Office workers killed in building fires in Bangladesh

Rohantha De Silva

Major fires continue to hit Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, one of the most densely populated cities in the world. Late last week 26 office workers were killed and at least 70 others were injured in a fire at FR Tower, a 23-storey building in an upmarket commercial district of the city. Two days later another fire razed to the ground about 300 small shops in a market district in the city’s north.

The flames in the FR Tower [photo credit: Twitter user @iamkanizliza]

This week three more fires were reported in Dhaka. On Wednesday night blazes occurred at the Salauddin Specialised Hospital at Wari and the Tropical Tower at Paltan, both in the city’s south, and early on Thursday morning a fire gutted 25 small shops in a row of 1,300. Although no casualties were reported, poor building standards and fire safety, along with inadequate emergency services, have made the city a death trap for its residents.

Successive Bangladeshi governments have claimed they will crack down on safety and building-code violations, without any real changes being implemented because planning, construction and safety regulations are all subordinated to the drive for profit.

The FR Tower blaze occurred on March 28. Nineteen bodies were found inside the building and several other people died attempting to escape from the multi-storey building using computer leads and other cables as ropes.

The fire was only brought under control after four hours by 22 firefighting units, backed by army, navy and air force personnel and equipment. Air force helicopters were used to drop water on the building. As is common in most Dhaka buildings, there were no water sprinklers installed in the multi-storey building.

Dhaka Fire Department spokesperson Shajahan Sikder told the BBC that there was a lack of fire safety equipment inside the building and that fire escapes on a number of floors were locked. With no proper exits, victims were seen shouting for help from windows.

The FR Tower, which was built before 2006, did not have a single fire-protected staircase and the main staircase was filled with choking smoke. Office workers able to reach the top of the building were rescued by air force helicopters. According to news reports, the Bangladesh fire department had sent two letters in the last two years highlighting the dangerous lack of safety in the building.

S.M.H.I. Faruque, who owned the land on which the FR Tower was located, and Tasvir Ul Islam, one of the owners of the illegally constructed top floors of the building, were arrested on March 30 and were to be held for seven days for questioning.

Abdul Beaten, a police official, accused the two men of being responsible for “deaths of many through negligence and indifference.” He said that they treated the FR Tower as a “money-making factory.” Such statements are designed to stem public outrage over disasters, but invariably no action is taken to prevent them in the future.

Authorities knew the multi-storey block was unsafe. The tower building, in fact, was supposed to be just 18-storeys high but was illegally extended to 23 floors.

FR Tower’s faulty construction, illegal extension, lack of emergency exits, insufficient smoke detectors and absence of firefighting equipment is typical of most buildings in Dhaka.

The Awami League-led government’s response to the FR Tower blaze was completely cynical. As with previous tragedies, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced various cosmetic measures, including increased building inspections by fire-fighting services.

Two days after the FR Tower blaze, on March 30, fire gutted hundreds of small shops at the Gulshan DNCC Market. Two years ago, in 2017, another fire destroyed the busy market place, forcing traders to take out expensive loans to rebuild their shops. Yet, no serious safety measures were implemented.

One fire victim, Jahirul Islam, told media: “I recently took out a loan of 500,000 taka (about $US6,000) and stocked new products in the shop. Everything I worked for was turned into ashes today.

The government has offered a pittance of 10,000 taka to each affected trader and 20 kilograms of rice to impacted market labourers.

Hundreds of residents have been killed in Dhaka and other Bangladesh cities by building fires in recent years. So frequent are these disasters that the Daily Star anxiously headlined its lead story on March 29 as “The City That Burns.”

Earlier this year, on February 21 , 78 people were killed by a massive chemical fire and explosion in the city , and nine others died in a fire in a slum in the coastal city Chittagong.

On March 2, a fire broke out in Churihatta in Chowk bazaar in a scrap metal shop. A gas cylinder exploded, leaving three workers with burns to 30 percent of their bodies. On the same day, 50 homes in a slum were incinerated by a fire which began in a pile of rubber.

Three days later, a fire broke out in a tyre warehouse in old Dhaka’s Nawabpur area, and followed by a fire in a slum in Nakhaopara which needed eight units to bring it under control.

On March 11, more than 50 shops were destroyed in a fire at a market in Moheshkhali Upazila, Cox’s Bazar.

The worst factory fire in the country’s history occurred in 2012 when the eight-storey Tazreen garment factory on the outskirts of Dhaka was gutted by a devastating blaze. At least 117 workers were confirmed dead and over 200 were injured.

While this list is long, the Daily Star noted that only 1 percent of fires are ever reported in the media. In fact, according to Fire Department statistics, an average of 43 fires requiring firefighters has occurred every single day over the last three years.

Dhaka city is sitting on a time bomb. A survey by the Fire Service and Civil Defence headquarters in 2017 revealed how vulnerable the city is to fire.

The survey investigated basic fire-safety measures including: Does the building have firefighting equipment? Is it heavily populated? Does it have emergency exits? Have practice evacuation drills been established? Is there any chance of an electrical fire? Is there an underground water reservoir?

The overwhelming majority of 3,786 establishments surveyed were regarded as highly dangerous. Only 129 buildings were classified not as “Risky” or Extremely Risky.”

Major AKM Shakil Newaz, Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defence Headquarters operations director, said that the survey included schools, colleges, universities, hotels, banks, hospitals, media houses and shopping markets in Dhaka city and that the results were “frightening.”

A key factor in the lack of basic building safety is that the Bangladesh National Building Code (BNBC) only came into effect in 2006. All the buildings constructed prior to that year have no real fire protection.

While successive Awami League and Bangladesh National Party (BNP) governments are politically responsible for lack of fire safety, the real cause of these tragedies lies in the capitalist system and the drive for profit by local and foreign investors at the expense of the health and lives of workers.

America the Barbaric

Niles Niemuth

Rapes, murders, beatings, stabbings, mutilations and arson are rampant. Pleas for help, scrawled in blood, stain the walls from prisoners held in solitary confinement. Fifteen suicides have been recorded in the last 15 months.

This is not the description of a torture chamber in el-Sisi’s Egypt or Bin Salman’s Saudi Arabia. Nor is it about the abuse of detainees at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay or a CIA black site.

These are the nightmare conditions in the Alabama state-run prison system, described in a Justice Department report released this week. They constitute a gross violation of the US Constitution’s Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

More than 2,000 photos of abuse in one Alabama prison given to the media by the Southern Poverty Law Center in advance of the report’s release depict the gruesome reality of the conditions detailed in hundreds of interviews with prisoners and their families conducted by federal investigators over more than two years.

While particularly horrific, such conditions are by no means unique. They are repeated in different forms in the prisons of every state, county and city across the United States. More than 2.3 million people are packed like cattle into America’s overflowing system of state and federal prisons, local jails and immigration detention camps. Including those on probation or parole, nearly seven million Americans are caught up in what is absurdly called the “criminal justice system.”

The US accounts for more than one-quarter of the world’s incarcerated population. For every 100,000 residents, there are 698 people in detention. More than 540,000 of those held in jail on any given day have not been convicted of any crime. Many are kept in detention simply because they are too poor pay to pay the median bail of $10,000. Another half a million, one in five inmates, are serving long prison sentences for nonviolent drug convictions.

Researchers estimate that 61,000 prisoners are held in solitary confinement on any given day, a form of incarceration that the UN has declared to be tantamount to torture. At least 4,000 of those held in complete isolation from the outside world suffer from severe mental illness. Confinement to these living coffins is known to drive prisoners to suicide.

While debtors’ prisons are officially outlawed, poor workers are routinely held for their debts. A mother in Indiana was detained for three days in February in a squalid jail alongside convicts because of an unpaid ambulance bill, which she had never received in the mail. Such stories are common.

Under the Trump administration, extending the policies developed by Obama, the federal government is waging a war on immigrants, holding thousands of men, women and children in degrading conditions. Some 77,000 people were detained in February for seeking to cross the southern border. Immigrant workers are being hunted down and arrested in their homes and at their work places.

The cruelty of the American government was on full display this week when 280 undocumented workers were detained by federal agents in Allen, Texas. It was the largest such raid in more than a decade.

Then there is the unending wave of police killings, with more than 1,000 people shot, tased or beaten to death every year on the streets of American cities. Criminal charges for police killings are rare and convictions almost unheard of. Cops are given a green light to kill, maim and brutalize with impunity.

With boundless hypocrisy, Democrats and Republicans proclaim their outrage over alleged human rights violations in whatever country the American ruling class is targeting for regime change or invasion. They proclaim one of the most cruel and unequal societies in the world, where the three richest Americans control more wealth than the bottom half of the population, to be a beacon of democracy to the world.

If the conditions that exist in US prisons were exposed in Russia or China, there would be a hue and cry in the press and the halls of Congress for economic sanctions and “humanitarian” military intervention that would resound in the media.

Fifty years ago, a report such as that exposing the conditions in Alabama prisons would have been met, even within sections of the political and media establishment, with shock and demands for action, but today it passes with barely a murmur.

The Democratic Party is silent because it is complicit in the vast retrogression in conditions in US prisons. President Bill Clinton signed the legislation that paved the way for a historic increase in the prison population. The Democrats oversee a prison system in California that was found by the Supreme Court in 2011 to be “cruel and unusual” and in violation of the Constitution.

The upper-middle class, self-obsessed layers in and around the Democratic Party are disinterested. The promoters of the #MeToo campaign in the media and academia have nothing to say about sexual violence in American prisons, nor about the violence inflicted on immigrants fleeing to the United States.

The media has made as little as possible of the report, with no coverage on the major nightly news programs. As with the photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib and the Senate report on CIA torture, there has been an effort to suppress information of what is happening in Alabama. The New York Times and other media outlets have chosen not to publish most of the photos documenting abuse and death.

In the end, this is their state. The conditions of American prisons, and the overall apparatus of violence, is a noxious expression of the reality of American “democracy.” The state apparatus will be utilized in the suppression of social and political opposition to the demands of finance capital. It is the real face of American capitalism.

More layoffs point to worsening jobs crisis in Australia

Terry Cook

A new wave of factory and shop closures indicates a deepening slump in Australia, accompanied by greater casualisation of the workforce which Liberal-National and Labor governments alike have enforced for decades.

This week alone, Kimberly-Clark said it would eliminate 220 jobs by closing the Ingleburn plant in southwest Sydney that makes Huggies nappies. The US corporation plans to shift production to Asia by July as part of a “global restructuring program.”

Retail giant Woolworths also confirmed the closure of 30 Big W stores, as well as two distribution centres. The store closures, the locations of which have not yet been announced, represent about 16 percent of its 183-strong network, threatening thousands of jobs.

Officially, unemployment in February fell 0.1 percentage points to 4.9 percent. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) employment surveys, however, understate the real level of joblessness by counting anyone who has worked for one hour a week as employed.

For the same month, the number of people in full-time work fell for the third time in four months, dropping by 7,300, while part-time workers increased by 11,300. The participation rate also slipped to 65.6 percent in February, from 65.7 percent the previous month, as more people gave up actively looking for work.

A more reliable jobs survey conducted by Roy Morgan research put unemployment for February at 9.6 percent, almost twice the official rate. Under-employment—people in part-time work and looking for more work—stood at 8.6 percent. That means around 2.5 million workers, or 18.2 percent of the workforce, are either jobless or under-employed.

The jobs situation for young people, even on official figures, is chronic. Unemployment for 15- to 24-year olds stood at 11.1 percent in February, more than double the overall ABS unemployment rate.

According to a survey by the charity group the Brotherhood of St Laurence, around a quarter of a million young people are without work. Youth joblessness was particularly high in regional areas, such as in Bendigo and Shepparton in Victoria, where the rate was 18.3 percent and 17.5 percent respectively. In the Coffs Harbour and Grafton region in New South Wales, the rate was 23 percent, while outback Queensland, which includes Mt Isa, Cape York and Longreach, had a rate of 25.7 percent.

Job vacancies are falling. The ANZ Job Ads Index dropped in February, for the fourth consecutive month, by a further 0.9 percent in seasonally-adjusted terms. The index was down 4.3 percent over the past year. An ANZ bank spokesman said the result pointed to a “more challenging period for employment growth in the year ahead.”

Further job losses are expected across the construction industry. In February, activity fell in all key sectors, with house and apartment construction declining for an 11th consecutive month. The overall decline continued the trend from the last quarter of 2018, which was down 2.6 percent from the same period in 2017.

A National Bank of Australia (NAB) economist warned that the forecast decline in dwelling investment “would of itself likely lead directly to a plunge in employment of anywhere between 50,000 to 150,000, depending on how protracted the decline becomes.”

The slump also is hitting jobs in industries supplying the residential construction sector, including importers, manufacturers, hardware-suppliers and related services such as developers, the real estate industry, finance and plant hire.

Major companies across a range of sectors continue to shed jobs in the drive to slash labour costs amid forecasts of a worsening global slowdown, particularly in China, Australia’s largest single export market.

In telecommunications, Telstra, Australia’s largest company, announced in January the axing of 750 jobs in the second tranche of its T22 restructure plan to shed 9,500 positions over the next three years. From June to December 2018, the company destroyed 3,200 jobs in the first tranche.

In the banking and finance sector, Westpac bank announced in March it would divest its financial advice business arm, cutting 900 full-time jobs in the process. Rival NAB announced it would axe 900 jobs after handing over some of the bank’s financial advice customers to Viridian Advisory.

Analysts have warned of further job losses in retail, with a growing list of bankruptcies and store closures. According to Business Insider, more than 4,000 store closures have been announced this year, led by Payless, Gymboree, Shopko, Performance Bicycle and Charlotte Russe. All filed for bankruptcy and announced full or partial liquidations.

Clothing retailer Ed Harry will close all its 87 outlets, shedding nearly 500 jobs. Department store chain Myer announced it would axe 50 jobs, mainly in marketing. Retailer Coogan is to close its store in Tasmania by the end of June at the cost of 35 jobs.

Qantas announced it will send its Boeing 717 fleet offshore for heavy maintenance, cutting 40 aircraft engineering jobs.

Ford Australia is to axe more than 205 jobs, including powertrain and chassis design engineers, as part of a global restructure. By 2017, Ford, GM Holden and Toyota had ended all vehicle production in Australia, costing thousands of jobs.

UK local councils sell off billions of pounds in public assets due to austerity

Joe Mount

Local councils across Britain are selling off assets in property and land to the private sector on a huge scale. More than £9 billion in assets has been sold in just over the last five years.

This was revealed by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), which, working with news website Huffington Post UK, conducted its largest ever investigation. It sent Freedom of Information requests to each of England’s 353 local authorities, many of which refused to fully cooperate.

The findings exposed the previously hidden impact of austerity on communities across the country, as the councils have sold billions of pounds in assets they used to own. This is part of the wholesale transfer of social wealth from the working class to the financial aristocracy carried out by politicians of all political stripes in recent decades.

TBIJ is a London-based, non-profit organisation founded in 2010. Funded by donations, it comprises over 900 journalists, academics and members of the public to conduct public-interest journalism. They have won awards for their coverage of topics such as imperialist war crimes in the Middle East, government corruption and financial criminality.

The mass selloff of public assets has been ramped up due to severe austerity measures imposed by central government in the wake of the 2008 financial crash. Since 2014, over 12,000 publicly-owned assets with a total value of over £9.1 billion have been sold off, including libraries, health clinics, youth centres and public spaces. Analysis of the data found that £381 million of the proceeds of these sales was used to facilitate further budget cuts by councils, with one third of this sum (£115 million) used to finance redundancy payments. Since 2010, more than 1 million jobs have gone in the public sector.

TBIJ have produced an interactive map detailing the privatisation made in each local area. Although some councils withheld their information, the data from various parts of the country demonstrates the scale of the process.

In London, Haringey Borough Council—now controlled by supporters of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn—sold off 30 properties to raise £35.7 million between 2014 and 2018, including two community centres to a property developer. In another Labour council, Tower Hamlets, the council raised £72.7 million through the sale of 22 properties. Bexley council sold 11 public spaces between 2014 and 2016 for a total of £10.8 million—the biggest being Hill View cemetery for £6.4 million.

Other councils listed include:

• Birmingham City Council, in the period from April 2016 to July 2018, sold off 167 buildings or plots of land. The Labour-run council, the largest single local authority in the UK, has utilised £49 million from asset sales to assist in trying to balance its books.
  
  Since 2010, the council has imposed 12,000 redundancies. According to the Birmingham Mail, at least £35 million has gone to fund redundancies at the council. Along with new cuts being imposed by the council in this year’s budget, six community centres have either already been sold or are earmarked for sale. The Birmingham Mail reported last month, “The council plans to make another 1,095 people redundant in the coming year, further decimating frontline services. It has also confirmed it intends to plough on with plans to sell off public assets to raise the necessary finances. It has set aside another £12.1 million next year from capital receipts to pay for redundancies.”
  
• Labour-controlled Middlesbrough council raised £155 million through the sale of 222 properties, including Acklam Hall, the town’s only grade I listed building.
  
• Manchester City Council, also Labour, sold 707 public assets worth £42.9 million, including valuable inner-city land.
  
• Sheffield’s Labour council sold 313 public spaces for a total of £36.4 million, including several sites of former schools.
  
• Bradford’s Labour council sold off £22.7 million in assets between 2014 and 2018 in 318 separate sales, including nearly £1.2 million for the former site of the Shirley Manor primary school and £0.7 million for the Whetley Hill Resource Centre, an assisted living facility for the disabled.

Many of the sales were council houses and schools that have been transferred to privately-controlled academy trusts as part of the creeping privatisation of the education system. Many of the details of the sales have not been made public and involved amounts below their real market value. Rather than these properties being regenerated in the “spirit” of free enterprise, studies have found that the occupancy rate in the private sector is generally lower than that for public buildings.

An April 2016 regulation change gave councils more freedom to dispose of their property assets if the proceeds contribute towards “ongoing savings.” This enabled councils to use the money raised by selling off their assets to finance large-scale redundancies. Bristol council increased its redundancy rate by a factor of ten, from 39 to 401 following the changes, according to TBIJ. Haringey council spent £8 million of these proceeds on job losses, which increased by 70 percent after the regulations changed.

Local councils face a desperate financial squeeze, with some beginning to collapse financially. Local authorities have seen their budgets reduced by 60 percent since 2010, according to official figures, as part of the austerity agenda of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat 2010/2015 coalition and Theresa May’s government that followed.

Despite May’s announcement last October at the Conservative Party conference that “austerity is over,” further budget reductions of 36 percent are due next year as the central government grant to local authorities is slashed further.

Other councils have used the money to reorganise their activities, hiring expensive management consultancies, and commission outsourcing companies paying lower wages.

This is part of the broader reduction in the “bureaucracy” of central government oversight over local authorities that aims to facilitate the privatization of social services. A recent milestone in this process was the Localism Act 2011, which devolved decision making powers to local councils and increased their financial room for manoeuvre.

The loss of these assets will be to the detriment of working class communities for years to come, with the removal of facilities upon which essential social services rely hitting vulnerable social layers hardest. The report details the effect of these cuts to youth clubs, community care centres, libraries, etc. The sell-offs also increase financial barriers to establishing new facilities in the future due to a shortage of properties. It was recently revealed that councils are paying huge sums to private landlords for housing stock that was formerly public property.

The sell-offs undermine basic democratic rights as they reduce the availability of public spaces to meet, organise and hold protests, such as in town centres.

The report sheds light on social reality in Britain, which is dominated by the social gulf between the financial oligarchy and the mass of the working population. According to official figures, the top wealthiest 10 percent of households have five times more wealth than the bottom half of the population combined.

There has been no organised opposition to these cuts, which are being imposed by Conservative, Labour and Liberal local councils at the diktat of central government. Ever since he was elected Labour leader, Corbyn has urged Labour councils to enforce “legal budgets” i.e. collaborate with central government austerity measures. The trade unions have worked hand-in-glove with their Labour partners to isolate and dissipate all resistance to cuts and lay-offs.

Many Labour members are becoming disillusioned with the party’s complicity in austerity. Workers and young people seeking to oppose cuts to public services and the mass selloff of public assets built up and maintained by working people over decades must seek a new path of struggle.

Public sector workers must make common cause with those in the private sector in Britain and internationally, as part of a resurgence of the international class struggle, in rebellion against the labour and trade union bureaucracy. Central to this is the development of a unified movement against austerity based on the formation of rank-and-file committees in workplaces and local communities.

Australian government sets global precedent with online censorship bill

Mike Head

In the wake of the fascist attack in New Zealand, the Australian government is bulldozing unprecedented laws through parliament this week that will threaten all social media platforms with severe criminal penalties if they host what government authorities consider “abhorrent violent” material.

By falsely blaming the Internet for the mass shooting of Muslims in Christchurch, reality is being turned on its head. It was not the livestreaming of the attack that was responsible for the atrocity, but the toxic political and social atmosphere created through the vilification of refugees, immigrants and Muslims by the whole political and media establishment over decades.

Over the past two years, as exposed by the World Socialist Web Site, the giant social media conglomerates have increasingly collaborated with governments to restrict access to left-wing and progressive websites, employing sophisticated algorithms and armies of “content moderators.” Now Internet censorship is being taken to a whole new level.

Under the Australian bill, not just the social media platforms, but any “Internet service provider” or “hosting service” will face massive fines or imprisonment if they fail to self-censor by blocking or deleting any material that police could prosecute. This will include not just livestreams, but videos, photos, sound recordings and any other postings.

As it has on other fronts, including in the persecution and detention of refugees, the Australian government is providing a “model” for a sweeping attack on basic democratic rights. Attorney-General Christian Porter boasted that the bill is a “world first,” which Prime Minister Scott Morrison would propose as a “globally consistent response” at the G-20 summit in Japan this June.

The passage of the bill is being followed with intense interest in ruling circles in the US and worldwide. A New York Times article this week said “it could be a watershed moment for the era of global social media,” adding: “No established democracies have ever come as close to applying such sweeping restrictions on online communication.”

While nominally directed against the far-right, the bill will be used to step up the offensive against oppositional, left-wing and socialist postings. Predictably, after the Christchurch atrocity, both Prime Minister Morrison and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton denounced “left extremism.”

The deliberately-vague provisions of the bill are wide enough to ban exposures of violence by the police, military and intelligence services, such as police killings, the torture of prisoners at the US prison cells in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib or the abuse of Aboriginal teenagers in Darwin’s Don Dale juvenile jail.

Under the Criminal Code Amendment (Sharing of Abhorrent Violent Material) Bill, it will be an offence for social media platforms not to “expeditiously” remove “abhorrent violent material.” They will face up to three years’ imprisonment or fines of as much as 10 percent of the platform’s annual turnover.

Social media providers anywhere in the world must also notify the Australian Federal Police “within a reasonable time”—not defined—if they become aware their service is broadcasting prohibited material from Australia, or face fines of up to $168,000 for an individual or $840,000 for a corporation.

“Abhorrent violent material” is defined as depicting “terrorist acts,” murders, attempted murders, torture, rape or kidnap, “that reasonable persons would regard as being, in all the circumstances, offensive.” Because of the broad definition of “terrorism” introduced in the “war on terror,” these parameters are far-reaching and could be used to target allegedly violent political protests.

An online site could be punished for even being “reckless” as to whether material is “abhorrent,” intensifying the pressure on all providers to block or take down any postings that could land them in jail or with heavy fines.

In addition, the government’s e-Safety Commissioner, an online surveillance agency established in 2015, will have the extraordinary power to issue notices to social media providers, forcing them to immediately remove any material it deems “abhorrent,” backed by the threat of prosecution.

Narrow legal defences exist for conducting research, and for news reporting, but only if the news report is “in the public interest” and made by “a person working in a professional capacity as a journalist.” This may protect the corporate media to some extent, but not social media whistleblowers and publishers.

Despite criticising the Liberal-National Coalition government for rushing the bill through parliament in two days, just before an election, the opposition Labor Party is working hand-in-glove with the Coalition. The legislation passed the Senate late last night in just two minutes, without debate, even though most senators had not even seen the bill. It is due to go through the House of Representatives today on a similar basis.

While Greens leader Senator Richard Di Natale voiced “frustration” at the blocking of debate, the Greens called no Senate division on the bill, allowing it to pass “on the voices” without any recorded vote. The bill was one of 19 pushed through the Senate in just 45 minutes, making a mockery of parliamentary democracy.

Labor’s only criticism was that the bill did not go far enough. It complained that the “rushed” bill would not “jail social media executives,” because companies post material, not individuals. In reality, the bill opens up many people and organisations, as well as corporate executives, to serious criminal penalties.

The corporate platforms, including Twitter and Snapchat, are already cooperating extensively with governments. Lobby group DIGI, representing Facebook, Google, Twitter and Amazon, criticised the rushed process, and appealed for more consultation. The government and Labor proceeded with the bill, nevertheless, determined to set a new global benchmark for Internet censorship.

This is a sharp warning that as social inequality intensifies, popular discontent grows and working class struggles erupt, the capitalist governments and billionaire oligarchs who control the media and communications technologies are intent on suppressing dissent and blocking the vast democratic potential of the Internet.

India: The Need to Engage with Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asian Countries Collectively

Niranjan Marjani


On December 24 2018 India took over the operations of the Shahid Beheshti Port in Chabahar, Iran. The development of this port is considered as an important step for India towards increasing its economic and strategic outreach in the region. Through the Chabahar Port project, India is developing a transit corridor that would provide it with access to Afghanistan and the Central Asian region.

For optimal results, however, the current nature of India’s bilateral engagements with Iran, Afghanistan and the Central Asian countries would require significant recalibration in order to engage with the three entities in a collective manner.

Core Factors Defining India’s EngagementHistorical, civilisational and cultural ties are common threads in India’s engagements with Iran, Afghanistan and the Central Asian region. These factors have dominated India’s contacts with these three entities since the establishment of diplomatic ties with each. However, while historical ties are a common thread, this has not resulted in India formulating policies aimed at collective engagement with the three entities in the related spheres. Nor has this soft power connection resulted in developing collective relations in the strategic sphere. On the regional level, India’s interactions with the three have, at times, been influenced by attempts at balancing New Delhi’s relations with the regions and New Delhi’s relations with other powers.

Apart from cultural ties, India’s relations with these three entities are characterised by a few specific separate considerations. Iran is one of India’s largest sources of energy imports. India is the second largest buyer of Iran’s oil after China. Oil trade between India and Iran has become a dominant feature after India adopted liberal economic policies and India’s demand for oil increased to supplement a growing economy.

On Afghanistan, both New Delhi and Kabul enjoyed close relations until the Afghan civil war and the Taliban rule. During the Taliban rule, relations between India and Afghanistan underwent a tumultuous phase. However, in the post-Taliban period, India-Afghanistan relations have been defined by India’s developmental assistance in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, India’s relations with the individual Central Asian countries are fairly young given how the countries in the region came into existence only in 1991. For the most part, trade has been a common driving factor in India’s engagement with all five countries, though over the past few years, India has gradually also begun to participate in joint military exercises. Additionally, Tajikistan has been hosting Indian Air Force and Border Roads Organisation personnel at its Ayni air base. Overall, at present, India’s relations with Central Asian countries could be considered as being in a developing phase.

Impediments to India’s StrategyWhile India enjoys cordial relations with Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asian countries, the lack of a coherent overarching strategy linking the individual bilateral relationships has resulted in India’s limited interaction with the above mentioned countries in a collective manner. A general impediment has been that more focus has been placed on soft power than hard power projection. There are three key elements that could be identified as impediments resulting in India’s lack of a uniform policy for collective engagement with Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asian countries. These three factors are: power play in the region, India’s limited manoeuvring in the maritime domain, and connectivity.

All the entities have been subject to intense power play between regional and extra-regional powers such as Russia, China and the US. India has largely remained outside the competition for strategic space in the region, and this has resulted in New Delhi being unable to gain a strategic footprint in the region.

India’s relative neglect of the maritime domain is another factor. Much like India not gaining room for strategic manoeuvring on land in any of the three areas, the state-of-affairs is the same in the maritime domain as well. Limited presence in the maritime sphere and absence of a well-defined maritime security policy has kept India away from gaining access to the regions.

India has always cited connectivity related shortcomings as a major factor that has prevented meaningful and deeper engagements, especially with Afghanistan and Central Asia. Since these entities are landlocked and can be accessed by land only through Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied territories, this adds to India’s obstacles in collective engagement.

India’s Prevailing StrategyIndia’s prevailing strategy for engagement with Iran, Afghanistan and the Central Asian countries could be considered at two levels – India’s cooperation with regional and extra regional powers having a stake in the region, and an Afghanistan-centric approach. India’s role in the region, particularly in Afghanistan, has been in cooperation with the US, and recently, with China after the Wuhan Summit. India is yet to expand its role in Afghanistan and in the entire region. On a multilateral level India, is part of the Ashgabat Agreement, the Heart of Asia Conference, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and India-Central Asia Dialogue. The India-Central Asia Dialogue prominently highlighted Afghanistan’s political and security situation.

However, India’s present strategy has its share of challenges. If the Afghanistan-centric approach forms the basis of India’s engagement in the region, India does not yet have a strategy to handle the security situation in Afghanistan. By developing the Chabahar Port, India is trying to overcome its limited presence in the maritime connectivity domain. However, until such time New Delhi defines its role in Afghanistan, the Chabahar Port would yield limited advantage.

India has proposed a multilateral order in the Indo-Pacific as a counter balance to China. New Delhi could consider a similar arrangement but aimed at collective engagement with Iran, Afghanistan and the Central Asian countries. An alternative arrangement would enable India to engage collectively with the three focus areas and thereby optimise the actualisation of India’s policy objectives vis-a-vis each individual relationship.

Visa Everywhere Initiative 2019 Women’s Global Edition

Application Deadline: 14th April, 2019

Eligible Countries: International

About the Award: Two challenges. Twelve finalists. Celebrating women entrepreneurs and their innovative ideas, solutions, and organizations.
Finalists will be invited to Paris, France in early June 2019, to pitch their solutions live in front of Visa leaders and clients.
To reward the most impactful solutions, Visa will provide $100,000 USD to each challenge winner!

Challenge Questions for 2019: We are pleased to present two challenge questions for this program:

Challenge 1 – Fintech

Leveraging your company’s unique capabilities, how could your solution help transform consumer payments and/or commercial experiences locally, regionally, or globally?

What We Look For:

Your solution could apply to financial institutions, online-only banks and lenders, merchants, marketplaces, digital wallets, data analytics, loyalty programs, payment solutions or payment infrastructure

Areas we are interested in:

Issuer

• ID, authentication and security
• Direct business / Consumer lending
• Online banking
• Process and pay infrastructure

Enabler

• Fin services and infrastructure
• Blockchain/ crypto currency
• Data and analytics
• Investment management
• Payments, wallets, transfers
• Retail tech

Value Add

• Process and pay infrastructure
• Crowdfunding
• Insuratech
• Marketplace lending
• Loyalty
• Merchant services and tools
• Money transfer and remittance
• Personal finance
• Wealth management

Prize Structure 

Visa will select 1 finalist per region to travel to Paris for the opportunity to pitch their solution live at the Finals Event and attend the opening match of the FIFA Women’s World Cup™. 
The overall grand prize winner of the fintech challenge will receive $100,000 USD plus a potential opportunity to run a pilot with Visa and/or a Visa client.

Apply now

Challenge 2 – Social Impact

How can women entrepreneurs around the world drive social impact by supporting sustainable and equitable livelihoods and strengthening local / regional economies?

What We Look For:

Visa is looking for women entrepreneurs focused on social impact outcomes across micro and small business development, environmental and social responsibility, and community engagement.

• Women-founded/ co-founded organizations (2 to 50 employees) with a mission (or project) that resonates with Visa’s Social Impact charter
• Organization should have traction in market – live product / service, clients, sales revenue, etc.
• Note: Social Impact Challenge applicants do *not* have to be a Fintech or tech-based startup

Areas we are interested in (charter):

Micro and small business development

• Business skills development
• Financial education / literacy
• Access to capital / credit
• Transition to digital payments
• Improving connectivity
• Building resilience through financial products (e.g., savings, insurance) etc.

Environmental and Social Responsibility

• Environmental sustainability (e.g., renewable energy, sustainable products or manufacturing, environmental protection)
• Responsible sourcing (e.g., employment practices, supplier diversity, human rights across supply chain, etc.)
• UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): #5 Gender Equality and #8 Decent Work and Economic Growth

Community Engagement

• Diversity and inclusion
• Address challenges (e.g., gender pay gap, unconscious bias)
• Fair and equal ability to demonstrate potential and grow careers
• Community giving
• Humanitarian and disaster relief etc.

Prize Structure 

Visa will select 1 finalist per region to travel to Paris for the opportunity to pitch their solution live at the Finals Event and attend the opening match of the FIFA Women’s World Cup™. 
The overall grand prize winner of the social impact challenge will receive $100,000 USD.

Apply now


Type: Entrepreneurship

How to Apply: 

• It is important to go through all Terms and Conditions on the Programme Webpage (see link below) before applying

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

African-German Network of Excellence in Science (AGNES) Scholarships 2019/2020 for sub-Saharan African countries

Application Deadline: 10th May 2019 by 12.00 GMT

Eligible Countries: sub-Saharan African countries

To be taken at (country): sub-Saharan African countries

About the Award:  The AGNES Intra-Africa Mobility Grant and AGNES-PAWS Intra-Africa Mobility Grant enable junior researchers (Doctoral students) from sub-Saharan African countries to spend research stays of 1-2 months at a university/research institute in another sub-Saharan African country (hereafter referred to host institution), where they will be collaborating with an experienced researcher (hereafter referred to as scientific host).
The proposed research must be part of the work towards the Doctoral research, including but not limited to bench work, laboratory studies, use of library resources and write up of thesis or part of the thesis.
Eligible junior researchers need to demonstrate the relevance of their work for further development of their home countries in sub-Sahara Africa.

Type: Grants

Eligibility: Direct applications from junior researchers only will be considered for both the AGNES Mobility Grant and AGNES-PAWS Mobility Grant. On top of your proposal and in your CV, indicate whether you are applying for the AGNES Mobility Grant or AGNES-PAWS Mobility Grant. The applicant may be from any academic discipline but must be officially registered for Doctoral degree at a university/tertiary institute in sub-Sahara Africa, and must be a national of a sub-Saharan African country. Applicants must demonstrate clearly that their work is relevant towards development in sub-Saharan African countries and cannot be conducted in the home country. Only applicants with an identified scientific host and mutually agreed-upon proposal/work schedule will be considered for the Grant.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value and Duration of Award: The Grant aims to be as financially comprehensive as is reasonably possible for a short stay outside the borders of the applicant’s country, covering travel and subsistence, and includes a research allowance to the host institute on request to cover some of the research expenses. A maximum Grant amount of EUR 2300 and EUR 3000 is earmarked for 1 and 2 months stays, respectively

How to Apply: Interested junior scientists should submit their electronic applications directly to the AGNES Desk via email: admin.agnes@uac.bj and ocadebooye@daad-alumni.de by 10 th May 2019. Please ensure that the application and all supporting documents reach the AGNES desk by 12.00 GMT

• It is important to go through all application requirements on the Programme Webpage (see link below) before applying

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

MISF Du Pré Grants 2019 for Multiple Sclerosis Researchers from Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 21st July 2019

Eligible Countries: Emerging Countries

About the Award: MISF offers Du Pré Grants to MS researchers from emerging countries to enable them to make short visits to established MS research centres outside their own country, either to learn from each other or to carry out parts of joint research projects. The aim is to encourage cross-fertilisation of skills through collaborative research projects. Two of the annual awards are supported by Stichting MS Research (the Dutch MS Research Foundation).

Type: Research

Eligibility: All candidates must:

• be educated to post graduate level in an area relevant to multiple sclerosis (MS)
• be citizens of an emerging country (all countries with a low, lower middle or upper middle income as defined by the World Bank)
• focus their research in an area relevant to MS

Before nomination, candidates need to have identified a suitable project and discussed their involvement with the project supervisor of the host institution outside their own country. Candidates are encouraged to identify a suitable host institute and supervisor to develop their project proposal before applying.
Candidates are expected to return to their own countries at the end of the study period where they will contribute to advancing care and research in MS.
The grant may also be used as a supplement for work related to MS by a candidate who has been accepted for training in a recognised institute (within the six months prior to nomination) but who doesn’t have enough money to cover the total cost.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Research: Each grant is likely to be between UK £2,000 and £4,000, to a maximum of £5,000. The funds are intended to go towards travel and living costs, or to top up an existing grant to extend a visit.

Duration of Research: Visits generally last between two and six months.

How to Apply:

• Complete all sections of the online application form
• The Host needs to provide a supporting statement at the end of the application
• Add names and contact details of 2 referees, including the applicant’s current supervisor or employer

Visit Research Webpage for details

Chinese Government Scholarship – Bilateral Program 2019 for International Students (Undergraduate, Masters, PhD)

Application Deadline: 15th April 2019

Eligible Countries: International

To Be Taken At (Country): China

About the Award: The Bilateral Program supports undergraduate students, graduate students, general scholars and senior scholars. Undergraduate scholarship recipients must register for Chinese-taught credit courses. Graduate and non-degree scholarship students can register for either the Chinese-taught program or the English-taught program if applicable.

Type: Undergraduate, Masters, PhD

Eligibility:  

• Applicants must be a citizen of a country other than the People’s Republic of China, and be in good health.
• The requirements for applicants’ degree and age are that applicants must:
  • be a high school graduate under the age of 25 when applying for the undergraduate programs;
  • be a bachelor’s degree holder under the age of 35 when applying for the master’s programs;
  • be a master’s degree holder under the age of 40 when applying for the doctoral programs;
  • be under the age of 45 and have a high school diploma (or higher) when applying for the general scholar programs;
  • be a master’s degree holder or an associate professor (or above) under the age of 50 when applying for the senior scholar programs.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: The Bilateral Program provides both full scholarships and partial scholarships.
Duration of Program:

• Undergraduate students: 4-7years
• Master’s students: 2-5 years
• Doctoral students: 3-6 years
• General scholars: up to 2 years
• Senior scholars: up to 2 years

How to Apply:

1. • Step 1 – Apply to the dispatching authorities for overseas study of your home country for CGS opportunity;

• • Step 2 – Apply to your target university for the Pre-admission Letter once recommended by the dispatching authorities as an eligible candidate (you will receive an Award Letter for CGS Candidate);

• • Step 3 – Complete the online application procedure at CGS Information Management System for International Students (Visit http://www.csc.edu.cn/studyinchina or http://www.campuschina.org and click “Application Online” to log in), submit online the completed Application Form for Chinese Government Scholarship, and print a hard copy. You should consult the dispatching authorities for overseas study of your home country for Instructions of CGS Information Management System for International Students and Agency Number;
  • Step 4 – Submit all of your application documents to the dispatching authorities of your home country before the deadline.

It is important to find out the Application documents required on the Program Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

DARA Big Data Science Masters Bursaries 2019 for Early-Career African Researchers (Fully-funded to UK)

Application Deadline: 12th April 2019 at 23:59 BST

Eligible Countries: Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia. 

To Be Taken At (University): Projects are offered at the University of Hertfordshire, University of Leeds, University of Manchester and University of York.

About the Awards: The organisers are pleased to announce advanced training opportunities in the form of bursaries for MSc research at UK universities as part of the Development in Africa with Radio Astronomy (DARA) Big Data project funded by the UK’s Newton Fund. The opportunities are open to nationals of all AVN partner countries, namely: Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia.

Field of Research: The DARA Big Data project will target the translation of data intensive science skills from radio astronomy (Astro Big Data; ABD) to other big data areas such as Food Security & Sustainable Agriculture (AGRI Big Data; ABD) and Health Care (Health Big Data; HBD).

Type: Training, Masters.

Eligibility: Applicants for funding must:

• Be a national of one of the 8 partner AVN countries: Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia.
• Have a good first degree in Physics or a relevant related subject
• Satisfy the English Language requirements of the host university
• Satisfy any other entry conditions of the host university

Please note that you may be required to take an English Language test as part of the entry requirements to the host university. If successful as a fully funded student, the price of this will be reimbursed. 

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: These places are fully funded such that the Newton Fund will cover all tuition fees, bench fees and maintenance allowance at the UKRI recommended level of ~£14,990 per year. Also, costs for an Inbound/Outgoing flight to and from the UK and initial visa and health surcharge costs will be covered by the Newton Fund.

How to Apply: Please complete the DARA Advanced Programme Application Form to apply. You must select a project from the list below that you are interested in pursuing.

Included with your application should be:

• Certificate
• Transcript of your relevant higher education degree
• Two Letters of Recommendation (a template can be found on the website)
• A copy of your Passport
• CV

Please send your application form and all required documents to Dr Sally Cooper via email at sally.cooper@manchester.ac.uk.

The two Letters of Recommendation should also be sent to this address before the application deadline.

Inquiries can also be made to the UK Principal Investigator Professor Anna Scaife at anna.scaife@manchester.ac.uk.

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Big Government and Big Tech Versus the Internet and Everyone

Thomas L. Knapp

Governments around the world began trying to bring the Internet under control as soon as they realized the danger to their power represented by unfettered public access to, and exchange of, information. From attempts to suppress strong encryption technology to the Communications Decency Act in the US and China’s “Great Firewall,” such efforts have generally proven ineffectual. But things are changing, and not for the better.

The European Parliament recently passed a “Copyright Directive” which, if implemented, will force Internet platforms to actively monitor user content instead of putting the burden of proving copyright infringement on those claiming such infringement. The Directive also includes  a “link tax” under which publishers will charge aggregation platforms for traditionally “fair use” excerpts.

The US government’s Committee on Foreign Investment is attempting to force the sale of Grindr, a gay dating app, over “national security” concerns. Grindr is owned by a Chinese company, Beijing Kunlun. CFIUS’s supposed fear is that the Chinese government will use information the app gathers to surveil or even blackmail users in sensitive political and military jobs.

Those are just two current examples of many.

Big Governments and Big Tech are engaged in a long-term mating dance.

Big Governments want to regulate Big Tech because that’s what governments do, and because, as with Willie Sutton and banks, Big Tech is where the Big Tax Money is.

Big Tech wants to be regulated by Big Governments because regulation makes it more difficult and expensive for new competitors to enter the market. Facebook doesn’t want someone else to make it the next MySpace. Google doesn’t want a fresh new face to send it the way of Yahoo.

It’s a mating dance with multiple suitors on all sides.

The US doesn’t like Grindr or Huawei, because FREEDUMB.

The Chinese don’t want uncensored Google or Twitter, because ORDER.

The EU is at least honest about being sexually indiscriminate: It freely admits that it just wants to rigorously screw everyone, everything, everywhere.

Big Tech wants to operate in all of these markets and it’s willing to buy every potential Big Government as many drinks as it takes to them all into the sack.

Everybody wins, I guess. Except the public.

Governments and would-be monopolists are fragmenting what once advertised itself as a Global Information Superhighway into hundreds of gated streets.

Those streets are lined by neatly manicured lawns per the homeowners’ association’s rigorously enforced rules, and herbicide is sprayed on those lawns to kill off the values that made the Internet the social successor to the printing press and the economic successor to the Industrial Revolution.

As Stewart Brand wrote, “Information Wants To Be Free. Information also wants to be expensive. … That tension will not go away.”

Big Tech and Big Government are both coming down, increasingly  effectively,  on the side of “expensive” and on the side of Ford’s  Model T philosophy (“you can have any color you want as long as it’s black”).

They’re killing the Internet. They’re killing the future. They’re killing us.