parts of the world. Wendell Berry has written, “ It is one of the miracles of science and hygiene that the germs that use to be in our food have been replaced by poisons.” The report of the London Food Commission said that at least 92 pesticides cleared for used in Britain have been linked with cancer , birth defects or genetic mutation in animal studies. The Commission also noted that about 3800 additives were being used to perform about a hundred functions, and only about a tenth of these were subject to any government control.

The problems of food safety are likely to worsen greatly with the spread of GM food. As eminent scientists gathered under the Independent Science Panel have noted in their report on GM crops, “ sufficient evidence has emerged to raise serious safety concerns, that if ignored could result in irreversible damage to health and safety.” 17 distinguished countries from several countries wrote to the former Indian Prime Minister on the hazards of GM foods, “ Numerous animal feeding studies demonstrate negative health impacts of GM feed on kidney , liver, gut, blood cells, blood biochemistry and the immune system.”

Very powerful and resourceful food and farming corporations with a proven record of violating  safety norms and using unethical practices to push profits over urgent public interests have been further increasing their reach and influence, also getting the support of equally powerful international agencies , raising serious concerns for future.

Hence both at levels of increasing hunger and increasing risks to food safety there are very serious and worrying concerns for now and even more so for future.

US universities have cut 650,000 jobs, a 13 percent workforce reduction, since the onset of the pandemic

Alex Findijis


The Department of Labor published a striking report this month on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on higher education. The report concluded that colleges and universities have cut a total of 650,000 jobs since February 2020, 13 percent of all higher education workers.

While the Department of Labor has not specified the types of jobs which have been cut, reports from university systems across the country demonstrate the damage done to university workers.

People walk in front of Wheeler Hall on the University of California campus in Berkeley, Calif. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Thousands of positions for food service and custodial workers have been cut as on-campus services were slashed and dorms closed. Workers engaged in student services have also been vulnerable as services were moved online and condensed.

Some of the most notable targets of university layoffs and cuts have been adjunct faculty and non-tenured professors, who have been the subject of significant rounds of mass firings as schools move to cut costs and consolidate courses.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York announced in May that it would not be renewing the contracts of 200 employees, including 60 full-time non-tenured faculty and an undisclosed number of adjuncts. RPI also furloughed nearly 300 employees, mostly non-instructional staff, despite university president Shirley Ann Jackson making $5 million a year.

Over the summer, Northern Arizona University eliminated 114 non-tenured faculty. They were provided with no severance and were told they would lose their health coverage within a week.

The University of Akron eliminated 178 positions, including 23 percent of its unionized full-time faculty between the start of the pandemic and the summer of 2020. The University of Michigan laid off 173 workers, furloughed over 3,500 and enforced more than 2,300 wage reductions.

One of the largest attacks on university staff came from the City University of New York (CUNY) system, which laid off 2,800 adjunct faculty last summer, a quarter of CUNY’s adjunct staff. CUNY is now embroiled in a controversy for withholding contractually-obligated pay raises for the university’s lowest paid workers.

The immediate cause of these mass job cuts is the collapse in university budgets during the pandemic. However, there is no doubt that the crisis is being utilized to push through a restructuring of higher education that will result in lower wages for professors and other school staff.

Paul Friga, a public higher education consultant for the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, analyzed budget data from 107 universities to calculate a loss to colleges and universities that totaled $183 billion. This deficit breaks down to $85 billion in lost revenues, $24 billion in coronavirus expenses, and $74 billion in predicted cuts to state funding. Even after factoring in potential federal aid the costs remain around $150 billion.

Several major universities are reporting losses from the pandemic in the order of the hundreds of millions. The University of Massachusetts (UMass) is struggling with a $335 million budget deficit. In an effort to alleviate the budget gap UMass sought to cut $161 million in workforce costs through leaving vacant positions empty, short- and long-term furloughs, wage reductions and temporary and permanent job cuts.

Iowa’s three public universities, the University of Northern Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Iowa suffered a collective loss of $208 million, with tens of millions coming from reductions in room and board payments alone.

University of Iowa President Bruce Harreld spoke to the heart of the underlying issue behind this when he said “There’s been a generational shift in who pays for public higher education. From the state, you go back 25 years ago, you were more like 75 percent of our overall educational budget. Now it’s closer to 20 percent.”

This decline in state funding for public higher education is a trend that has affected universities across the country for years.

In 1988 the share of university funding that came from student tuition and fees was roughly 25 percent, today that figure is closer to 50 percent. Since 2008, just before the recession, government funding for education has declined considerably.

In 2018, overall state funding for public higher education was $6.6 billion less than in 2008 after adjusting for inflation.

The effects have been devastating.

In 41 states funding was lower per student than a decade earlier, with an average decline of 13 percent per student. Meanwhile, average tuition rose by 37 percent between 2008 and 2018 as schools attempted to fill the gaps in their budgets.

Remarkably, average tuition now accounts for nearly a quarter of median household income.

Extensive cost inflation for higher education has failed to cover the gap in school budgets, however. Faced with higher costs, limited investment and declining enrollment many universities have turned to cutting costs wherever possible, particularly among faculty.

For years, universities have shifted toward utilizing adjunct and non-tenured instructional faculty as a means of reducing costs. Adjunct faculty, despite often being just as capable and experienced as their tenured counterparts, are denied full-time status. This reduces their salaries to around $20,000 a year and removes any chance of qualifying for benefits and medical care.

Many adjuncts are forced to work additional jobs just to pay their bills and are often the first to be cut when funds need to be made available.

Anthony, an adjunct in the University System of Ohio, spoke to the WSWS about the conditions faced by adjunct faculty: “As inflation climbs, I know I won’t be given a raise to proportionally combat my increased cost of living. Nothing like that. The pay scale was set many years ago and is unlikely to change for many years to come. After 13 [plus] years as an adjunct, I’ve long since topped out.

“I go to work each day knowing that as I accrue more credit hours, increase my level of expertise, thereby, in short, getting better at my job, it will have no bearing upon the amount [of] money I bring home to my family.”

Anthony commented on the instability that adjuncts face each year in their roles: “If I step out of line, I won’t be fired. It won’t be anything so bold as an old-fashioned canning. Instead, I simply won’t be offered any classes next semester. It’s a lot less messy that way. Maybe this semester will be when it all goes away.”

Like the overwhelming majority of adjunct professors, Anthony has been forced to work multiple jobs to make ends meet: “I had three jobs before COVID-19. One, due to pandemic-related restrictions, is closed for the foreseeable future—maybe forever. … Because of the contractual nature of my employment—I’m not, technically speaking, a regular employee of the school—I had major issues with filing for and receiving any type of unemployment.”

Anthony also spoke on how the exploitation of adjuncts is connected to the declining quality of education provided to students: “As my position degrades, I can’t help but notice how much harder it is on the students. They, too, are greatly impacted by a system of higher education that puts money ahead of learning.”

He continued, “Semester after semester I work with increasing percentages of students who, because of budget cuts and bureaucratic disorientation, are not in a position coming out of high school to truly reach their potential once they are enrolled in college.

“Once they are in a college classroom, many of them can’t help but see and feel what the school is doing to their instructors and, subsequently, to them. The education suffers. Smart students, hard-working students—they struggle to achieve even a rudimentary level of academic success. They aren’t prepared and, frankly, sometimes neither am I.”