India’s pro-business BJP government tables austerity budget

Kranti Kumara

Hemmed in by a deepening socioeconomic crisis that has sent unemployment to a 45-year high, the recently re-elected pro-business Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, led by the Hindu strongman Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has presented the first annual budget of its second five-year term.

Alongside soaring unemployment, economic growth has plummeted to a five-year low of 6.8 percent and an agrarian crisis is devastating rural households.

Prior to the unveiling of the budget on July 5, competing demands were being made by domestic and foreign big business on the one hand and the credit rating agencies and International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the other.

Corporations called for the government to increase economic stimulus to counter a fall in private investment to a 15-year low. Indian CEOs urged Modi to increase government spending on “new ports, highways and airports, considering that the private sector investment plans were still in cold storage.”

At the same time, because domestic consumption has fallen off, with mountains of automobiles and two-wheelers remaining unsold, a section of big business has called for tax breaks for the middle class, whose income has stagnated. They demand that the BJP-led ruling coalition, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), use its commanding parliamentary majority of 343 out of 543 seats to ram through “big-bang reforms.”

This is a euphemism for a further assault on what remains of labour laws and regulations, already virtually unenforced in practice, along with accelerated procedures for the purchase of land for industrial purposes, including forced evictions where necessary, and a steep lowering of corporate taxes.

Prior to the tabling of the budget, however, representatives of world finance capital warned the Modi government to maintain “fiscal discipline,” a code word for the austerity in social spending Modi had carried out during his first term in office from 2014.

In the event, despite the announcement to the Lok Sabha (the lower house of parliament) of a number of pro-business measures by newly appointed Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharam, neither group was satisfied and the domestic stock market fell sharply.

The budget tabled by Sitharam amounts to Rs. 27.8 trillion (US$400 billion), an increase of over 13 percent from the previous year. As usual, fully a quarter of the budget, amounting to over Rs. 7 trillion (over $100 billion), is financed by debt. Because of this, annual interest payments alone consume Rs. 6.6 trillion ($95 billion). Coupled with a military budget amounting to Rs. 4.3 trillion ($62 billion, fourth highest after the US, China and Saudi Arabia), the two items consume 40 percent of the budget.

This leaves a meagre Rs. $16.9 trillion ($245 billion) for all other spending in a country of 1.3 billion people, out of which close to 900 million eke out a living on less than $2 a day.

Thus, there are hardly any financial resources left outside of debt financing for increased government spending to stimulate economic growth. And any further increase in debt adding to the budget deficit will be frowned upon by the Western credit rating agencies such as Moody’s, which indirectly control the cost of funds through their ability to downgrade India’s credit rating.

A major announcement in the finance minister’s speech was the goal of growing the Indian economy to a nominal $5 trillion from its current nominal gross domestic product of $2.8 trillion. Sitharam said: “Our economy was at approximately US$1.85 trillion when we formed the government in 2014. Within five years, it has reached US$2.7 trillion. Hence, it is well within our capacity to reach US$5 trillion in the next few years.”

Assuming the exchange rate remains the same, the growth rate has to average about 12.5 percent every year for the next five years for this goal to be met.

The budget deficit increased to 3.4 percent of GDP from the announced 3.3 percent for the last fiscal year because of a fall in revenue due to lower sales tax (GST) intake arising from the slump in demand for consumer and industrial goods. Even this figure is highly suspect, since the Modi government has deliberately overstated its revenue for 2018-19 to the tune of Rs. 1.7 trillion ($25 billion). This is because the government has refused update its figures prior to presenting the current year’s budget despite having access to the more accurate revenue figures released by the Comptroller and Auditor General on May 31.

In keeping with the Modi government’s mantra of privatization, giant public sector units (PSUs) such as the national carrier Air India are to be sold off to private capital. The targeted amount is a little over Rs. 1 trillion ($15 billion) higher than the Rs. 900 billion in the last financial year. Media, aviation and insurance sectors that have already seen significant penetration by foreign capital are to be further opened up.

Railways are to attract a gargantuan sum of Rs. 50 trillion ($725 billion) by 2030. The overwhelming bulk of these funds is to come from private capital, which means more privatization. In response, the rail workers’ union has announced a three-day strike against privatization this week.

The budget provides no relief for the rural masses, whose impoverishment is so great they are barely able to feed themselves properly. Although agriculture contributes only 23 percent to the country’s GDP, over 59 percent of the country’s workers depend upon this sector for a living.

Despite the announcement of Rs. 600 billion ($9 billion) to the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS), which guarantees 100 days of menial, minimum-wage work per year to one member of any rural household that requests it, the fund is actually being starved of money. At least 20 percent of the current year funds over the past five years have been used to meet past liabilities.

More and more rural households have come to depend on MNREGS as they sink deeper into poverty under conditions of a chronic depression in rural income. However, increasing numbers are being turned away when they seek employment under this scheme. Last year through November, out of the 72 million who sought employment, only 59 million were provided some sort of a job. Even their minuscule wages are not being paid on time, discouraging ever more rural workers from applying.

The much-anticipated tax relief for the “middle-class”—a misnomer given that the average annual income of the top 10 percent was a little over $12,000 in 2014—was not forthcoming. Instead, Sitharam proposed an income tax exemption of Rs 150,000 ($2,000) for loans taken out to purchase electric vehicles. This move highlights the vast gulf separating the world inhabited by the Modi government and the life of daily misery experienced by the majority of the middle class, who struggle with daily shortages of drinking water and electricity.

Further tax hikes on petrol and diesel will increase food costs and impoverish the masses even further.

Sitharam also announced a further bailout of country’s public-sector banks by carrying out a “capitalization” to the tune of Rs. 700 billion (over $10 billion). This injection of money is prompted by the inability of the banks to increase credit to India’s cash-starved businesses because of the huge amount of mostly corporate debt that remains unpaid. This debt amount was estimated at Rs. 10.25 trillion ($150 billion) as of March 2018. In the last fiscal year, the government injected a record Rs. 1.6 trillion ($23 billion), thus indirectly compensating the banks for their losses.

In keeping with the Indian elite’s ambitions to be a global military power and a junior military partner in US imperialism’s drive against China, the military budget has risen to Rs. 4.3 trillion ($63 billion) from last year’s Rs. 4 trillion ($50 billion). Out of this, a little over Rs. 1 trillion ($14.5 billion) is earmarked for pensions.

This military budget has evoked general criticism for not keeping up with “need.” According to the Hindu: “There is disappointment in the military and industry over the defence allocation in the Union Budget.” The Air Force has been allocated Rs. 390 billion, but it has a committed liability for Chinook, Rafael and the S-400 of Rs. 490 billion this year, which means it won’t even be able to meet the current year’s commitment.

As the Business Standard observed: “In 2014-15, defence allocations, including pensions, accounted for 17.1 per cent of the central government’s spending, or about 2.28 per cent of GDP. This year, the Defence Budget will comprise 15.5 per cent of government expenditure and only 2.04 per cent of GDP.”

Given the paucity of domestic capital, the Modi government will increasingly bend to the demands of foreign capital to spur economic growth. That is why it is determined to gut any labour and environmental regulations that stand in the way of profit interests.

Signaling to big businesses that its demands are being heard, the government announced last week that will table a bill in the Lok Sabha to consolidate 13 labour laws into a single “code.” Although it is not yet clear what this will entail in practice, it is all but certain that it will benefit businesses at the expense of the already brutalized Indian working class.

China’s growth slows to lowest level since 1992

Nick Beams

China has recorded its lowest quarterly growth rate since 1992 in a clear sign that the US trade war measures are starting to impact on the world’s second largest economy.

The economy grew by 6.2 percent in the June quarter compared with a year earlier, down from the 6.4 percent recorded in the first three months of the year. The figure is still within the range of 6 to 6.5 percent which the government set as its target in March, but the trend is clearly down.

A report in the New York Times, as well as comments published elsewhere, noted that “much of the growth in the quarter may have taken place in April and May when public confidence was high because of a tax cut in March and heavy infrastructure spending as spring began.”

The outlook changed markedly after May 10 when trade negotiations broke down and Trump threatened tariffs on an additional $300 billion worth of Chinese goods. This was followed by the decision of the Commerce Department to place the telecom giant Huawei on its Entity List, requiring US tech firms wanting to supply it with components to get a licence to do so.

There are clearly growing concerns in the Chinese government that the growth figure could go lower in the months ahead.

At a news conference on the release of the data, Mao Shengyong, spokesman for China’s National Bureau of Statistics said: “Economic conditions are still severe both at home and abroad, the global economic growth is slowing down, the external instabilities and uncertainties are increasing, the unbalanced and inadequate development at home is still acute, and the economy is under new downward pressure.”

In line with the regime’s assertions that it is successfully resisting Trump’s trade war attacks, Mao downplayed the significance of trade, saying the economy was becoming more reliant on domestic consumption.

However, trade data, both imports and exports, showed a significant movement. China specialist George Magnus told the New York Times there was a “surge in activity through April” but then “something happened in May.”

Exports rose by only 0.1 percent in the first six months of the year compared to the same period last year. Most of the downturn in growth came from the fall in exports which were down 1.3 percent in June on a year-on year basis. Imports, an indicator of industrial activity, fell by 7.3 percent compared to a year earlier.

Mao said China had “sufficient policy reserves” to stabilize the economy in the second half of the year, including tax cuts and measures to boost infrastructure spending. But economic commentators have expressed doubts over whether this can be sustained.

Julian Evans-Pritchard, the senior economist at the consultancy Capital Economics, told the Guardian he doubted the more supportive policy of the government marked the start of a turn around and policymakers faced more weakness in the economy.

“We think that construction activity will come under pressure in the coming quarters as the recent boom in property development unwinds. Combined with increasing headwinds from US tariffs and weaker global growth, we expect this to culminate in a further slowdown over the coming year,” he said.

Industrial output rose by 6.3 percent in June, up from the figure of 5 percent in May, which had been the lowest rate since 2002.

US President Donald Trump hailed the slowdown in the Chinese economy as evidence of the effectiveness of his trade war measures.

“United States tariffs are having a major effect on companies wanting to leave China for non-tariff countries,” he tweeted.

“Thousands of companies are leaving. This is why China wants to make a deal with the US and wishes it had not broken the original deal in the first place. In the meantime, we are receiving billions of dollars in tariffs from China and possibly much more to come.”

As usual, Trump’s remarks contained a series of fictions. The breakdown in the trade talks did not result from China walking away from a deal.

The talks collapsed because of the continued US insistence that the tariff measures it had put in place would remain even after an agreement was signed and the Chinese government had to rewrite laws on intellectual property in accordance with Washington’s dictates. Beijing had indicated from the outset that both demands were unacceptable.

As for the “billions” in tariff revenues, these are not paid by Chinese firms but by US companies importing Chinese goods.

There is evidence that some US companies are moving out of China, with an article in the Wall Street Journal detailing a number of consumer goods firms planning to shift their manufacturing operations. It said that Apple was also considering moving some of its final assembly operations out of China in order to avoid US tariffs.

Contrary to the assertions by Trump, however, these companies are not shifting operations back to the US. Rather they are moving to cheap-labour platforms elsewhere. US imports from Vietnam, for example, are expected to increase by 36 percent this year from their levels in 2018.

International economic bodies, including the International Monetary Fund, have warned that the US trade war measures will have a significant impact on already slowing world economic growth. And the signs of that have started to emerge.

Last week, the trade-dependent Singapore economy reported an unexpected contraction in the second quarter. Gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 3.4 percent on an annualized basis compared to the previous three month, the biggest fall since 2012.

The contraction is significant because Singapore is often regarded as a bellwether for global demand and the state of world trade because of its export dependence that amounts to 176 percent of GDP.

Chua Hak Bin, an economist at a Singapore-based research institute, told Bloomberg: “Singapore is the canary in the coal mine, being very open and sensitive to trade.” The data pointed to the “risk of a deepening slowdown for the rest of Asia.”

“I thought the numbers might be bad, but this is ugly. We thought it might be shallow, but the risk now is that it might be deeper,” he said.

General Electric workers reject union-backed contract

Steve Filips

General Electric (GE) workers in the US last week voted down a tentative agreement backed by the unions that would impose concessions on 6,600 workers. The workers opposed rising medical expenses, cuts to their retirement pensions, and changes to workplace rules.

Workers at Boston-based GE and its subsidiary GE Aviation in nearby Lynn, Massachusetts, voted down the contract proposed by Local 201 of the International Union of Electronic workers and Communications Workers of America (IUE-CWA). The IUE affiliated with the CWA in 2000.

The CWA Facebook page GE Workers United posted, “The Per Capita vote results are 1,591 yes and 2,001 no, so the contract is hereby rejected.” The prior four-year agreement expired June 23. By blocking strike action, the unions are giving the giant company time to prepare against any action by workers.

There are 11 different unions at GE in the US. The CWA is leading the negotiations. In an effort to save face among workers, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) Vice President Brian Bryant came out against the deal, saying, “It’s what we consider a concessionary contract.” IAM workers rejected the agreement.

The GE workers with IUE-CWA Local 301 in Schenectady, New York, also voted down the deal.

The company has conducted a years-long job and cost-cutting program. GE’s financial filings reported in the Daily Gazette showed that company employment shrank by 10 percent from 313,000 to 283,000 employees in 2018. The company’s original headquarters along the Mohawk River in Schenectady has seen a 34 percent reduction from 4,000 to 3,000 employees since March 2018.

GE is making cuts internationally, including its GE Power division, which bought Alstom’s gas turbine segment in France in 2014. In May, GE announced the cut of 1,000 workers at its Belfort plant in eastern France.

The United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers (UE) Locals 506 and 618 shut down and betrayed a nine-day strike earlier this year at the Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation (Wabtec) Locomotive factory in Erie, Pennsylvania. The plant was sold by GE Transportation, but GE still holds a 25 percent share.

UE and the other unions have given GE Transportation and Wabtec free rein to cut wage and benefits, as well as add new tiers. Up to 25 percent of the workforce are part-time workers.

The latest deal at Wabtec inserted language for the creation of a two-tier workforce. Like the United Auto Workers, the UE has used the euphemism “workers in progression” to label these workers who must labor 10 years before reaching top pay. The union also accepted a further restriction on the right to strike, which was demanded by the company.

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders weighed in on the Wabtec struggle to cover up the role of the unions and keep workers tied to the corporate-controlled Democratic Party.

The giant industrial conglomerate GE was founded in 1892 by Thomas Edison with financial backing by Gilded Age robber baron JP Morgan. The giant monopoly developed manufacturing plants around the world. The fortunes of the company and American capitalism have been intertwined for its more than 127-year history. GE was symbolic of the US industrial colossus, and its decline was part of the loss of American capitalism’s hegemony in the world economy and the rise of powerful international competitors.

Former GE CEO Jack Welch personified the rise of financial parasitism, deindustrialization and the ruthless attack on the working class in the US and internationally.

The company floundered as a result of its GE Finance division’s losses in the Great Recession. Exploiting its low share prices, Warren Buffett, one of the world’s richest men, invested $3 billion and then sold all of his shares in 2017 for a $1.2 billion gain. Since then, there has been a 40 percent devaluation in share values. This has coincided with falling profits.

GE has sold off a number of its subsidiary divisions, including GE Appliance. The CWA helped impose a two-tier wage scheme at the GE Appliance plant in Louisville, Kentucky, before it was bought by Chinese-owned Haier for $5.4 billion. Workers at the Louisville plant, which employs 6,000 workers, currently start at the poverty-level wage of $14 per hour.

GE Healthcare, one of the largest health care providers in the world, is scheduled to have its Initial Public Offering (IPO) sometime this year.

The rejection of the union-backed contract is a sign of the growing militancy of the working class in the US and around the world. It underscores the need to build rank-and-file factory committees, independent of the unions, and to develop an international strategy to fight the global assault on workers’ jobs and living standards.

The Assange precedent: Journalists in Britain threatened with Official Secrets Act

Robert Stevens & Laura Tiernan

London’s Metropolitan Police threatened journalists with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act last Friday in an unprecedented attack on media freedom.

Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu announced that Counter Terrorism Command would investigate alleged breaches of the Official Secrets Act over publication of leaked diplomatic telegrams written by Sir Kim Darroch.

Darroch resigned last week as Britain’s ambassador to the US after his damning confidential assessments of President Donald Trump were published by the Mail on Sunday. Trump had publicly reprimanded Darroch over descriptions of his administration as “uniquely dysfunctional” and “inept.”

Speaking outside New Scotland Yard, Basu stated, “Given the widely reported consequences of that leak, I am satisfied that there has been damage caused to UK international relations, and there would be clear public interest in bringing the person or people responsible to justice.”

He told the leaker, “Turn yourself in at the earliest opportunity, explain yourself and face the consequences.”

Basu’s statement also targeted journalists and media organisations: “The publication of leaked communications, knowing the damage they have caused or are likely to cause may also be a criminal matter.

“I would advise all owners, editors and publishers of social and mainstream media not to publish leaked government documents that may already be in their possession, or which may be offered to them, and to turn them over to the police or give them back to their rightful owner, Her Majesty’s Government.”

A storm of protest followed Basu’s threats, as newspaper editors weighed in to oppose what Sunday Times political editor Tim Shipman described as his “sinister, absurd, anti-democratic statement.”

On Saturday afternoon, Basu issued a follow-up statement widely described in the media as a “row-back.” It was not.

He declared, “The Metropolitan Police respects the rights of the media and has no intention of seeking to prevent editors from publishing stories in the public interest in a liberal democracy. The media hold an important role in scrutinising the actions of the state.”

He continued, “However, we have also been told the publication of these specific documents, now knowing they may be a breach of the Official Secrets Act, could also constitute a criminal offence and one that carries no public interest defence.”

In other words, any journalist or media organisation publishing the leaked material after the Met’s announcement would be committing a criminal offence. “We know these documents and potentially others remain in circulation,” he warned.

Facing opprobrium from major news outlets, Conservative Party leadership contenders Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt both felt it necessary to condemn the Met’s threats as an “infringement on press freedom.”

But this was a transparent cover-up. According to a report in the Guardian, the Met’s investigation was launched under a “Gateway Process” following discussions between “Senior Cabinet Office officials” and Met Deputy Assistant Commissioner Dean Haydon, who is “the senior national coordinator at Scotland yard’s SO15.”

SO15 is the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command (CTC) unit and is the police body charged with national responsibility for investigating allegations of criminal breaches of the Official Secrets Act.

What the Met proposed was the de facto criminalisation of journalism so that it could be bracketed within terrorist activity.

Statements such as those made by former Tory Chancellor and current Evening Standard editor George Osborne, portraying Basu as a bumbling incompetent, were an attempt at damage control. Osborne described Basu’s statement as “very stupid and ill-advised,” the work of “a junior officer who doesn’t appear to understand much about press freedom.”

But the sinister import of the Met’s investigation was made clear by the intervention of former defence secretary, Sir Michael Fallon. Speaking to BBC Radio Four’s “Today” programme on Saturday, Fallon insisted journalists should be subject to the Official Secrets Act. He described Basu’s attack on the media as “quite logical,” adding, “If they [newspapers] are receiving stolen material then they should give it back to the rightful owner and should be aware of the huge damage done and potential greater damage by further breaches of the Official Secrets Act.”

Asked whether journalists should comply with the act he replied, “I don’t think anyone can entirely absolve themselves of the need to avoid damage to this country. … We have press freedom … but we also have laws. We have the Official Secrets Act and it is important that law is upheld.”

Fallon was backed up by Security Minister Ben Wallace who tweeted that “members of the general public are also bound by a part of the Act.”

The Official Secrets Act has been on the statute books since 1911 and was adopted in its current form in 1989. Under it, “disclosing information, documents or other articles relating to” security or intelligence, defence, and international relations is an offence. Currently, only serving or former civil servants, government contractors, or members of the security and intelligence services can be prosecuted for committing offences under the act. Those found guilty face fines or a jail sentence of between two and 14 years.

Speaking on Friday, Executive Director of the Society of Editors Ian Murray condemned the Met’s invocation of the Act against journalists, “Frankly it is the kind of approach we would expect from totalitarian regimes where the media are expected to be little more than a tame arm of the government.” The Met’s dictatorial edicts show the Assange precedent in action. The decision of the US government, with the backing of outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, to prosecute the WikiLeaks founder under the Espionage Act for publishing leaked government documents has opened the floodgates.

Passed in 1917, the Espionage Act was heavily modelled on the original UK Official Secrets Act of 1889 that was updated just three years prior to the outbreak of World War I.

Friday’s threats by the Met follow raids by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) on the headquarters of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the home of Sunday Telegraph political editor Annika Smethurst. AFP officers seized hundreds of files relating to articles exposing government spying and war crimes committed by Australian troops in Afghanistan.

The growing state suppression of core journalistic activity takes place amid an escalating drive to war. Britain is working to assist US war plans against Iran, staging provocations in Gibraltar and the Strait of Hormuz in the past fortnight that have been used to ratchet up tensions.

Fallon’s involvement and his demand that journalists be subject to the Official Secrets Act is aimed at concealing from the public the advanced preparations for war. According to last week’s Foreign Policy magazine, the UK and France have agreed behind closed doors to bolster their ground forces in Syria by 10-15 percent, with the UK sending more Special Forces troops.

If the provisions threatened by the British state are enacted, journalists will face years in prison for bringing to light the intrigues of those preparing new wars and other anti-democratic measures.

Amazon workers internationally protest against conditions on Prime Day

Kayla Costa

Thousands of warehouse and tech workers in the United States, the UK, Germany, Poland and Spain are engaged in strikes and demonstrations on Amazon “Prime Day,” a shopping holiday created by the online retail giant to promote sales through discounts to subscribers of its Amazon Prime membership.

This year, Amazon extended Prime Day from 36 to 48 hours. The one-trillion-dollar corporation headed by CEO Jeff Bezos expects to rake in more than $5 billion in sales over the two days, a new record for the company’s annual promotion.

The sales bonanza is carried out on the backs of the workers, who are forced to move faster and process higher volumes of orders with no increase in their poverty-level compensation.

Since last year’s Prime Day, when workers carried out strikes in the US and Europe, conditions have only worsened. Amazon representatives boasted to the media yesterday that “our wages are at the upper end of what is paid in comparable jobs.” They claimed that the protesting workers were “misinformed,” since the company had raised its minimum US wage to $15 an hour. They were silent on the fact that Bezos had at the same time eliminated bonus payments, actually reducing take-home pay for some workers.

Workers continue to report health and safety violations, speedup, increased quotas, harassment and injuries. This is the reality that has propelled Amazon workers in many parts of the world to protest against dangerous working conditions, inadequate compensation and grotesque inequality between employees and corporate executives. Amazon workers are also solidarizing themselves with immigrants being scapegoated and persecuted by the Trump administration and governments across Europe. They are denouncing Amazon’s ties to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the midst of immigrant raids launched Sunday and Trump’s latest attack on the right to asylum.

Two thousand German workers participated in strikes at warehouses in Werne, Rheinberg, Leipzig, Graben, Koblenz and Bad Hersfeld. The strikes, organized by the Verdi union, were held under the slogan “No more discount on our incomes,” though rank-and-file workers raised a number of issues beyond pay.

In the United Kingdom, hundreds of workers will join protests across the country throughout the week to voice their opposition. The GMB union has not called for a strike or boycott, with bureaucrat Mick Rix explicitly declaring in a statement that union officials do not want to cause “economic damage for Amazon.”

Workers in Spain and Poland will also participate in demonstrations throughout the week.

In the United States, some 1,500 full-time workers at a fulfillment center near Minneapolis, Minnesota are holding a six-hour strike between the day and night shifts. This is the second major action workers have carried out at the facility since a group of East African Muslim workers began speaking out 18 months ago, and it is the first major strike by Amazon workers in North America.

On top of the usual harassment, speedup and on-the-job injuries that all warehouse workers face, immigrant workers were initially denied adequate time for prayer breaks. Even after the company agreed to the breaks, workers were still required to meet the quota of 230 items per hour, heightening the risk of being arbitrarily fired or injured. Immigrant workers began organizing themselves alongside native-born workers, with the support of a local immigrant rights organization, the Awood Center.

Amazon workers and supporters are also protesting the ties of Amazon Web Services (AWS) to ICE, as well as the poor conditions facing AWS workers. Demonstrations were attended by hundreds in San Francisco, Portland and New York, in addition to a protest at the headquarters building in Seattle, Washington. Activists associated with Jobs with Justice plan to turn in a petition at Bezos’s Manhattan mansion and the company’s San Francisco office demanding an end to the use of AWS facial recognition technology by ICE. The petition has 270,000 signatures.

Tech workers published an open letter to Bezos in June of 2018 opposing the contract between AWS and ICE after Google and Microsoft employees drafted similar letters in opposition to their companies’ ties to US militarism. More recently in Boston, hundreds of Wayfair workers walked off their jobs at the online furniture retailer to protest the company’s decision to profit from sales to immigrant detention centers.

The protests this week are an indication of the power that can be unleashed by Amazon workers internationally. Within the global logistics and technology supply chain, the workers constitute an international force at the heart of the world economy. It is especially significant that American workers are protesting not just poor compensation and working conditions, but also the role of the company in aiding the US government in its savage crackdown on immigrants.

The World Socialist Web Site spoke with several Amazon workers about the Prime Day events. Michelle, an injured warehouse worker from Texas, sent a message via the WSWS to the striking Amazon workers. She wrote: “Don't give in, because what Jeff Bezos doesn’t understand is that the people hold the power, not the company. There is strength in numbers… the workers don’t need Amazon; Amazon needs its workers.”

She pointed to “a small problem” in the current strikes—that they were too short and isolated to “make a dent” in such a giant corporation. But, she continued, “If they lasted longer and there were even delivery drivers and pilots refusing to work a few days...now that would be something.”

Michelle reflected on the common interests of different sections of the working class—for example, Amazon workers and autoworkers, where “the employees are struggling and sacrificing so much while the company is making so much profit off of their suffering.”

Beyond the initial steps taken to protest on Prime Day, Amazon workers must develop their struggle on the basis of their international strength. Company leaders boasted that isolated, short-term strikes in a few scattered hubs would barely impact the massive profits made during the online frenzy, but this must only stir workers to counter the global strategy of Amazon to maximize the exploitation of workers with a globally coordinated strategy for workers to fight back and assert their interests in opposition to the profit drive of the company.

It is within this context that the treacherous role of the trade unions and supposedly “pro-worker” and “progressive” politicians must be understood. With Amazon workers growing more radical and militant, the unions are seeking to gain control in order to isolate, limit and suppress their resistance while obtaining new sources of dues revenue.

Many European warehouse employees are already unionized by Verdi in Germany and the GMB union in the UK, where actions were deliberately limited to short strikes or scattered demonstrations in order to prevent any threat to Amazon’s profits. In Poland and Spain, the protests are barely being publicized by the unions. The actions of the unions this year are similar to their role in strangling strike efforts last year.

Amazon workers in the United States are nonunion, though “progressive” Democrats, pseudo-left organizations and union organizations have ramped up their campaign to channel growing discontent into the confines of the unions and the Democratic Party.

A number of unions issued statements of support for the striking workers. “Amazon workers are sending a powerful message to Jeff Bezos this Prime Day: It’s time to stop putting profits ahead of people,” United Food and Commercial Workers International Union President Marc Perrone said in a statement. “With the recent move to one-day Prime shipping, Amazon workers are being forced to meet impossible demands at increasingly unsafe speeds,” he added.

Though it is not clear which union will emerge from the scramble of competing bureaucracies to win the Amazon franchise, it seems that the Teamsters union is in the lead.

Democratic Party presidential candidates—who have backed every betrayal of workers’ struggles carried out by the unions—used the strikes as an opportunity to con workers into believing they were on the employees’ side. Elizabeth Warren tweeted: “I fully support Amazon workers’ Prime Day strike. Their fight for safe and reliable jobs is another reminder that we must come together to hold big corporations accountable.”

Soon after, Bernie Sanders, who praised Bezos for “doing the right thing” by paying workers a paltry $15 an hour, tweeted, “I stand in solidarity with the courageous Amazon workers engaging in a work stoppage against unconscionable working conditions in their warehouses.”

Shannon Allen, a former Amazon worker who attracted a large online following after sharing her story of becoming homeless after a workplace injury, had a sharp message in response to Senator Warren. “You are a capitalist,” she wrote. “You are one of the rich millionaires out here… What are you going to do for these people besides voice your opinion and get more votes? These are real people’s lives.”

Though the verbal support of politicians comes and goes, “This is an epidemic that has been going on a long time” Allen said. “Only over the last few years have people started to speak out.”

If workers want to really fight the rampant exploitation and abuse, “All these workers need to band together and strike at one time,” Allen declared. “Hit them where it hurts.”

In order to wage an effective struggle, workers need to create new organizations independent of the trade unions and all the capitalist political parties. They need to establish rank-and-file committees to link up every tech center and fulfillment center and develop a program of demands that bases itself on the workers’ interests, not what the company says it can afford: for decent and safe full-time jobs, adequate break time, steep increases to wages and benefits, workers’ control over line speed and production, among other demands.

Such committees established at Amazon facilities around the world will make possible an internationally coordinated struggle to unite the workers against the transnational company and link up with the struggles of other logistics workers, autoworkers, service workers, nurses, teachers and other sections of the international working class.

Sri Lankan prime minister promotes US defence agreement

Vijith Samarasinghe & K. Ratnayake

Addressing the Sri Lankan parliament last Wednesday, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe attempted to gloss over the geo-strategic implications of a planned Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between Colombo and Washington. If signed, the deal would give the US the right to freely use the strategically located Indian Ocean island nation for its military forces.

The government of former President Chandrika Kumaratunga signed a SOFA deal with Washington in mid-1995. The US wants that agreement to be replaced with one that suits its aggressive military preparations against China.

Wickremesinghe commented on the planned SOFA in reply to a question from Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) leader and MP Anura Kumara Dissanayake. The JVP, which previously supported the pro-US government in 2015, is now attempting to posture as an opponent of US imperialism.

Wickremesinghe told parliament that the negotiations were ongoing but claimed that “no deal impacting the sovereignty of Sri Lanka will be signed [and] there are some things which we can’t agree on.” He did not elaborate on any disagreements and ludicrously claimed what was being prepared was a “peace time document.”

However, Wickremesinghe admitted, “This agreement generally establishes the framework for US military personnel operating in a foreign country. The SOFA provides for the powers and privileges of covered individuals.”

A leaked version of the 15-paragraph document published in Colombo’s Sunday Times on June 30 reveals some of the extensive powers that would be granted to US Defence Department officials and the American military. These include:

* All US personnel be accorded the privileges, exemptions, and immunities equivalent to those accorded to the administrative and technical staff of a diplomatic mission under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations; that US personnel enter and exit Sri Lanka with US identification and with collective movement or individual travel orders; that Sri Lanka accept as valid all professional licenses issued by the US, its political subdivisions or states; and US personnel be authorised to wear uniforms while performing official duties and to carry arms while on duty.

* The US government is to exercise criminal jurisdiction over US personnel. They cannot be subjected to Sri Lankan law.

* Vehicles, aircraft, vessels and equipment of US forces are to enter and move freely within Sri Lankan territory and be free from boarding and inspection by local authorities.

* US forces are to be allocated a dedicated radio spectrum and can operate their own telecommunication system.

* Any construction or procurement activity undertaken by US forces in Sri Lanka will be free from local taxes.

Wickremesinghe claimed in parliament that “the pact would not lead to a permanent US presence on the island,” but failed to explain why Washington needed such freedom for its forces. Contrary to Wickremesinghe’s attempts to downplay a new SOFA deal, the Trump administration wants the closest military collaboration with Colombo.

Addressing the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington last February, INDOPACOM chief, Admiral Philip Davidson, declared that Sri Lanka “remains a significant strategic opportunity in the Indian Ocean and our military-to-military relationship continues to strengthen.”

These relations expanded dramatically after President Maithripala Sirisena came to power in a US-orchestrated regime change operation that ousted former President Mahinda Rajapakse in 2015. Sirisena and Wickremesinghe immediately brought Sri Lanka’s foreign policy into line with Washington and New Delhi, its South Asian strategic partner, and their confrontational geo-strategic agenda against China.

In 2017, Colombo extended the Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement (ACSA) with the US for an indefinite period. Originally signed in 2007, it enables the US military access to Sri Lankan ports and airports.

In March this year, a report by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing US think tank, listed all the US-Sri Lankan military agreements and joint exercises since 2015 and declared that “since late 2018, the country has been serving as a new Indian Ocean logistics hub for the US Navy.”

Sri Lanka is strategically important to Washington and its preparations to economically and militarily block China in the Indian Ocean region in the event of war.

While the Wickremesinghe government is seeking to push through the agreement with some cosmetic changes, other factions of the ruling elite are silent or making hypocritical criticisms.

President Sirisena, who backed Washington’s military build-up in the region after his coming to power in 2015, is now pretending to be critical of some clauses in the agreement.

At a recent public meeting, Sirisena demagogically declared: “I will not allow the SOFA that seeks to betray the nation.” Having signed the ACSA in 2017, he now claims that he was unaware of the clauses in that agreement and was duped by its authors.

Before he fell out with Wickremesinghe after their unity government was discredited among workers and poor, Sirisena boasted about his “excellent relations” with the “international community”—i.e., the US, Europe and India. When Sirisena removed Wickremesinghe and appointed Rajapakse as prime minister in an attempted political coup last October, his representatives visited western ambassadors, including the US, informing them of Rajapakse’s readiness to follow their demands.

Leaders of the opposition Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), including Rajapakse, are conspicuously silent about the SOFA and other agreements with the US. Only second ranking leaders of the SLPP or other parties in alliance with it, such as the communalist Mahajana Eksath Peramuna and the National Freedom Front, have issued statements denouncing the government for betraying the country’s sovereignty.

The JVP's opposition to the SOFA agreement is entirely hypocritical. Its claims to have opposed the ACSA in 2007 are a lie. There is no evidence in the parliamentary Hansard or in any media report that the JVP opposed the agreement. The JVP, like other parties in Sri Lanka, fully backed Washington’s so-called war on terror in 2001 and the invasion of Afghanistan, developed relations with Western diplomats in Sri Lanka and called for US support for Colombo’s war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Nervous about the deep-seated opposition of Sri Lankan workers and youth to US imperialism, Sirisena and the opposition political parties are posturing as opponents of the SOFA agreement.

The planned SOFA deal and the ever-deepening military relations between Washington and Colombo for war against China raise the necessity for the development of a mass anti-war movement of the working class based on the struggle for socialist internationalism. As part of this fight, the Sri Lankan working class must reject all factions of the Sri Lankan ruling elite and oppose SOFA, ACSA and other overt and covert deals between Colombo, Washington and other imperialist powers.

Talisman Sabre: US and Australia prepare for war with China

Oscar Grenfell 

Up to 34,000 military personnel from the US, Australia, Britain, New Zealand and Japan arrived in northern Queensland this week for the biannual Talisman Sabre war games which began on Thursday. Delegations from India and South Korea are observing the exercises, while 18 other nations from across the Indo-Pacific were invited.

The military drills have been treated as a non-event in the corporate press and by the state-owned Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Only a handful of articles have appeared, all of them treating the war games as routine and providing few details of their purpose.

To the extent that there has been any consternation in the media, it has been over the presence of a Chinese navy vessel, reportedly sent to international waters near northern Australia to monitor the exercises. Journalists and pundits have warned against “Chinese spying,” and have uncritically repeated statements from Australian Defence Force representatives, who have declared they will take unspecified “counter-measures.”

The silence of the media and all of the official parties, including the Greens, is aimed at keeping the population in the dark about the real purpose of Talisman Sabre: to drill for an offensive US-led war against China that would rapidly threaten a global nuclear conflagration.

The USS Ronald Reagan in Brisbane [Credit: @TalismanSabre Twitter]

The first Talisman Sabre exercise was held in 2005. They have expanded substantially since 2011. In that year, the Greens-backed Labor government of Julia Gillard agreed to integrate Australia into the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia”—a vast US military build-up throughout the Indo-Pacific region directed against China.

The military drills have been based upon the Pentagon’s AirSea Battle doctrine, under which conflict with China would involve a massive military bombardment, accompanied by the blockading of key shipping lanes in the Pacific through which the bulk of Chinese trade passes. Talisman Sabre has largely focused on preparations for imposing such a naval blockade around the straits of Sunda, Lombok and Malacca.

This year’s exercises are being held amid open diplomatic and economic clashes between the US and China, and the emergence of flashpoints around the world for a broader conflict.

For the past year, the Trump administration has been imposing trade war measures on China that are unprecedented in the post-World War Two period. In US and Australian foreign policy circles, there is an increasingly open discussion of the need to counter growing Chinese influence in the Pacific, and internationally, including through military means.

In line with this ratcheting-up of tensions, the 2019 Talisman Sabre exercise is the largest that has been held. The drills were already the second-biggest war games in the world.

An official statement on the “opening ceremony” of Talisman Sabre last Monday reported that Defence Minister Linda Reynolds “said the exercise was designed to enhance combat readiness and interoperability between the Australian and United States Armed Forces.” Reynolds’ reference to “combat readiness” made clear that the exercises are about preparing for war.

This year, Talisman Sabre is reportedly focusing on rehearsing US plans for the invasion and seizure of an island in the Pacific that would be a base for amphibious operations throughout the region and for sustaining an attack on land positions. Such an operation would also be aimed at taking control of shipping lanes. The most obvious targets are Chinese-controlled islets in the South China Sea, which could provide a base for launching operations against key military bases in southern China.

This is based on a new “operating concept” developed this year by the US navy and marines dubbed “expeditionary advanced base operations.” Brigadier General Stephen Liszewski, director of operations for the Marine Corps, told the US National Defense magazine in May that this was “all about distributing lethality across the battle space in support of a larger maritime campaign.”

Liszewski said such a base could “be used as a forward arming and refueling point for aircraft from the joint force.” According to National Defense it “could also be used as sensing platforms to collect intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance information, or as strike platforms to achieve sea control.”

The Marine Times noted that the tactic was first tested by the US Marines in exercises in the Pacific in March this year. It bluntly declared: “That fighting concept, known as expeditionary advanced base operations, or EABO, will see Marines spread thinly across the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, operating from small bases—a tactic that will help Marines stay alive in a high-end fight with China.”

A solider participating in a HIMARS drill [Credit: @TalismanSabre Twitter]

A crucial part of the plan is known as HI-RAIN. This involves rapid artillery raids conducted by HIMARS rocket launchers transported by C-130 military aircraft. Such raids will be trialled during Talisman Sabre.

US Army Major Daniel Graw, Division Assistant Fire Support Coordinator, 3d Marine Division, told Defence Connect: “What we are demonstrating is the capability of the US Marine Corps, US Air Force and US Army to come together with different aircrews and different HIMARS units, quickly build a plan, deploy on C-130s, travel great distances by air, land, rapidly deliver long-range precision fires against enemy targets, and depart their firing location prior to detection.”

Among the US military assets participating in the games is the Strike Group, led by the U.S. Nimitz-class supercarrier USS Ronald Reagan. The USS McCampbell, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, is also participating, along with the USS Wasp, USS Green Bay and USS Ashland, which make up the Wasp Amphibious Ready Group.

HIMARS exercises [Credit: @TalismanSabre Twitter]

In a particularly provocative move directed against China, Japan was invited to dramatically expand its participation in this year’s exercises. It has sent a helicopter destroyer, JS Ise, and tank landing ship, JS Kunisaki, to take part. Japan, which invaded China in the 1930s and 1940s, has been encouraged to remilitarise by Washington as part of its confrontation with Beijing.

Successive militarist governments in Tokyo have deliberately ratcheted-up tensions with the Chinese regime, including by stoking disputes over unoccupied rocky outcrops in the East China Sea. At the same time, they have moved to scrap nominally pacifist clauses in the country’s post World War II constitution, in a clear threat of war against China.

The silence of the Australian media and political establishment on the preparations for conflict in the Indo-Pacific makes clear that the entire ruling elite is committed to militarism and war, amid the deepest crisis of world capitalism since the 1930s.

The media, the intelligence agencies, and all of the official parties, including the Greens, have sought to overcome mass anti-war sentiment by covering up the threat of conflict and waging a McCarthyite campaign against supposed Chinese influence in Australia.

The immense dangers revealed by Talisman Sabre underscore the critical importance of the fight being waged by the International Committee of the Fourth International and the Socialist Equality Parties around the world to build an international anti-war movement of the working class directed against the source of conflict, the capitalist nation-state system.

German Development Bank (KFW) Masters Scholarships 2019/2020 for East African Students

Application Deadline: 1^st August 2019, 17:00 hours, East Africa Time

Eligible Countries: East African Communities (EAC)

To be Taken at (Country): EAC Partner State other than their country of citizenship

Field(s) of Study: 1) Mathematics, 2) Engineering, 3) Informatics, 4) Science, 5) Technology and 6) Business Science.

About the Award: Applications are invited for the above named scholarship programme supported by the German Development Bank (KFW) in collaboration with the East African Community (EAC) and implemented by the Inter-University Council for East Africa (IUCEA). The goal of this initiative is to contribute towards training leaders that will foster EAC regional integration.
Applicants are expected to study in countries other than their own in selected universities and programmes. Successful applicants will  be offered a comprehensive package including scholarships for the masters programmes, internships, mentoring, networking events and further leadership training activities. The scholarship will support masters students in Mathematics, Engineering, Informatics, Science, Technology and Business Science programmes. IUCEA hereby invites applications from students who are citizens of the East African Community (EAC) Partner States to apply for the KFW funded Masters Scholarships.

Type: Masters

Selection Criteria: The following criteria is mandatory. Students should:

• Be citizens of a partner state of the East African Community;
• Possess the required academic qualifications for admission to the programme
• Submit a well written motivation letter in English elaborating on the following:

1. Motivation for wanting to pursue a the Masters Programme chosen in section 2 above
2. Foreseen professional engagement in EAC Integration agenda after completing the Masters
3. Expect application of the acquired skills and knowledge from the Masters Programme to contribute the EAC Integration Agenda
4. Personal professional and academic vision in the next 5 to 10 years

Note: Please note that all the above should be covered in one letter of not more than 500 words

• Be below 35 years of age
• Have applied to study in an EAC Partner State other than their country of citizenship

Number of Awards: The financial cooperation arrangement shall finance the first three cohorts of approximately 157 masters students over their full study time of 2 years. After the first cohort has completed the studies, an independent evaluation of the level of attainment of the objectives of the project will be carried out, with the desirable impact being assessed.

Value of Award: Masters students shall be given a fixed amount of money to cover living as well as costs for teaching and research materials. The students shall be required to apply to study in an EAC Partner State other than their own.

Duration of Award: 2 years

How to Apply:

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

Visit Award Webpage for Details

AUC-UNDP African Young Women Leaders Fellowship Programme 2019

Application Deadline: 1st August 2019 (Midnight New York, USA)

Eligible Countries: African Countries

To be Taken at (Country): UNDP at Headquarters in New York or in a regional or country office

About the Award: Do you want to work to advance the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals?
Do you want to fight poverty and ensure sustainable development?
Do you want to lead change and develop your skills to do so?
If so, we invite you to apply to the African Young Women Leaders Fellowship Programme – a partnership between the African Union Commission (AUC) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
This exciting partnership aims to build a new generation of young African women leaders and experts to serve Africa and the world in designing and implementing development programmes in the context of the SDGs and Agenda 2063.
We are looking for 20 young African women who are ready to take up a fellowship assignment for 12 months starting from October 2019.

Type: Fellowship

Selection Criteria: To be considered for the African Young Women Leaders Fellowship Programme, applicants must meet the following requirements:

• National of an AU Member State
• Aged below 34 years at the date of application
• Hold a Master’s degree or equivalent in Economics, Political Science, Business Administration, International Relations/Development, or other relevant fields
• Maximum 1 year of working experience in research, analysis and programme/project development, implementation and management
• Available in 2019/20 to dedicate 12 months for a fellowship programme and available to participate in an induction workshop in Addis Ababa from October 2019.
• Willing to live and work outside their country of residence
• Proficiency in at least one AU working language (Arabic, English, French, Portuguese) and working knowledge of English
• Understanding of, and interest in, poverty eradication, sustainable structural transformation, the SDGs and Africa’s Agenda 2063
• Capacity to gather comprehensive information on complex problems or situations, evaluating information accurately, analysing and identifying key issues and solutions

Desirable experience:

• initiative, client-orientation, and working in teams, and complex and time-pressured contexts, field experience in an African country
• experience in developing technical proposals
• leadership, innovation and technology and setting up networks/hubs/hangouts

Number of Awards: 20

Value of Award: The Fellowship Programme will cover expenses related to travel and medical insurance. In addition, each Fellow will be paid a stipend to cover accommodation and living costs at the respective duty station.

Duration of Award: One-year Fellowship starting 1st oct 2019

How to Apply: Your application must be in English and must include include the following (to be scanned and uploaded as one document):

• A detailed CV
• A one page motivation letter highlighting why you would be an outstanding candidate, your strengths and how your participation in the Programme would contribute to your future career
• A short essay of not more than 1,500 words (3 pages single spaced) detailing your innovative solution to a complex development problem – youth unemployment.  Describe the nature of the problem, what are the underlying causes, who is responsible for solving this problem, what your innovative solution is and how you would implement it.
• Copies of your academic degrees
• 2 professional references

Applications which do not include the above documents will not be taken into consideration.
Please note that only longlisted candidates will be contacted. If you have not been contacted by 1 September, your application has not been included into the long-list of candidates.
Longlisted candidates will be invited to a video-interview and if successful will be included into a roster.
Short-listed candidates will be invited for a follow-up interview with the hosting UNDP headquarters or regional office.
We will make an offer to the 20 most successful and talented candidates to join the African Women Leaders Fellowship Programme

Visit Award Webpage for Details

UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women 2019

Application Deadline: 31st July 2019, 23:59 EST.

Eligible Countries: See below

About the Award: The UN Trust Fund’s Call for Proposals, now open, is for projects to prevent and end violence against women and girls under the Spotlight Initiative in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. This Call for Proposals, which is available in three languages, accepts multi-year grant applications for up to USD 1 million in English, French and Spanish.

This call is open to applicants in the following categories of target countries:

1. Latin America: Single Country Project Proposals from Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico
2. Sub-Saharan Africa: Single Country Project Proposals from Cameroon, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Mali, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe
3. Multi-Country Project Proposals from all other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa: Countries under category 2 are not eligible for multi-country project proposals.

Type: Grants

Eligibility:

• Women-led and women’s rights organizations that have specialized knowledge, expertise and track record of working on women’s human rights and prevention and/or elimination of violence against women and girls. Applications from women’s rights, women-led, and small women’s organizations will be prioritized, in recognition of them being the driving force of the ending violence against women agenda, as well as being at the forefront of reaching women and girls’ survivors at the grassroots level. Women’s funds are also encouraged to apply to expand the reach of the funding to a broader cross-section of civil society.
• Legal and Operational Status The applicant or one of its implementing partners must be legally registered in the country of project implementation. If the applicant is not registered in the country of project implementation, a locally registered implementing partner must be identified when submitting the application for the call for proposals. Women’s funds are eligible to apply if they submit an application in partnership with one implementing partner registered in the country of project implementation. In the case of multi-country projects, one of the implementing partners will be required to be registered in one of the countries of implementation.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award:

• 3-year grants of US$ 50,000 to US$ 150,000 for small civil society organizations
• 3-year grants of US$ 150,001 to US$ 1 million for all other civil society organizations

How to Apply: Click here to apply

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

Visit Award Webpage for Details

African Investigative Journalism Conference Fellowships 2019 for African Journalism Students (Fully-funded to AIJC in Johannesburg, South Africa)

Application Deadline: 8th August 2019

Eligible Countries: Countries in Africa

To be taken at (country): Johannesburg, South Africa

About the Award: The African Investigative Journalism Conference (#AIJC19) is the premier annual gathering of African investigative journalists – a three-day international conference for and about investigative journalism. It involves skills training, networking, promoting, collaboration and in-depth accounts of major investigative stories. It is hosted by the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
This year’s conference will feature more than 50 speakers in workshops, panel discussions and networking sessions, as well as skills training in areas such as advanced data analysis and security. Key speakers include award-winning journalists from across the world, and Africa’s best. This is a chance to hear and meet those leading the field and enhance your skills with the latest tools and tips.
With the support of our sponsors, GIJN and Wits Journalism are offering fellowships to both established and young promising journalists in developing and transitioning countries to participate in this prestigious event. Competition is keen so you need to convince us that you’ll make great use of the training GIJC17 offers. 

Type: Fellowship, Conferences

Eligibility: 

• Open to full-time print, online, television, video, and multimedia journalists from SADC Countries.
• Only students currently in their final year of an undergraduate journalism degree, honours or master’s degree in journalism are eligible to apply for a bursary to attend the conference.

Number of Awardees: 10

Value of Fellowship: 

• In 2019, AJIC19 have 10 fully-funded places for journalism students from the SADC region (Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, eSwatini, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe).
• The bursary covers your travel costs to the conference and return; your hotel accommodation in Johannesburg, meals, conference fees and ground transport to and from the conference.

How to Apply: Click here for the application form. Visit www.journalism.co.za/aijc19 for more information about the conference.

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details