Australian Labor government trying to push through bill for mass deportations

Mike Head

Evidence came to light last week showing that more than 80,000 people could be removed from Australia to as-yet-unnamed third countries, which would be paid to take them under the Labor government’s latest immigration deportation bill.

Mass deportations on such a scale would rival in their size and brutality those being proposed by US President-elect Donald Trump, given the difference in population size between the US and Australia. 

Trump confirmed last week that he intends to declare a national emergency and use the US military and national guard forces to deport millions of migrants as soon as he takes office next January 20. 

Asylum seekers protesting in Punchbowl, Sydney, Australia

Like capitalist governments internationally, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s administration is heading down the same path. It is once again seeking to outbid the Liberal National Coalition in its anti-immigrant measures. These are designed to demonise refugees, international students and other “foreigners” and make them scapegoats for the worsening cost-of-living and housing crisis that is hitting millions of working-class households.

With bipartisan support by the Coalition, Labor’s deportation bill passed the House of Representatives last Wednesday. It was supposed to be examined in a rushed one-week inquiry by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, which held a hearing last Thursday evening. 

At that hearing, Home Affairs Department officials conceded that the bill could affect far more people than the 246 released from immigration detention prisons last November. Those releases came after the High Court finally ruled, after two decades, that the indefinite detention of people who could not be deported constituted unconstitutional punishment without a court order.

The bill would authorise the Australian government to pay third countries to accept non-citizens on a “removal pathway,” regardless of whether those countries were signatories to the international Refugee Convention barring removal to face death or persecution.

Michael Thomas, the Home Affairs Department’s group manager of immigration compliance, revealed that those on a removal pathway included:

• An estimated 75,400 people with no valid visa in the Australian community.

• 4,452 people on bridging visa E, so they can make “acceptable arrangements to depart Australia”.

• 986 people in immigration detention.

• 193 in community detention.

• 246 on bridging visa R (BVR), released as a result of the High Court’s NZYQ ruling that indefinite detention is unlawful.

• A further 96 people on BVRs that predated that supreme court decision.

Officials claimed that most of the 80,000 could return to their home country, and thousands did so voluntarily. However, legal and human rights groups testified that if passed, the Migration Amendment Bill 2024 would allow governments to dump refugees and migrants in countries where they could be warehoused indefinitely, potentially in inhumane conditions. 

The bill would permit Australian governments to make “third country reception arrangements” by paying foreign governments to detain deported people. The Albanese government already does this on the remote Pacific island of Nauru, where it reopened the detention camp last year.

The bill would immunise Australian governments from any liability for harm, injury or death caused by such overseas detention, which has led to numerous deaths, some by suicide, over the past two decades. 

In the past, some civil liability claims have succeeded. In 2017, an agreement was reached between detainees imprisoned on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island and the then Coalition government, following a claim of unlawful detention and negligence. Other refugees secured court orders to be brought to Australia to access urgent, lifesaving treatment unavailable in Nauru or Manus Island. Some cases are ongoing.

The bill would give governments extraordinary powers to effectively reverse refugee protection findings made by tribunals or courts and continue imposing punitive visa conditions on asylum seekers who remain in Australia.

The bill would further allow the Albanese government to quickly re-detain, either domestically or in Nauru, people released as the result of the High Court’s NZYQ ruling. It could claim that they could now be re-incarcerated for the purpose of likely deportation.

Currently, asylum seekers who reach Australia by boat can be sent to Nauru. The new provisions extend this power to “bridging visa R” (BVR) holders.

By ministerial decree, via regulations, the Labor government also has begun re-imposing police-state curfews and ankle bracelet monitoring on ex-detainees, defying yet another High Court ruling this November 6 that these measures too amounted to unconstitutional punishment.

In another bill, the Albanese government is proposing to give immigration ministers powers to ban mobile phones in migration detention facilities, cutting off detainees from communications, including family contact and support.

In the UK, the Starmer Labour government is similarly executing plans to deport at least 14,500 people deemed to be “illegal” migrants, exceeding the two previous six-month records set during Conservative government rule of 13,410 in 2018 and 14,389 last year. Sir Keir Starmer’s government has signed “returns agreements” with countries such as Vietnam, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Serbia and Georgia.

This is part of a wider poisonous agenda to divide working-class people and pit them against each other along national and ethnic lines under conditions of declining living standards, a deepening economic and social crisis and a plunge into war. Right across Europe, governments are outdoing each other with reactionary moves against refugees and democratic rights. 

Labor’s bill is not an aberration. Like the Keating Labor government, which became the first in the world to impose mandatory detention on asylum seekers in 1992, this Albanese government is spearheading an assault on one of the most defenceless sections of the international working class.

This bill is reminiscent of the last Labor government’s “Malaysian solution,” which sought to dump refugees in a country that had not signed the Refugee Convention. Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s legislation was struck down by the High Court in 2011 for breaching the requirements of the Migration Act at the time, not to remove asylum seekers to countries where there was no protection against removal to face harm.

In response, that Labor government went further. In July 2013, then led again by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, it declared that no asylum seekers arriving by boat in Australian waters would ever be permitted to settle in the country. That set a global precedent for a blanket ban on refugees. Asylum seekers were transported to primitive detention camps in Papua New Guinea—one of the world’s most impoverished countries. 

Such measures violate one of the most fundamental legal and democratic rights—the right to flee repression and seek asylum from persecution, without punishment or discrimination. The Refugee Convention formally enshrines these rights, together with core rights to freedom from arbitrary detention and other human rights abuses, the provision of essential health and education facilities, and access to the courts by refugees to challenge their treatment.

Legal and human rights groups’ representatives denounced the latest bill at Thursday’s Senate committee hearing. Josephine Langbien, associate legal director of the Human Rights Law Centre, for example, testified that the bill allowed people removed to be separated from their families “sending them to permanent exile in third countries against their will.”

In an earlier media statement, Langbien pointed out: “This will expand Australia’s disastrous offshore detention regime, under which people have died and suffered conditions amounting to torture.” She added: “Despite multiple High Court rulings, the government is intent on further punishing this small group of people—and potentially impacting thousands of others in the process.”

Despite such objections and widespread opposition throughout working-class immigrant communities, the Albanese government is escalating its nationalistic offensive, including by vowing to keep slashing the number of international students in the country.

This is being accompanied by a filthy propaganda campaign throughout the corporate media depicting formerly detained refugees as murderers and rapists, and blaming students and immigrant workers for the worsening affordable housing crisis.

Vulnerable members of society, including those brutalised by years in detention, are being vilified to impose authoritarian measures. This is setting precedents for use throughout the working class as a whole, as social conditions keep deteriorating and billions of dollars are poured into military spending amid the US-backed Gaza genocide and the lurch into wider war against Russia and China.

Haiti’s unelected prime minister ousted amid surging gang and state violence, increasing social misery

Félix Gauthier

Haiti’s interim prime minister was ousted last week by the Transitional Council—the government “oversight mechanism” that the US, Canada and various factions of the country’s bourgeois elite put together earlier this year to provide a fig leaf of “popular” legitimacy for the latest imperialist-sponsored military intervention in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country.

The Council’s sacking of Garry Conille came amid rampant gang and state violence and ever widening social misery.

Conille was sworn in as head of Haiti’s government last June just weeks before the international police-military “stabilization” force organized, financed and, to a large degree armed, by Washington, Ottawa and their allies began to deploy in Port-au-Prince, the country’s capital.

Six months on, the Kenyan-led “stabilization force” has failed to make any discernible progress in disarming the gangs that have overrun some 60 percent of Port-au-Prince and much of the country over the past year.

In a clear sign that the situation on the ground is spiraling out of control, the US Federal Aviation Administration has instituted a temporary ban on flights to Haiti, after gangs opened fire on commercial airlines on Monday, November 11. At least three planes were targeted by gunfire from below, including a Spirit Airlines plane that was about to land in Port-au-Prince, and departing JetBlue and American Airlines jets. A Spirit flight attendant was injured in the attack.

Police officers near the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Tuesday, November 12, 2024. [AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph]

The FAA decision also temporarily grounded United Nations humanitarian flights, restricting much needed supplies. UN flights were only permitted to resume on Wednesday, November 20.

The same day as the attack on Spirit Airlines also saw a widely reported attack by law enforcement officers and aligned vigilantes on Doctors Without Borders’ (MSF) operations in Port-au-Prince. Citing this incident, as well as a “series of threats” by local police, MSF announced the suspension of its activities in Haiti on Tuesday, further compounding Haiti’s isolation and privation from urgently needed humanitarian assistance.

According to the MSF, members of a vigilante group and law enforcement officers stopped their ambulance, which was transporting three young people with gunshot wounds. Police attempted to arrest the patients and when MSF personnel objected they escorted the ambulance to a public hospital, where law enforcement officers and vigilantes surrounded the vehicle, slashed its tires, and tear-gassed MSF staff. At least two of the wounded patients were then summarily executed.

The gruesome attack on defenceless patients and MSF ambulance personnel by the Haitian police highlights once more that the very forces supposed to fight the gangs are themselves the source of like violence and criminality.

Haiti’s government and state are mired in corruption and violence, widely unpopular, and have been operating outside constitutional bounds, without an elected parliament and president, since 2020. The Transitional Council is entirely subordinated to the interests of the North American and European imperialist powers and torn by bitter factional conflicts between the political representatives of rival capitalist cliques. The gangs have been able to flourish and wield effective control over much of the Haitian-half of the island of Hispaniola because they enjoy the patronage of, and are tied to leading elements within Haiti’s ruling class and its state.

In a continuation of the rapid succession of corrupt and unelected leaders installed at the behest of Washington and Ottawa, the Transitional Council fired interim Prime Minister Garry Conille, whose family had close ties to the US-backed three-decade long “Papa and Baby Doc” Duvalier dictatorship, on Nov 10. In his place it his named Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, a businessman and former president of Haiti’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who ran for the Senate in 2015. Not unlike the numerous pretenders to Haiti’s leadership before him, Fils-Aime has promised to work towards the holding of elections, which have not taken place in Haiti since 2016. At that time, the Obama administration and the Trudeau government intervened and manipulated the process to ensure the election of Jovenel Moïse, the protégé of the outgoing right-wing president, Michel Martelly.

Ex-Haiti Prime Minister Garry Conille, speaks during a joint press conference with Kenya's President William Ruto at State House in Nairobi, Kenya, Friday, October 11, 2024. [AP Photo/Brian Inganga]

The Transitional Council’s ouster of Conille came after it had attempted to change the heads of several ministries in defiance of his advice. The governmental reshuffling is occurring only six months after Conille replaced his disgraced predecessor, Ariel Henry, whom the US coerced into stepping down, without even the pretense of legal or democratic processes, by preventing his return to Haiti. Conille, for his part, has denounced his own dismissal as “tainted by illegality.”

The Council, established in April to restore “democratic order,” is constantly facing internecine conflicts and corruption accusations, as competing sections of Haiti’s bourgeoisie vie for the relatively little wealth and power accorded to them by their imperialist sponsors.

The social and political crisis roiling Haiti is among the most severe anywhere, and the direct consequence of brutal imperialist oppression, including more than a century of US military interventions and regime change operations dating back to the 1915-34 occupation of the country by US Marines.

The country has never recovered from the IMF restructuring programs imposed over the last three decades and a devastating 2010 earthquake.

Despite a crying need for humanitarian aid, international “assistance” over the past year has been primarily focused on providing troops and equipment to establish “order” and buttress the ability of the barely functioning state to exercise a monopoly on organized violence.

Much of the population—and especially the more than 700,000 people who have been internally displaced—lack access to sufficient food and other necessities.

None of this concerns the ruling classes of the United States, France, or Canada.

In a rare display of honesty caught on video, French President Emmanuel Macron summed up what imperialist leaders really think about the Haitian people. Recorded on the margins of the G20 this week, the video shows Macron arguing with a bystander in public, as he denounces the Transitional Council’s move to replace Conille. After underlining that he had supported Conille, Macron describes the latter’s Haitian opponents as “total morons,” and goes on to blame the Haitian population itself for the crisis in which their country is mired: “Quite frankly, it was the Haitians who killed Haiti.”

Macron’s remarks are an outrageous and brazen lie coming from the president of the state which is one of the prime culprits in the plunder and oppression of the Haitian people. Apart from the arrogance, condescension, and contempt for its subjects typically exhibited by imperialist leaders, Macron’s unhinged remarks reveal something else: A growing impatience and anxiety, bound up with the potential consequences of continued and worsening political instability in Haiti, and the Caribbean region more broadly.

The past few months have already seen mass unrest over the cost of living in the French territories of Guadeloupe and the nearby island of Martinique. In Guadeloupe, striking workers who seized control of the territory’s power station caused days of power outages. This has been met with repressive measures by French authorities, including days-long curfews. The instability within Haiti, as well as the mass exodus of its population, is seen as potential fuel to the fire of rapidly developing class struggles, not just in the Caribbean, but also in North America.

In September this year, the UN Security Council reauthorized the present “international security force” deployment to Haiti. Currently it is led by a few hundred Kenyan Special Forces police, who are notorious for the brutality they have employed in repressing protests in Nairobi. While they have been deployed since this summer, they have completely failed to curb the gang violence, or for that matter the terroristic violence carried out by the Haitian police, whose operations they are mandated to assist.

According to a UN report published last month, there was a surge in killings and police executions in Haiti between July and September 2024. During that period, more than 1,740 people were killed or injured, a nearly 30% increase from the previous trimester. This included at least 106 extrajudicial killings that were carried out by law enforcement officials. Among those summarily executed were six children as young as 10 years old accused of collaborating with gangs.

Residents flee their homes to escape gang and police violence in the Nazon neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, November 14, 2024. [AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph]

The decision of the North American imperialist powers to delegate the task of imposing “order” in Haiti to Kenya and other African and CARICOM nations, rather than deploying their own forces, partly reflects the fact that the United States and Canada have prioritized their military resources for arming Ukraine and preparing for direct military confrontation with Russia and China.

They are also acutely aware of the deep-seated hostility of the Haitian population toward imperialism and fear the impact at home of both having to suppress anti-imperialist protests, as well as being caught in a costly military conflict with well-armed gangs.

In regard to the crisis now consuming Haiti, the principal concern of US and Canadian imperialism is to prevent it further destabilizing the Caribbean region, which they view as their “backyard,” and provoking an exodus of impoverished refugees.

Those Haitians attempting to flee what increasingly resembles a nightmarish open air prison are met with political persecution and social hardship wherever they attempt to seek refuge, from the Dominican Republic to overseas in Canada or the United States.

In the United States, President-elect Donald Trump placed incitement against immigrants, and Haitian refugees in particular, at the centre of his campaign. Fanning the flames of racism and xenophobia, Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, assisted among others by the fascist billionaire Elon Musk and his ownership of Twitter, scurrilously denounced Haitian refugees in Springfield, Ohio, for hunting and eating Americans’ pet cats and dogs.

Tens of thousands of Haitians are currently allowed to live and work in the United States under the Temporary Protected Status program. Many were granted this status in the wake of the devastating 2010 earthquake, which killed hundreds of thousands, and displaced millions.

Trump is expected to revoke this temporary legal status and implement measures and deport all these Haitian refugees from the very first days of his presidency, as part of his plans to mount a police-military witch hunt against so-called “illegal” immigrants.

The Democratic Party not only hasn’t done anything to counter this anti-immigrant campaign, the Biden-Harris administration has implemented its own anti-immigrant policies, including increased deportations and border closures. The same goes for the Canadian Liberal government of Justin Trudeau. It recently announced a drastic tightening of immigration restrictions, entirely adapting and lending credibility to the Canadian version of the same anti-immigrant discourse promoted south of the border. Moreover, Immigration Minister Marc Miller has vowed that Canada will not provide an “open door” to those under threat of expulsion by Trump from the US and will work closely with his administration to provide border “security.”

Bolsonaro and top generals indicted for January 8 coup in Brazil

Guilherme Ferreira & Tomas Castanheira

Brazil’s Federal Police (PF) indicted fascistic former president Jair Bolsonaro and 36 other members of his government on Thursday, November 21, for the crimes of violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, coup d’état, and criminal organization for the attempted coup of January 8, 2023.

Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro and commanders of the Armed Forces, Admiral Almir Garnier Santos, Army General Paulo Sergio Nogueira and Air Brigadier Lieutenant Carlos de Almeida Baptista Junior. [Photo: Marcos Corrês/PR]

The nearly 900-page PF report has been sent to the minister in charge of the case at the Federal Supreme Court (STF), Alexandre de Moraes, and remains confidential. It will be sent in the next few days to the Attorney General, Paulo Gonet, who is expected to file charges against those indicted next year.

The PF revelations come 60 years after the US-backed 1964 military coup which inaugurated a bloody 21-year regime that Bolsonaro and his military entourage vindicate. They show that Brazil was close to a new coup and the establishment of a dictatorship after Bolsonaro’s electoral defeat by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers Party - PT) at the end of 2022.

Military personnel were heavily involved in the coup plot. Of the 37 indicted by the PF, 25 were active or reserve military personnel, including Bolsonaro, a former army captain, seven colonels, six lieutenant colonels, eight army generals, and the former commander of the Navy in the Bolsonaro government, Adm. Almir Garnier Santos.

The military officers indicted include Gen. Walter Braga Netto, former Defense Minister and Bolsonaro’s vice-presidential candidate in 2022; Gen. Augusto Heleno, former chief of the Institutional Security Office (GSI), Brazil’s national security and intelligence agency; Gen. Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira, former Defense Minister and previously Army Commander; and Lt. Col. Mauro Cid, Bolsonaro’s former aide-de-camp who last year entered a plea bargain with the Federal Police.

Among the civilians indicted are the president of Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party (PL), Valdemar Costa Neto, and the former Minister of Justice of the Bolsonaro government, Anderson Torres, with whom the Federal Police found the first “coup minutes” in January 2023. Torres was the Secretary of Public Security of the Federal District on the day of the attempted coup and was arrested shortly after for omission and connivance in the attack by the fascist mob on the headquarters of the Three Powers on January 8, 2023.

The Federal Police also indicted journalist Paulo Figueiredo, grandson of the last president of the military dictatorship in Brazil, and Filipe Martins, the Bolsonaro government’s former special advisor for international affairs. Along with one of Bolsonaro’s sons, Eduardo, who was in the US during the attempted coup on January 6, 2021, and for Donald Trump’s election this year. Figueiredo and Martins have close ties to the fascist layers linked to President-elect Trump in the US.

The PF report indicting the former president and members of his fascist entourage was sent to the Supreme Court two days after the launch of “Operation Countercoup,” which revealed the existence of an advanced plan to assassinate President Lula, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and Minister Moraes. Four Army officers and a federal police officer were preventively arrested on Tuesday as part of the operation.

The information released by “Operation Countercoup” added a new sinister layer of facts to the already abundant evidence of the conspiracy of the former president and a substantial sector of the military high command to carry out a coup d’état and establish a fascist dictatorship in Brazil.

The operation was launched after the PF recovered documents deleted from Lt. Col. Mauro Cid’s electronic devices, which were added to other data retrieved from a group of Special Forces (FE) military personnel, known as the “Black Kids.”

The most prominent among the active military officers arrested this week, reserve general Mario Fernandes, former executive secretary of the General Secretariat of the Presidency in the Bolsonaro government, was identified as one of the main architects of the plan to assassinate Lula, Alckmin, and Moraes.

The assassination plan and its methods, which included the possibility of shootings, the use of explosive devices, or poisoning, are openly described in the document entitled “Green and Yellow Dagger,” which the PF found to be authored by Fernandes and to have been printed by him inside the Planalto presidential palace for the first time on November 9, 2022. According to the PF, the plan was presented to and approved by General Braga Netto in a meeting at his own home on November 12, 2022.

Much of the document that supported “Operation Countercoup” describes an aborted attempt to carry out the plan to assassinate Moraes on December 15, 2022, two days after Lula’s inauguration ceremony. The PF report concludes that the assassination would serve as a trigger for the establishment of an “Institutional Crisis Management Office,” on December 16, 2022, after the coup d’état, composed mostly of military personnel, under the command of Generals Augusto Heleno and Braga Netto, with the participation of Gen. Mario Fernandes and Filipe Martins.”

General Fernandes was also one of the people who orchestrated the support of the Army’s high command for the coup plan. According to the PF’s official document on “Operation Countercoup,” Fernandes wrote on November 4, 2022 to Gen. Luiz Eduardo Ramos, former Minister-Chief of the General Secretariat of the Bolsonaro government:

You have to force the High Command, man. With General Freire Gomes [then commander of the Army], with General Paulo Sérgio, damn it ... It’s obvious that there was fraud [in the elections], damn it. .... And another thing, even if it’s just to spread the word and get the masses excited. So that they stay in the streets and then, yes, maybe that’s what the High Command, what the Defense wants. The popular outcry, like it was in [19]64. Because as you said, a good part of the High Command, at least in the Army, isn’t very willing, right? Or they won’t start the intervention, unless, well, the start is made by society. Come on, general, reinforce that. I’m doing my job with the Brigade [of Special Forces] and the division personnel [generals] from my class [from 1986, from Agulhas Negras, Brazil’s military academy].

One of the most important documents revealed by the PF, seized from Lt. Col. Hélio Ferreira Lima, is described by investigators as “a detailed spreadsheet that condenses information about the strategic planning of the coup d’état.”

The document presents a plan with detailed steps, starting with the annulment of the democratic elections based on a fabricated accusation of electoral fraud. The next steps involved the issuance of “arrest warrants against those involved in ... irregularities in the electoral process” and the neutralizing of opponents in command of the powers of State; the establishment of a new regime based on a presidential decree by Bolsonaro and its sanctioning by Congress (controlled by his allies); and the launching of a massive information campaign to legitimize the coup domestically and internationally.

The document presents as “critical requirements” for the transfer of power to the new dictatorial regime the creation of a “central crisis office” and the “preparation of a robust legal framework in coordination with the STM [Supreme Military Court] ... to establish a decree that supports military actions.”

Bolsonaro actively participated in this entire plan. According to the Federal Police, it was introduced to Bolsonaro by Filipe Martins, and Bolsonaro later discussed the plan with the heads of the Armed Forces. In a statement to the Federal Police in March of this year, the then commanders of the Army, General Freire Gomes, and of the Air Force, Brig. Baptista Júnior, confirmed that Bolsonaro discussed the plan with them. Also present at the meeting was the former commander of the Navy, Admiral Garnier Santos, who is said to have agreed to the coup and is the only one indicted by the Federal Police.

The Superior Electoral Court (TSE) last year declared Bolsonaro ineligible to run for office until 2030 due to his unfounded attacks on Brazil’s electronic voting system that paved the way for an attempted coup. This year Bolsonaro had already been indicted by the Federal Police for the illegal sale of jewelry abroad and the forgery of COVID-19 vaccination cards. Both indictments are also linked to the attempted coup.

Bolsonaro and his political circle responded to the latest indictment by attacking Minister Moraes. In an interview yesterday with the Metrópole website, Bolsonaro said that Moraes “conducts the entire investigation, adjusts statements, arrests without charges, fishes for evidence, and has a very creative advisory team. He does everything that the law does not allow.”

The indictment of Bolsonaro and high-ranking military officials far from signals an end to the greatest crisis of Brazilian democracy since the end of the military dictatorship in 1985. The origin of this crisis lies in the enormous crisis of the world capitalist system that is normalizing the threat of nuclear world war and the broad shift of the world’s ruling elite towards authoritarian forms of government, with explosive consequences for Brazil, one of the most unequal countries on the planet.

Harvesters Africa Empowerment Foundation (HAEF) Scholarship 2025

Application Deadline:

The application deadline for the Harvesters Africa Empowerment Foundation (HAEF)  Scholarship 2025 is November 25, 2024.

Tell Me About The Harvesters Africa Empowerment Foundation Scholarship:

The Harvester’s Scholarship Fund provides financial support to undergraduate students across universities in Africa. The scholarship helps cover tuition, books, room, board, and other educational expenses. Additionally, the program includes access to the Harvesters Hub, a cross-sector space designed for small and medium business owners in Africa. The Hub fosters collaboration among members, enabling them to share skills and business experiences, helping each other navigate challenges and ensuring mutual success.

Which Fields are Eligible;

All fields 

Type:

Scholarship 

Who can Apply For The Harvesters Africa Empowerment Foundation Scholarship;

Also, the eligibility criteria include:

• You must be between the ages of 18-28 years
• Must be an undergraduate student studying in an accredited public University in Nigeria
• Must be studying an accredited course
• Must have a CGPA of not less than 3.0/5 or equivalent

Which Countries Are Eligible;

African countries

Where will the Award be Taken;

Africa 

How Many Awards;

Not specified

What is the Benefit of the Award;

Also, the benefits include:

• Financial support for tuition, books, room, board, and other educational expenses.
• Access to the Harvesters Hub, a collaborative space for small and medium business owners in Africa.
• Opportunity to connect with other entrepreneurs to share skills, experiences, and resources.

How to Apply:

To begin your application, fill out the form.

European Central Bank points to return of sovereign debt crisis

Nick Beams

The European Central Bank (ECB) has issued a warning that the euro zone could again be engulfed in a sovereign debt crisis, as took place in 2012, because of low growth and financial vulnerabilities.

President of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, at a press conference after an ECB governing council meeting in Frankfurt, Germany on January 25, 2024. [AP Photo/Michael Probst]

The crisis of 2012 was averted when the then ECB president Mario Draghi said he would do “whatever it takes” to save the European financial system and the single currency. But under conditions where the contradictions of the European and global capitalist economy have intensified since then, guarantees by the central bank will no longer be sufficient.

The warning of a new crisis was set out in the ECB’s annual Financial Stability Review published on Wednesday. It pointed to the potential return of “market concerns over sovereign debt sustainability” under conditions of a worsening international environment marked by geopolitical uncertainty.

“Cyclical headwinds for euro area growth are compounding structural issues of low productivity and weak potential for growth across the euro area economy,” it said.

On Monday, clearly basing herself on the review released two days later, ECB president Christine Lagarde delivered a speech in Paris that made clear the response of the European ruling classes to the worsening economic situation would be a deepening assault on the working class.

She said that unless there was an increase in productivity, the euro bloc risked facing “a future of lower tax revenues and higher debt ratios,” which would mean “fewer resources for social spending.”

In fact, the offensive is already under way as major manufacturing companies, particularly in the auto industry, now embroiled in a global war for markets and profits, initiate plant closures and massive job destruction.

The European political establishment has been shaken by the return of Trump to the US presidency and what his threats of tariffs hikes and trade war will mean for the economy.

Lagarde did not directly address the issue of US tariffs but emphasised that the “geopolitical landscape” was “fragmenting into rival blocs, where attitudes towards free trade are being called into question.”

Europe was particularly exposed to the effects of trade war because it was “more open than others,” with trade accounting for more than half of the continent’s economic output.

The problems were compounded by the lag in technological development with Europe specialising in technologies developed in the last century and falling behind in the technologies of the future. Lagarde noted that “only four of the world’s top 50 tech companies are European.”

Europe, she continued, needed to “adapt quickly to a changing geopolitical environment and regain lost ground in competitiveness and innovation.”

Under the capitalist mode of production, where economic “health” is not determined by the well-being of the population but by the bottom line, regaining “lost ground” invariably means intensified exploitation of the working class, using technology, and other means, to boost profits combined with an attack on its social conditions.

The ECB review devoted considerable space to underlining the mounting financial vulnerabilities which have grown markedly since the crisis of more than a decade ago and how what might seem to be relatively small events can have large consequences.

It cited as an example the global turbulence in July when a lower-than-expected increase in US job numbers and a tightening of Japanese monetary policy indicated “greater sensitivity to macroeconomic data surprises, raising the potential for heightened volatility going forward.”

The review pointed to a number of sources for risks to financial stability, citing what it called “stretched valuations in equity and corporate bond markets,” that is elevated market pricing of financial assets boosted by speculation. These risks could be “amplified by non-bank liquidity and leverage vulnerability.”

In other words, confronted with turbulence in the markets, when there is a “dash for cash,” financial firms engaged in speculative trading could suddenly discover their financial assets are not worth what they thought they were, they do not have enough money on hand and that their credit lines were not as secure as they had believed.

And the problems extend beyond financial firms to governments.

The review warned that “heightened policy and geopolitical uncertainty, weak fiscal fundamentals and sluggish trend growth raise concerns about the sustainability of sovereign debt in some euro area countries.”

Another problem area was “credit risk concerns” in some areas of the corporate and household sectors which “may lead to asset quality concerns for banks and non-banks.”

Elaborating on the dangers confronting governments, it referred to the breakdown of all the political mechanisms of the post-war period which has seen the growth in support for right-wing populist and even outright fascist forces.

Using the anodyne language of such reports, it said political fragmentation over the past three decades had “made it more challenging to form stable government conditions” leading to delays in “reaching agreement on key fiscal and structural reforms” [code words for attacks on social services spending].

Furthermore, geopolitical uncertainty could be “particularly challenging for countries where public debt levels are high, given their limited fiscal space to support the economy in the event of adverse shocks.”

Interest rates had started to come down, but this did not imply an easing of debt problems because, as the review noted, “sovereign debt service costs are expected to rise in the future as maturing debt is rolled over at higher interest rates than on outstanding debt.”

While the ECB did not directly state that social spending must be cut, it called for “greater discipline” on current spending to make space for increased expenditure on defence and the “structural challenges” of climate change.

The ECB warned that high funding costs and weak economic growth would continue to affect corporate balance sheets, especially of commercial real estate and small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

“The debt servicing capacity of SMEs appears to be particularly vulnerable to a slowdown in economic activity and higher borrowing costs,” it said.

Ukraine prepares to end transit of Russian natural gas

Jason Melanovski

Ukraine is preparing to completely end the transit of Russian natural gas to Europe as of January 1, 2025. A previous agreement that had allowed for the movement of the energy resource, albeit at a drastically reduced volume, through Ukraine’s pipelines is coming to an end.

Gas burns in front of a business center damaged by a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Sunday, September 1 2024. [AP Photo/Yevhen Titov]

According to Energynews, Russian gas flows to Europe via its western neighbor had already dropped “from 117 billion cubic meters in 2008 to just 14.65 billion in 2023, underscoring the decline of this historical corridor.”

Currently, the only active metering station of Russian gas to Ukrainian pipelines, which is located in Sudzha on Moscow’s side of the border, was taken by Kiev’s forces during Zelensky’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region in August. On November 10, Spain’s El Pais reported that Ukraine’s military is prioritizing holding onto the territory, where it stationed two of its “best regiments,” the 95th and 80th airborne assault brigades. They are outfitted with the high-tech equipment, including German Leopard and American Abrams tanks.

Meanwhile, Russian forces are continuing to advance in the Donbass region, where the Ukrainian military is facing manpower and ammunition shortages, and also working to dislodge Zelensky’s military from Kursk.

Whatever the outcome at the Sudzha metering station, the official end of the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine to Europe underlines the fact that the war is part of a metastasizing global conflict. One of the goals of the US—to weaken Russia as a major energy supplier to European markets through the complete decoupling of its infrastructure from Ukraine—poses dangers to Europe and threatens the eruption of open conflict within the trans-Atlantic alliance.

As a result of the ending of the gas deal, Russia stands to lose $6.5 billion unless it can redirect its exports to other markets. Ukraine could see .5 percent of its GDP shaved off by totally ending its role as a transit route.

The European think-tank Bruegel also noted recently that the end of the contract would open Ukrainian pipelines to targeting by Moscow’s forces. They have thus far been left undamaged due to the flow of Russian gas through them. Much of Ukraine’s electrical and power infrastructure has been crippled by the war. Last week, Zelensky’s government announced that it was imposing rolling blackouts throughout the country as winter approaches, in order to preserve what remains of the country’s power grid.

Russia has offered to continue sending natural gas to Europe through Ukraine, provided a separate agreement is negotiated between Kiev and the destination countries. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told reporters on November 6 in Sochi, “Of course, in my opinion, the European countries that currently receive gas through this corridor are interested in continuing such cooperation.

“We are ready to supply (gas), but not much depends on us, so probably this should be negotiated directly between the users and the country through which the transit is provided,” Novak explained.

Earlier in October, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal ruled out an extension of the current gas transit agreement during a meeting with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico in Western Ukraine. “Ukraine once again says it will not continue the transit agreement with Russia after it expires,” Shmyhal told reporters, adding, “Ukraine’s strategic goal is to deprive the Kremlin of profits from the sale of hydrocarbons which the aggressor uses to finance the war.”

Despite the overall reduction in Russian gas to Europe since the start of the war, in 2023 shipments via the Ukrainian transit route met 65 percent of demand in Austria, Hungary and Slovakia, according to the European think tank, Bruegel. All of these countries’ supplies are now at risk, as events last week made clear.

This past Friday, Russia informed Austria that it was suspending its gas deliveries the following day, a move for which Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer claimed it was fully prepared for. “No home will go cold ... gas storage facilities are sufficiently full,” he told reporters.

Hungary no longer gets significant natural gas from Ukraine, having switched to receiving deliveries from Russia via the TurkStream pipeline that runs along the bed of the Black Sea. Slovakia continues to be dependent on Russian gas sent via Ukraine.

The EU, which has been publicly dismissive of any possible continuation of the Ukraine-Russia gas transit deal, is continuing to maintain this stance following the news of the shutoff to Austria.

Speaking with Reuters at a UN climate conference in Azerbaijan, EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson told reporters that “all EU countries receiving gas via the Ukraine route have access to other supply sources that could fill the gap. ... We have been very clear that an alternative supply is available, and there is no need for the continuation of Russian gas transiting via Ukraine to Europe.”

Regardless of the European powers’ efforts to project an image of confidence, underlying the situation are growing tensions with the United States, which has worked to ensure that Europe is ever-more dependent of American energy supplies. In September 2022, Kiev, with the aid of Washington, blew up the Nordstream 1 and 2 pipelines, which carried gas from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea.

In 2018, President Donald Trump, who will return to office next January, publicly attacked Germany at a NATO meeting in Brussels. “Germany is totally controlled by Russia,” he said. “They will be getting between 60 and 70 percent of their energy from Russia and a new pipeline.”

The decoupling of Russian gas from Europe became a fundamental goal of the Trump administration, which sought to increase the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG). When Trump was first in office, the US was a relatively minor player in the global LNG industry but now occupies a leading role in the European market.

As the Financial Times reported last Monday, “As the EU faced dwindling pipeline gas supplies from Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the bloc stepped up imports of LNG from around the world to make up for the shortfall. The US was the primary supplier of LNG, and now accounts for about 40 percent of the EU’s import of the super-chilled fuel, according to Kpler, a commodity data group.”

While Russian LNG is a major part of EU energy imports, second only to the US, on November 8 European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed replacing Russian LNG with US LNG during a phone conversation with Trump. “We are still receiving a lot of LNG from Russia. And why not replace it with American LNG, which is cheaper and lowers our energy prices,” Von der Leyen said, according to Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is reportedly in talks with Azerbaijan and the EU over substituting the Russian gas currently flowing through its pipelines with Azeri gas, which in reality would simply be Russian gas rebranded as Azeri. According to the Kyiv Independent, Azerbaijan supplied Europe with around 12 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas last year. Brussels’ and Baku’s goal is to ramp this up to 20 bcm annually by 2030.

However, questions remain on the ability of Azerbaijan to deliver the necessary quantities. As a result, conflicts are emerging within Europe about the viability of accepting the complete cut-off of Russian supplies. Some appear to be leaving the door open on another deal to keep Russian gas flowing, despite EU officials’ statements to the contrary.

Montel News reported on Monday about the potential of a new gas deal with Moscow. “A source close to a large central European energy firm remains convinced stakeholders will bash out a deal at the last minute,” a source told the press outlet.

“The draft of that deal is already in the cupboards with the Russians,” the person stated. “The delivery point for that deal will not be the Ukrainian-Slovak or Ukrainian-Hungarian border, but will move 2,000km to the east.”

The plan would be for an EU company to accept delivery of the gas at the Russia-Ukraine border and pay Ukraine directly for use of its pipeline. “The challenge is how to dress it up in such a way that the deal would be sold to the Ukrainian public, the EU and to Russia, so everybody at the end of the day will claim victory,” the individual told Montel News.

Berlin Senate prepares widescale social and cultural cutbacks

Markus Salzmann

The last few years in Germany have been marked by drastic austerity measures with funding diverted to finance a massive military build-up. The collapse of the German coalition government will further exacerbate this development. The Berlin state government (Senate), a coalition of the CDU and SPD, is already anticipating the budget cuts to be implemented at a federal level.

Senators in the Berlin House of Representatives [Photo by Sandro Halank / CC BY-SA 4.0]

The Berlin Senate wants to save three billion euros next year alone. Cuts of at least another 1.8 billion euros are planned for the years 2026 and 2027. To this end, the CDU and SPD have agreed on a fiscal policy freeze, with all budget items to be frozen at the 2025 level. Currently, the city’s total budget is around 40 billion euros.

In September, the Senate administrations were instructed to stop making firm funding commitments for 2025. To this end, a “circular letter to secure the 2025 budget” was sent out to all departments, Finance Senator Stefan Evers (CDU) explained. The aim was “not to raise false expectations among recipients of grants and subsidies for the coming year, for example,” according to the finance administration.

Former state governments, which were led by the SPD for 22 years and included coalitions involving the Left Party and the Greens, had already made massive cuts in the areas of health, education and social services, making Berlin a centre for widespread poverty.

The drastic nature of the planned cuts is made clear by the statement of a spokeswoman for the finance ministry, who explained: “We have to reduce government spending to a normal, sustainable level after the spending explosion of the last five years.”

The state government had already decided on significant cuts for the current year with each department called upon to reduce its budget by around two percent, saving around 550 million euros.

In the Berlin Senate, there is talk of “the most severe budget crisis since the bank scandal.” In 2001, the billions in losses incurred by the state supported Bankgesellschaft Berlin were passed on to the population through brutal austerity measures implemented by the Senate (a coalition of the SPD and the Left Party/PDS) headed by Klaus Wowereit (SPD). Today, much more far-reaching cuts are on the agenda under even more stringent conditions.

The Senate is currently deciding on the specific cuts behind closed doors and they will not be made public until the end of November. Little has been revealed so far. What is certain, however, is that almost all areas will be affected by the cuts.

There are to be massive savings in the sector of education and child care. Berlin schools are already no longer allowed to book school trips. Senator for Education Katharina Günther-Wünsch (CDU) justified this by saying that it was necessary to stabilise the budget. Here, both the costs for the teachers involved are to be saved, as are subsidies for poor families. Around 30 percent of pupils from poorer families were until recently entitled to these subsidies. Other costs for business trips and trips for teachers are also to be cancelled.

Further savings are planned for the renovation of schools and daycare centres, which are in a dilapidated state across the board. New buildings could be smaller than planned. According to press reports, the additional construction of urgently needed daycare centres could be cancelled.

The twelve Berlin music schools are particularly affected. The permanent employment of 1,800 teachers, which is laid down by law, has been delayed for months. Finance Senator Evers has stated that funds would only be made available if they were financed by reducing the services offered by the music schools. As a result, about 25 to 30 percent of music students would lose their places. Around 18,000 students would be affected.

Severe cuts are also expected in the areas of health and social services. Around 40 health care institutions and similar independent organisations have already submitted a document to the Senate, as they justifiably fear for their continued funding and survival.

The majority of them provide important services on behalf of the state, such as pastoral care, hospice work, support for people with chronic illnesses or care for people without health insurance. As a rule, these organisations are completely dependent on funding from the state.

For many years and decades, these services have been hopelessly underfunded and it is not uncommon for them to be maintained only through the commitment of employees. But the planned austerity measures threaten to be devastating.

“Even now, public funds for health care for homeless and homeless people and people without health insurance in Berlin are insufficient,” said Peter Bobbert, President of the Berlin Medical Association, warning against destroying the city’s social infrastructure.

The CDU and SPD are also planning severe cuts in the cultural sector. Senator for Culture Joe Chialo (CDU) has so far refused to comment on how much will be saved and where. Overall, the targeted cuts amount to a volume of around 120 million euros.

There are already fierce protests against the planned cuts. In an open letter to the Berlin Senate, the signatories warn of the consequences of drastic cuts. Opera, concert and theatre institutions would have to cut back their operations and reduce jobs, and some would probably have to close. Among the well-known signatories are conductor Daniel Barenboim, actor Lars Eidinger and theatre director Frank Castorf.

The fact that a scenario of well-known concert houses closing is not out of the question was confirmed by the governing mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) as early as the summer of this year. In connection with a possible sale of the Komische Oper, Wegner stated that the situation of the state budget “allows no room for manoeuvre.” Currently, the renovation of the building, which has been urgent for years, is being postponed again with reference to the alleged necessary savings.

Further cuts are also expected in the area of climate protection, although the city has hardly any significant expenditure here. At the beginning of the year, the so-called climate special fund, which had previously been announced with great fanfare, was scrapped at the instigation of the tax authorities. Now measures such as the planned installation of solar panels on state-owned buildings will also fall victim to the red pencil.

This devastation of the city’s social fabric can only be enforced against the resistance of the population. It is therefore considered certain there will be no cuts affecting the police, secret service and security apparatuses. Interior Senator Iris Spranger (SPD) has spoken out clearly against any savings in this area and has been supported by the entire Senate.