The mounting human cost of the Thomas Cook collapse

Richard Tyler

Hundreds of thousands of Thomas Cook customers had their holidays brought to a sudden end when the company was placed in compulsory liquidation in the early hours of Monday morning.

The international scale of the crisis, with devastating economic and social implications, has rapidly become clear. The collapse means that the firm’s entire 22,000-strong global workforce have lost their jobs. Some 9,000 of these are employed in the UK, with 6,000 already laid off. The firm was headquartered in Manchester, with 3,000 previously employed in the region.

Many are set to attend a jobs fair at the city’s airport next week in the hope of getting work. In addition, the future of hundreds of foreign hotels and other businesses dependent on the travel company for most of their income, along with the jobs of those working there, are in jeopardy.

Greece Thomas Cook

Boris Johnson’s Conservative government had refused a last-minute appeal to provide up to £250 million to keep the British-headquartered company operational as it sought to reach a deal with its creditors and secure new investment. Instead, the Civil Aviation Authority, on behalf of the government, began the largest British repatriation exercise in peacetime to return the firm’s UK-based holidaymakers. Of the 150,000 Britons on Thomas Cook packages, by the end of Thursday only just over half, 77,000, had been brought home.

Thomas Cook customers faced not just the end of their holidays and extended delays stranded at airports, many were exploited by airlines out to make a financial killing from their desperate position. Some who had not even traveled yet were forced to pay extortionate prices for replacement flights. One couple, a former coal miner and his wife, originally paid £779 in January for a Thomas Cook flight to New York for next month. This week they had to pay more than £6,000 for a replacement. They had booked to celebrate the 53-year-old husband’s recovery from open heart surgery three years ago.

Parma airport board with cancelled Thomas Cook flights

The repatriation, involving hiring aircraft from as far away as America and Malaysia, together with the costs of reimbursing Thomas Cook customers who have paid for future holidays via the industry’s ATOL insurance fund, is estimated to be costing over £500 million and could rise to a staggering £1 billion. The vast majority of this will be borne by the taxpayer.

Industry experts anticipate that the ATOL insurance premium, currently £2.50 per person, will have to rise rapidly to at least £10 as the massive payment for the Thomas Cook failure threatens to wipe out the organisation’s funds.

Tens of thousands of German tourists who have purchased holidays with Thomas Cook may not fare so well, as the insurance scheme there is capped at €110 million, which is insufficient to reimburse every customer. One estimate is that many will be lucky to receive just 50 percent of what they have paid from the scheme.

In Greece, most of the hotels taking guests for Thomas Cook have not been paid since mid-June. The Greek tourist trade association, Sete, estimates the losses at between €300 and €500 million. Last year, 10 percent of the 30 million holidaying in Greece came with the company, mainly to the islands of Rhodes, Kos, Corfu, Zakynthos and Crete.

Nearly 50 Greek hotels, 26 on the island of Crete alone, may have to close their doors in the coming days, according to Nikos Chalkiadakis, president of Crete’s Hotel Owners Association. Thomas Cook had not paid a single hotel with which it contracted on the island since July 15. “It is a massive blow, as big as the finance crisis some years ago,” said Chalkiadakis, adding that “the impact on my business will be considerable since Thomas Cook owes me some €650,000.”

On the island of Cyprus, up to 80 percent of beds in many hotels were sold via Thomas Cook, with businesses owed around €50 million.

Visibly upset Thomas Cook staff and passengers at Palma de Mallorca Airport in Spain as the collapse was announced

The company was also responsible for bringing eight percent of British and 10 percent of German holidaymakers to Turkey—between 600,000 and 700,000 tourists this year. The owner of a small beach-side kiosk selling boat trips and paragliding said, “If hotels shut, the whole infrastructure suffers. Food producers, farmers, laundry and cleaning services, all will get rid of people.”

Anti-Sisi protesters return to Egypt’s streets in teeth of fierce repression

Bill Van Auken

In the teeth of a massive police-state crackdown, Egyptian workers and youth took to the streets again Friday to demand an end to the six-year-old dictatorship of General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, who seized power in a bloody 2013 coup.

The protests, which followed similar demonstrations last week, were launched after Friday’s prayers and were largest in towns and cities outside of Cairo. The Egyptian capital was under a complete lockdown. Every street leading into Tahrir Square, the iconic scene of mass demonstrations during the Egyptian revolution that toppled the US-backed dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak, was blockaded by police-military checkpoints.

The regime also closed down subway stations in the center of the capital to further restrict movement. Streets in central Cairo were clogged with police buses, cars and armored vehicles, while uniformed riot police and heavily armed plainclothes thugs covering their faces with balaclavas roamed the area.

At Cairo’s Al-Fateh mosque, a rallying point for the mass demonstrations in 2011, dozens of police vehicles and scores of police, some carrying assault rifles, were deployed at exits as prayers let out.

The Interior Ministry even issued an order to doctors at Cairo hospitals to report any patients seeking treatment for injuries suffered in demonstrations. According to Middle East Eye, police were deployed to Kasr Al Ainy, one of Cairo’s main hospitals, to patrol wards and inspect ambulances as they arrived.

While there were no demonstrations in central Cairo, at least 200 people were arrested there anyway. At some checkpoints, police were demanding people’s cellphones, checking to see if there was anything on them indicating sympathy for the anti-Sisi protests.

Despite this crackdown, crowds marched and chanted slogans against the regime in a number of cities, including Luxor, Qena and Sohag, as well as al Warraq, an island in the center of the Nile river on the northern outskirts of metropolitan Cairo.

In Warraq, well over 1,000 demonstrated, chanting slogans denouncing not only Sisi, but the conditions of poverty and social inequality that are rampant in Egypt. Impoverished residents of the island have waged a running battle over the past few years against the drive by the regime, along with major real estate interests and Gulf state backers, to drive them out in order to clear the land for the development of tourist zones and luxury housing. The protest was met with tear gas as well as gunshots.

Video of the protest in Qena posted on Twitter showed large crowds marching through the streets, including school children. The crowd ripped down a pro-government banner bearing Sisi’s image, stomping on and burning it.

Police dispersed demonstrations in various parts of Cairo and in Alexandria before they could even get started.

Sisi, who arrived at Cairo international airport Friday morning after attending the United Nations General Assembly debate, told a small group of supporters gathered to meet him not to “worry about anything” in relation to the protests, that “the country is really strong.”

In the wake of last week’s protests, however, international and domestic capital clearly felt otherwise, with the Egyptian stock market plummeting 5 percent.

Goldman Sachs issued a statement Monday warning that the protests “serve as a reminder of the potential risks to social stability emanating from the decline in living standards among a large proportion of Egyptians in recent years, combined with widely reported allegations of corruption in the ruling political and military elite.”

Sisi’s claim that there was nothing to “worry about” was belied by the regime’s massive police crackdown and frantic attempt to prevent any gathering of crowds. The regime ordered the postponement of a major football match that was supposed to take place Friday in Cairo between FC Masr and Aswan FC.

The regime also staged its own rally in support of Sisi, which was swelled by soldiers in plainclothes, government workers and workers employed by state corporations, including the Delta Sugar Company, who were bused in from the Nile Delta. Video posted on social media also showed that poor Cairo residents were drawn to the event with a free food distribution.

Significantly, the site chosen for the event was a stone’s throw away from where security forces carried out a massacre of at least 95 supporters of Egypt’s elected President Mohamed Morsi, who was overthrown by Sisi. The massacre was part of a nationwide bloodbath that claimed the lives of thousands.

Morsi, the country’s first democratically elected president, died in June in the midst of a show trial in which he was being prosecuted on trumped-up espionage charges. He had been imprisoned for the six years since the coup.

The demonstrations Friday were all the more extraordinary in that they took place after a massive police roundup in which more than 2,000 people were arrested in the last week, according to the tallies kept by human rights groups. The regime itself has admitted to detaining and interrogating 1,000. While most of those detained were under the age of 25, a number of prominent lawyers—detained for defending other detainees—journalists, professors and political figures, including some who had explicitly disassociated themselves from the protests, were also arrested. They are being charged with spreading false information and aiding “terrorist” organizations.

US Census report: Inequality grew rapidly in 2018 to record levels

Eric London

Social inequality in the United States is rapidly reaching unprecedented levels, according to US Census data published Thursday.

The past year saw a staggering transfer of wealth from the bottom 90 percent of the population to the top 10 and top 5 percent. This is the intended result of the bipartisan social counterrevolution intensified by Barack Obama and carried to a fever pitch by Donald Trump, who has slashed corporate taxes and regulations with no opposition from Democrats in Congress.

Census Bureau: Inequality “significantly higher” in 2018 vs. 2017

Over the course of just the last year, the poorest 20 percent of the country—some 65 million people—saw its share of aggregate income decline from 3.11 percent to 3.10 percent. The share of the second poorest quintile declined from 8.4 percent to 8.35 percent, while the third and fourth quintiles, representing those in the 40 to 60 percent and 60 to 80 percent range of incomes, declined from 14.29 to 14.21 and 22.63 to 22.53, respectively.

A large homeless encampment near downtown St. Louis [Credit: AP Photo/Jeff Roberson]

Only a very narrow section of the population benefited from this income redistribution. The wealthiest 5 percent obtained 96 percent of the income lost by the poorer quintiles, while the next wealthiest 5 percent (the richest 90 to 95th percentile) obtained the remaining 4 percent, meaning that even those in the 80 to 90th percentile saw their income share decline or remain stagnant.

This shifting of decimal points masks the real human impact of inequality on the lives of the entire working class. The new Census data will mean increasing deaths from opioids, alcohol and suicide, higher burdens of medical and student debt and unprecedented levels of work and family stress.

The Census Bureau reported that the national Gini coefficient—a measure of income and wealth distribution in which a value of 0.0 equals total equality 1.0 equals total inequality—was “significantly higher” in 2018 than in 2017, rising from 0.482 to 0.486, the highest ever.

According to World Bank figures, this makes the US as unequal as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and less equal than Kenya, Mexico and Malaysia.

Worlds apart: The bottom 90 percent and the top 10 percent

The wealthiest 10 percent continued to distance itself from the poorest 90 percent of the population. The income of a household at the 90th percentile was 12.60 times greater than the income of a household at the 10th percentile, up slightly from 12.59 in 2017. The income of a household at the 95th percentile was 9.72 times greater than a household at the 20th percentile and 3.94 times greater than a household at the 50th percentile, compared with 9.62 and 3.86 in 2017.

All of American bourgeois politics is geared toward satisfying the material needs of and working out the differences within the various elements of this privileged top 10 percent, whose interests are directly opposed to the great masses of people.

Bourgeois politicians from both parties—who are almost all personally wealthy—are sponsored by corporations and billionaire donors who control the political system. The corporate media sets the tone of political “discourse” and seeks to manipulate popular consciousness to protect the interests of the rich. Practically all discussion of the great social problems that confront the bottom 90 percent of the population are censored and kept out of sight.

The threshold required to reach the 95th percentile grew by $6,000 from 2017 to 2018, rising from $242,812 to $248,782. The percentage of the population making over $200,000 per year also increased substantially, from 8.1 percent in 2017 to 8.5 percent in 2018.

Census data relating to average income by occupation also reflects the increasing separation of the top 10 and bottom 90 percent of the population. Average incomes for chief executives increased from $134,656 in 2017 to $141,457 in 2018, for example, while incomes for lawyers rose from $125,125 to $129,365.

While incomes for many working class occupations rose slightly, the increases were almost always minimal or moderate.

In many cases, incomes at professions that number in the hundreds of thousands of people declined from 2017 to 2018. The average income of a telemarketer declined from $27,551 to $27,160 in the span of just one year. For example, incomes also fell for logging workers (from $36,091 in 2017 to $35,718 in 2018), roofers ($33,744 to $32,246), tire builders ($45,809 to $42,213), shoe and leather workers ($31,217 to $27,584), air traffic controllers ($91,982 to $79,647), ambulance drivers ($30,563 to $30,149), subway workers ($62,201 to $60,153), aircraft pilots and flight engineers ($110,765 to $110,636), and several more major occupations.

Even among those sections of the working class where incomes have risen slightly, the rising cost of living has greatly impacted the bottom 90 percent of the population.

There are now 10.08 million people who pay over 50 percent of their income on rent, an increase of 163,672 people from 2017 alone. The percentage of people paying over 35 percent of their income on rent rose from 37.5 percent in 2017 to 37.8 percent in 2018, impacting hundreds of thousands more.

Underpayment and wage theft rampant in Australia

Karen Maxwell & Richard Phillips

Recent exposures of multi-million dollar wage theft of workers by high-profile individuals and companies underscore the fact that the illegal practice is widespread and expanding rapidly across Australia.

A two-year investigation by the Fair Work Ombudsman into MasterChef television judge George Calombaris’s MAdE Establishment company revealed that its celebrity chef owner underpaid 524 staff in his restaurants a total of $7.83 million, from 2011 to 2017. On average, each worker was underpaid by $15,000 during the six-year period—a massive amount for individuals whose officially classified rate of pay is between $19 and $25 per hour.

Calombaris insisted that the underpayments were a terrible mistake. But the multi-millionaire, who has been agitating for the elimination of weekend and after-hours penalty pay rates for years, is a “repeat offender.” In 2017 his company was forced to back pay 162 employees a total of $2.6 million.

George Calombaris on ABC-TV

While fast-food and convenience store franchises, including 7-Eleven, Domino’s Pizza, Michel’s Patisserie and Donut King, are notorious wage thieves, Calombaris is one of several employers in the high-end restaurant industry who have been exposed for underpaying workers. Others include Neil Perry’s Rockpool Dining Group, which had to back pay staff $1.6 million last October for a single year of underpayment.

Rockpool is still being investigated by Fair Work authorities, as are restaurant outlets run by Heston Blumenthal, Guillaume Brahim, Teage Ezard and Shane Delia, who was previously in business with Calombaris.

Wage theft, in fact, is a deeply-entrenched business model, designed to slash costs and boost profits in the retail, franchising, hospitality, agriculture, construction, food-processing and tourism sectors. Major retail companies exposed this year include Michael Hill jewellery, which underpaid staff for six years, and may have to pay back $25 million, BCF and Rebel.

Notwithstanding occasional denunciations of this practise by the trade unions, and their calls for higher fines and more prosecutions, the unions have helped create the economic climate for wage theft to flourish. For decades, they have collaborated with employers and Labor and Liberal-National governments in the assault on jobs and conditions.

Work casualisation, which the unions have facilitated, is one of the main factors assisting wage theft, and this has spread to the tertiary education sector.

Late last month, the Academy of Information Technology, a private provider of higher education, admitted it “may” have been paying its staff below the award rate. Predictably, the company insisted that the underpayment was “unintentional.”

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) issued a press statement declaring that it knew of about 40 current casual employees in the sector who were not receiving proper pay rates. This included lecturers who were receiving less than 50 percent of the award rate, and others being underpaid between $10,000 and $60,000 each per year. One tertiary worker was estimated to be owed a total of $185,000 over five years.

Like other trade unions, the NTEU’s concerns about underpayment are aimed at covering up its own role. The NTEU has been instrumental in imposing enterprise agreements that have enabled a vast expansion of casualisation in the sector.

Young workers, in particular, bear the full brunt of wage theft, due to high levels of unemployment and the fear of immediate sacking if they speak out.

Nor is it an accident that underpayment is rampant in industries that employ immigrant workers, international students, backpacker tourists or those on 417 and 457 temporary work visas. The 417 visas allow young tourists to work in Australia for up to 12 months, provided they work for six months in specified industries or regional areas. The 457 visas permit skilled workers to be hired for up to four years by employers where there is a shortage of labour.

Introduced in 2005 by the Howard Liberal-National government and continued under the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments, these arrangements seek to expand the exploitation of cheap labour. But rather than fight to unify Australian and international workers against employers, the unions whip up nationalist sentiment, blaming foreign workers for the job cuts that the unions enforced.

Penalties imposed on companies for not paying legal rates are minimal. Employers calculate that the probability of getting caught is low and penalties are tiny compared to the potential profits and competitive advantage they stand to gain against their business rivals.

Protests in Indonesia against new criminal code met with “mass police violence”

Oscar Grenfell

Over the past week, mass protests have erupted in Indonesia’s major cities against attempts by the government of President Joko Widodo to introduce a repressive new criminal code and the rushed passage last week of legislation that will weaken an official anti-corruption body.

The demonstrations, which have been led by university students, have been met with violent police repression in a clear sign the authorities fear they could become a focal point of broader social opposition. They are among the largest anti-government student protests since the mass movement of workers and youth that toppled the Suharto “New Order” dictatorship in 1998.

Indonesian student protesters, Credit: @makmummasjid (Twitter)

The rallies followed Widodo’s presentation of the proposed new criminal code to parliament on September 15. The new laws, which would replace legislation dating back to the period of Dutch colonial rule, contain a number of anti-democratic measures apparently aimed at appeasing conservative Islamist forces, whose political influence has grown over recent years.

They have been brought forward in the wake of a fractious election contest during which Widodo’s main challenger for the presidency, Subianto Prabowo, sought to mobilise hardline Islamists as a key constituency of his campaign. All factions of the Indonesian ruling class are backing increasingly authoritarian measures, amid expanding economic, social and environmental crises.

Opponents of the code have warned that at least 18 provisions would impinge on the civil liberties and personal lives of ordinary people.

Extramarital sexual relations would be outlawed and punishable with up to a year’s imprisonment, while measures would target homosexuals and unmarried couples who cohabitate. The bill provides for a four-year jail sentence for women convicted of having unauthorised abortions.

There are also fears that the legislation could boost the authority of Sharia Muslim laws which operate at a local level in a number of provinces.

The religiously-inspired character of the code is demonstrated by its inclusion of a ban on so-called “black magic.” The dictatorial laws would also ban individuals from associating with any group accused of being Marxist or communist, and penalise “insulting” the president and other government executives.

Protests erupted on Monday, the day before the code was originally scheduled to be voted upon by the national parliament.

On Tuesday, tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered outside the parliament building in Jakarta.

The authorities responded with mass repression, with heavily armed police officers firing tear gas and water cannons at the protesters. Reuters cited police figures indicating that at least 365 students and 39 police officers were injured during clashes.

Despite this, protesters have continued to gather in the capital throughout the week. Mass rallies have also been held in Surabaya, the country’s second largest city, as well as in Padang, on West Sumatra, and Gorontalo, Sulawesi. Smaller rallies have been held in cities and towns throughout the archipelago.

Malta agreement: The dying in the Mediterranean continues

Marianne Arens

On Monday, the interior ministers of Germany, France, Malta and Italy agreed on an “emergency mechanism” in European Union (EU) refugee policy. Refugees rescued at sea arriving in Italy or Malta should in future be distributed to other EU countries within four weeks.

The Malta agreement, celebrated in the media as a “breakthrough” and a “European solution,” is intended not to end the dying in the Mediterranean, but merely to remove the tragedy from the public eye.

The mechanisms used to seal up Europe’s borders and that drive refugees to undertake life-threatening voyages across the sea remain in force. Several NGO ships remain seized, the EU’s “Operation Sophia” will not be resumed, cooperation with the so-called Libyan Coast Guard will continue and the development of camps in Africa will be pushed forward.

The agreement merely prevents ships with desperate refugees aboard from drifting for days or weeks at sea until the EU states have agreed on their distribution. Instead, a fixed distribution quota mechanism should ensure that they are allowed to land immediately.

In recent months, the scenes broadcast from such ships have increased resistance to the EU’s inhumane refugee policy. Sea Watch Captain Carola Rackete won international acclaim and was honoured for having brought 53 refugees to Lampedusa island after weeks of waiting at sea, despite a ban by the Italian authorities.

Above all, the Malta agreement is a cheap PR gesture designed to undermine resistance to inhumane refugee policies. All news stations produced reports showing the “Ocean Viking” arriving in a Sicilian port with 182 refugees after a week on the high seas. The ship of SOS Méditerranée and MSF had rescued 218 people from four different shipwrecks in just one week, including many women, small children and a newborn. After a week on the high seas, their situation on board had become absolutely unbearable.

The new agreement was announced on Monday night at the Maltese port fortress of St. Angelo. Also present were EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos and the interior minister of Finland, which currently holds the EU presidency. The agreement provides that people arriving from Libya to Italy or Malta via the Mediterranean will initially be distributed to Germany, France, Italy, Finland and Malta using an agreed quota mechanism.

However, there are no fixed numbers. In the barely justified hope that more EU countries will join, the “emergency mechanism” will be presented to an EU interior ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg on October 8.

The agreement is strictly limited geographically and applies only to refugees arriving from Libya rescued on the high seas. It does not apply to refugees who make their own way to Europe and are stranded in Malta, in Cyprus or on a Greek island.

Even for the people who fall under the agreement, the situation is far from secure. Isolated from the population, they are taken to Italian and Maltese reception centres, where they are first subjected to a security examination. The refugees are to be examined for links to terrorism, conducted by EU police teams, largely drawn from Germany. After that, they should be distributed to the EU countries within four weeks, and only then does the actual asylum process begin.

As everyone knows, this can easily end in deportation. In Germany, far more than half of all asylum seekers are rejected, and the rate is significantly worse for new applications.

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (Christian Social Union, CSU) tried to sell the agreement as proof of a humane refugee policy. “I have always said that our immigration policy is also humane. We will not let anyone drown,” he claimed.

Bangladesh warns UN officials over Rohingya refugees

Rohantha De Silva

Bangladeshi Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen has warned United Nations officials that they must support Dhaka’s harsh treatment of Rohingya refugees or leave the country. Momen made the remarks in an interview early this month with Deutsche Welle, Germany’s public broadcaster.

The Awami League-led government wants to relocate Rohingya refugees, who fled Burma (Myanmar) in the past two years, to the cyclone-prone, silt island of Bhasan Char. UN officials in Dhaka disagree with Dhaka’s plans, citing the low-lying island’s unhealthy and unsafe conditions.

Thousands of refugees are currently housed in squalid makeshift camps at Cox’s Bazar, near Bangladesh’s border with Burma’s Rakhine state. The refugees fled to Bangladesh to escape violent attacks by the Burmese army. The camps are desperately short of clean water, sanitary facilities, proper health care and food.

The Rohingya refugees oppose their relocation to Bhasan Char, which emerged from the muddy waters of the Bay of Bengal less than 20 years ago and is situated at the mouth of the Meghna River.

The refugees legitimately fear that Bhasan Char, which is 30 kilometres from the mainland and accessible only by boat, will be a virtual prison. The Rohingya will be housed in tiny, breeze-block concrete rooms 2m x 2.5m, with small, steel-barred windows.

According to Momen, the government has drawn up plans to shift 100,000 refugees to Bhasan Char initially and another 400,000, within a “year or two.” Bangladesh initially planned to send about 700,000 refugees to the island by the end of 2018. Momen told Deutsche Welle that if the “they are not willing [to go to Bhasan Char], we will force them.”

While the UN has not made an official statement on the government’s brutal plan, Deutsche Welle has reported that UN officials made off-the-record comments voicing their concerns. They warned that “refugees may be contained on the island for years and their freedom of movement severely restricted.” They added that “splitting operations between Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char is logistically difficult.” Local and international human rights organisations have already raised their opposition.

Since the mass exodus of Rohingyas in response to the Burmese military’s intensification of violent attacks in August 2017, the total number of refugees in Bangladesh is now more than one million. Prior to 2017, there were nearly 400,000 who had fled Burma. According to the latest figures, over 905,000 are living in extremely congested refugee camps and more than 231,000 are in other makeshift accommodation. Fifty-five percent of the refugees are children.

The Rohingyas are an oppressed Muslim minority many of whom have lived for generations in Burma’s north-western Rakhine state. They were stripped of their citizenship rights by the Burmese government in 1982 and suffered torture, sexual assault and had their homes and villages torched by the military “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” operations.

Siemens workers resist planned job cuts in Germany

Gustav Kemper

The IG Metall trade union is trying to keep control over growing resistance among Siemens workers against the spin-off of the group’s Gas & Power energy division by organising small scale protests in Nuremberg and Berlin, thereby preventing a joint struggle of all the sites affected.

In June last year, the union approved Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser’s “Vision 2020+” programme, which proposed to spin off the company’s energy business as a separate entity under the name Gas & Power. An extraordinary shareholders general meeting in June 2020 will finalise the Gas & Power IPO.

Kaeser’s strategy is to transform Siemens into a holding company in which the various divisions are listed as independent companies. As a result, weaker divisions would no longer tarnish the corporation’s balance sheet. The profits of a stronger division, such as those already listed under the Healthineers medical sector, will then no longer be able to compensate for the possible losses of another.

In order to maximize the initial share price, the Siemens board is planning massive job cuts and cost savings. The conditions under which the spin-off will take place were negotiated on Monday and Tuesday in Munich between the company board and IG Metall representatives on the Works Council. In Germany alone, 1,400 jobs will go, of which about 500 are based in Berlin. At the same time, there will be speed ups and the level of exploitation significantly raised.

Instead of mobilizing the entire workforce against job losses, IG Metall has only organized small scale protests.

Last week, IG Metall had several hundred workers from the Siemens switch gear plant in Berlin-Spandau march to Jakob-Kaiser-Platz, a roundabout far away from any houses or shops. Only loyal works council members and politicians were allowed to trot out their tired phrases and meaningless statements of “solidarity.” Every critical voice on the part of the workers was suppressed, and even elected works council representatives were prohibited from speaking.

Regina Katerndahl, IG Metall Berlin deputy leader, invoked the “Radolfzell II” agreement, which had been negotiated between the board and the union in 2010. “We have to push that through,” she shouted out to the participants in the demonstration.

This agreement, which supposedly provided protection against dismissals, is not worth the paper on which it is written. In fact, the union leaders agreed to a clause in the agreement expressly stipulating that under certain conditions, “such a guarantee cannot be given.”

Several Siemens workers who participated in the protest talked to reporters from the WSWS and expressed their discontent. “Really, the union should have opposed the spin-off of the energy sector, which is driving forward workforce shrinkage and layoffs,” one mechanic said.

Another explained, “The spin-off was sold to us as if it would work out great, everything would be alright. Of course, we have no confidence in that, but we also do not have the opportunity to intervene in any major way, except in the demo.” The ultimate result of the spin-off would only be seen in three years, when the new company started and the protections against dismissal had expired, he said. In addition, it was completely unclear what will become of the plans for the new Siemens research campus, “Project Siemensstadt 2.0,” and what consequences that would have.

Karl, another participant in the demo, underlined why he had little faith in the union leadership. “The cardinal error was already made by the union when it agreed to divest the energy sector. That was precisely organized, it does not just happen with the wave of a hand, there must have been talks long before, and the works council just agreed.”

His colleague interjected saying that in face of globalization, it was necessary to organize international support. This led to a discussion about the fact that the IG Metall was not even calling for workers at all Siemens German locations to join forces, not to mention an international mobilization.

NASA Hubble Fellowship Programme (NHFP) 2020 for Recent Postdoctoral Scientists

Application Deadline: 4th November, 2019, 7:00 PM EDT.

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): USA

About the Award: The NASA Hubble Fellowship Program (NHFP) supports outstanding postdoctoral scientists to pursue independent research which contributes to NASA Astrophysics, using theory, observation, experimentation, or instrumental development.  The NHFP preserves the legacy of NASA’s previous postdoctoral fellowship programs. Once selected, fellows are named to one of three sub-categories corresponding to NASA’s “big questions”:

1. How Does the Universe Work? – Einstein Fellows
2. How Did We Get Here? – Hubble Fellows
3. Are We Alone? – Sagan Fellows

Type: Postdoctoral, Fellowship

Eligibility:

• The NHFP is open to applicants of any nationality who have earned their doctoral degrees in astronomy, physics, or related disciplines on or after January 1, 2017, or who will receive their degree before September, 2020.
• NHFP fellowships are tenable at U.S. host institutions of the fellows’ choice, subject to a maximum of two new fellows per host institution per year, with no more than five fellows being hosted by a given institution in any three-year period (where the cumulative count begins with the 2019 fellows).

Number of Awards: Contingent upon NASA funding, 24 new fellowships will be awarded for 2020.

Value of Award: The NHFP provides salary support plus benefits for up to three years, and an additional allowance for travel and other research costs.

Duration of Programme: 3 years

How to Apply: Required application materials include the following:

1. Completed application form below
2. PDF files uploaded to the form below: CV and list of major publications, summary of previous and current research, and research proposal.
3. Three letters of reference submitted via this web form (deadline November 8, 2019).

Please do not attach anything not listed above (reprints, preprints, cover letter, etc.) to your application.
All materials submitted must be in at least 12-point font, single spaced, and all pages should be numbered.
Non-U.S. applicants should make sure that their applications will copy successfully onto 8.5×11 inch (21.6×28 cm) paper without loss (i.e., with 1-inch margins on all sides). Please keep each file to less than 2 MB.

Apply Here

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Berea College Fully-funded Undergraduate Scholarships 2020/2021 for International Students

Application Deadline: 30th November, 2019 5:00 p.m. (Eastern Time).

Eligible Countries: International

To be Taken at (Country): USA

About the Award: Berea College, founded in 1855, is a racially integrated, coeducational liberal arts college. Berea’s motto, “God has made of one blood all peoples of the earth” reflects the conviction of Berea founder and ardent abolitionist, John G. Fee. Berea’s spiritual foundations are rooted in the Christian faith, but Berea welcomes people of all faiths, or no faith at all, to study in a diverse campus setting. Berea is committed to providing a high-quality education for highachieving students with limited financial resources.

Type: Undergraduate

Eligibility: Berea College encourages applications from students who:

• do not yet have a 4-year college degree;
• do not have dependents or are married.
• meet university entrance requirements in their own country;
• are able to present outstanding secondary and/or leaving exam results;
• are able to present IELTS, TOEFL, SAT, or ACT results;
• are fluent in the English language, both oral and written;
• are interested in living and learning in an environment that stresses the equality and kinship of all people regardless of race, class, age, religion, sexual orientation, or nationality;

Selection:

• Although international enrollment is limited to about 25 new students each fall, Berea College nevertheless seeks to serve students from as many different areas of the world as possible.
• Successful candidates for admission have a record of outstanding academic achievement and a strong sense of educational purpose.
• Berea College does not teach English to those who have not yet mastered the language.
• International students must have mastered the English language sufficiently to understand and participate in class lectures and discussions, read required texts and other materials, and complete written and other assignments. However, all enrolled international students will be assessed to determine whether they would benefit from an English as a Second Language (ESL) course in the first semester. An additional ESL course may also be required in the second semester for some students. The Nursing program has higher English proficiency requirements (TOEFL iBT 83, with a 26 on the spoken section). If admitted to Berea with lower English proficiency, students will not be admitted to the major until the required scores are achieved. Students will be given the opportunity to retest, however, students failing to meet the TOEFL iBT requirement by the first day of their third term of enrollment at Berea are ineligible to pursue the Nursing major. If admitted to Berea with lower English proficiency, students will not be admitted to the major until the required scores are achieved

Number of Awards: 25

Value of Award:

• There is no application fee to apply to Berea College.
• International students accepted by Berea College are funded for four years of study. We ask that each international student, once offered admission, to pay a one-time enrollment fee of $50 and a $2,200 deposit before coming to Berea to help with costs for medical, dental, emergencies, or other unexpected expenses. Students may apply for an exception to paying the deposit if there are inadequate family finances. The remaining balance of the deposit will be returned upon graduation. Having the deposit while at Berea is essential.
• The funding provided by Berea College includes cost of education (the equivalent of tuition) for up to four years. Costs for room and board are also covered completely for the first year

Duration of Award: 4 years

How to Apply: In order to be considered for admission, a completed application packet must be received in the Berea College Office of Admissions no later than 5:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) November 30, 2019.

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

Visit Award Webpage for Details

African Research Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases (ARNTD) African Researchers’ Small Grants Program 2019

Application Deadline: 30th September, 2019, 17:00 GMT

Eligible Countries: African countries

About the Award: This third edition of the Small Grants Program (SGP III) is to support African researchers in both early and mid/late career to undertake operational research aligned with the goals established in the London Declaration on Neglected Tropical Diseases.  SGP III is comprised of two small grant funding tracks:
a. Small grants for junior researchers
b. Small grants for mid-career and/or senior researchers.

Objectives of the call

1. To increase African leadership, involvement and visibility in neglected tropical disease (NTD) operational and social science research, including through direct engagement with national NTD programs;
2. To contribute to improving the research capacity of an existing cadre of African NTD researchers and strengthening African research institutions in the process by supporting operational and social science research on NTDs that is locally originated and African-led, either by junior researchers or experienced researchers ready to take on larger research programs;
3. To improve South-South communication and collaboration among researchers, policymakers and implementers, and for community participation in research and agenda-setting;
4. To provide an opportunity for young upcoming researchers not only to gain experience in research, but also in preparation of grant applications and management;
5. To supplement a clearly defined aspect of ongoing research or to answer a new question linked to ongoing research being carried out by mid-career/senior researchers;
6. To encourage a model of North-South collaboration which promotes engagement between researchers in the South and their control programs, and improves local leadership and ownership of initiatives and activities.

Type: Grants

Eligibility:

General criteria:

1. Must be currently employed by or enrolled as a student in an academic, health, or research institution in Africa for the duration of the grant
2. Must demonstrate having a commitment to NTD-related research as well as the skills and experience required to carry out the proposed work
3. Must be able to provide evidence of research output, including publications and/or presentations at scientific conferences

Specific to applicants for the junior researchers’ grants:

1. Must be an early career researcher, defined as a basic biomedical scientist, clinically qualified investigator, or public health researcher, who has not previously competed successfully as principal investigator for a major research grant (i.e., ≥USD 200,000)
2. Must hold at least a Master’s degree or should be actively enrolled in doctoral studies. Applicants holding a doctoral degree (e.g., PhD, DrPH, DSc) must have graduated no more than seven years ago. Clinicians (e.g. MBChB, MBBS, MD, DVM holders), who have not completed a Master’s degree must have some specialist training (e.g., Membership, Fellowship) or be able to demonstrate relevant research training/experience
3. Must not currently hold positions above lecturer/assistant professor level or equivalent
4. Must be able to provide written evidence of commitment to providing mentorship and supervision from a senior researcher with a track record and ongoing commitment to NTD research.

Specific to applicants for the mid-career/senior researchers grants:

1. Must be a mid-career/senior researcher, defined as a basic biomedical scientist, clinically qualified investigator, or public health researcher, who has previously competed successfully as principal investigator for a major research grant, but is no more than fifteen years from their highest degree of study
2. Must hold a doctoral degree (e.g. PhD, DrPH, DSc). Clinicians (e.g. MBChB, MBBS, MD, DVM holders), who have not completed a PhD must have completed specialist training (e.g., Fellowship) or be able to demonstrate relevant training tied to research (e.g., MSc, MPhil), or experience
3. Must hold a position no lower than Senior lecturer/Senior Scientific Officer level or equivalent
4. Must demonstrate that they have a track record and ongoing commitment to NTD research

Selection Criteria: This third call for proposals is targeted at outstanding researchers – especially beginning researchers – and academics based in research institutions or universities in Africa. Applicants will have to demonstrate that the proposed research or activity is aligned with country/program interests and has potential institutional/individual capacity-building impact. The small grants targeted at junior and senior researchers at the Masters or PhD level will provide grants ranging from USD $5,000 – $25,000. Applications are accepted in both English and French.

What’s in Scope?
In order to be considered for funding, the proposed research must be informed by existing evidence and identified gaps. Proposals must demonstrate significant potential to inform or develop further research activities. Priority funding will be directed to projects focusing on the five preventive chemotherapy (PC) NTDs (i.e., lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, soil-transmitted helminthiasis, schistosomiasis, and trachoma) and projects focusing on improving equitable access to NTD interventions for vulnerable populations (e.g., nomads, groups in conflict zones, and rural/hard-to-reach areas, refugees, and the disabled). Eligible proposals may focus on:

1. Implementation research that aims to improve the effectiveness of NTD programs. This includes:
a. Identifying factors that hinder equitable delivery of NTD program interventions to vulnerable groups.
b. Developing, testing, and scaling practical solutions that are evidence-based, adaptive, and context-specific.
c. Identifying ways to improve uptake, adaptation, and adoption of existing evidence-based strategies, tools to achieve elimination and control targets.
For implementation research topics, applicants have the option of selecting one or both of the following:

• Conduct a formative study to quantify and describe implementation challenges and make recommendations for program improvements. In this case, applicants should clearly outline research hypotheses, methodology, and variables of interest.
• Conduct an intervention study, citing evidence from previous research and program dis-aggregated data through a gender, equity, and human rights lens and justifying the research questions, approach, and methodology in the background and significance section of the proposal. In this case, applicants should also clearly outline research hypotheses, methodology, and variables of interest; and document the proposed plan for evaluating the short-term or intermediate effect of the intervention on variables of interest.

2. Operational research with potential for generating knowledge that can directly inform programmatic decisions around program monitoring, stopping, and surveillance. Studies to develop or validate innovative new diagnostic technologies to support monitoring and evaluation of NTD programs are especially welcomed. 

What’s out of Scope?
SGP II funding cannot be used for paying salaries, participating in meetings/conferences, payment of tuition/course fees, purchase of restricted commodities (e.g., contraception, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, vehicles, etc.), and for supporting existing programmatic M&E activities such as, but not limited to, mapping, mass drug administration, transmission assessment surveys (TAS), Kato-Katz impact evaluations, trachoma impact surveys/surveillance surveys, data quality assessments, onchocerciasis impact evaluations, onchocerciasis Stop MDA surveys, coverage surveys, knowledge attitude perception surveys, etc.).  

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Maximum funding per award: USD 25,000

How to Apply:

1. Access the online application form and instructions here, complete all required sections and submit ahead of the deadline^[1]
2. Upload a copy of your budget. Download template in English here and in French here.

Review of the application will take the following into consideration:

1. The eligibility of the applicant
2. The scientific merit of the proposed project
3. The significance of the research
4. The potential for scaling up the research^[2]
5. The overall quality of the application

A panel will review all complete applications submitted, culminating in the preliminary selection of the junior and senior grant awardees. You may download the reviewer’s guide here. The final award and disbursement of funds will be conditioned on the head of department/unit of the host institution in which this award will be based confirming in writing that the research will be supported with appropriate space and facilities and administered in the name of the organization. In addition, successful applicants for the junior researchers’ grants will be required to submit a letter of support from a senior researcher and mentor who will serve as their “research quality guarantor”, and will be equally responsible for the success of the research project.
Inquiries can be made from the ARNTD Secretariat at any point during the period when the call is open by sending an email with the subject line “Inquiry SGP III” to secretariat@arntd.org.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

E-Cigarettes: Media Bury the Lede, We Get to Bury the Bodies

Thomas L. Knapp

“Walmart Inc. will stop selling e-cigarettes in its U.S. locations as the country grapples with a string of vaping-related deaths,” Bloomberg reports.

CNN: “Walmart said Friday [September 20] it will stop selling e-cigarettes as the number of deaths tied to vaping grows.”

Associated Press: “Walmart said Friday that it will stop selling electronic cigarettes at its namesake stores and Sam’s Clubs following a string of mysterious illnesses and deaths related to vaping.”

Nearly every national headline on the story emphasizes “vaping-related” illnesses and deaths.  Nearly every first paragraph associates Walmart’s decision with those illnesses and deaths.

“Burying the lede” is the journalistic malpractice of failing to mention the most important facts of a story in the first (“lead” or “lede”) paragraph. That’s what’s going on here.

One has to go to the second paragraph of most major media accounts, if not further, to learn Walmart’s real reason for its decision. Per AP:  “The move is due to ‘growing federal, state and local regulatory complexity’ regarding vaping products, the company said in a statement.”

And one can read most of the stories in their entirety without coming across a couple of other important facts.

Fact #1: So far, wherever a  specific “vaping” product has been linked to these “vaping-related” illnesses, that product has been a black market “street vape.” That is, a product  you can’t buy at Walmart, or at your local convenience store, or on the web sites of any of the reputable — and government-regulated — makers of e-cigarettes.

Fact #2: While questions remain as to the long-term safety of the relatively new practice of “vaping,” so far every credible study on the practice says it’s safer than smoking tobacco cigarettes.

Walmart isn’t abandoning e-cigarette sales because vaping is unsafe.

Walmart is abandoning e-cigarette sales because it doesn’t want to be left with a bunch of expensive inventory it can’t sell as local, state, and federal governments issue new regulations on e-cigarette products, up to and including complete bans.

American regulators and politicians are hopping on the bandwagon of a baseless moral panic, created by so-called “public health” advocates and promoted by the mainstream media.

The regulations and bans those regulators and politicians are proposing will increase, not decrease, the illnesses and deaths associated with “street vapes.”

People who want to procure and use nicotine (or cannabis) aren’t going to request permission from regulators or politicians and take no for an answer. They’re just going to go get the stuff.

They’ll buy it at  Walmart if they can. They’ll get it from a friend at a party or a stranger on a street corner if that’s their only option.

The regulators and politicians, urged on by promoters of moral panic in the mainstream media and “public health,” are trying to MAKE that their only option.

Mainstream media is burying the lede. The funeral home and cemetery industries should send thank you cards and increase their advertising buys. The longer this goes on, the more grave plots, caskets, headstones, and urns they’re going to sell.

Normal Intrusions: Globalising AI Surveillance

Binoy Kampmark

They all do it: corporations, regimes, authorities.  They all have the same reasons: efficiency, serviceability, profitability, all under the umbrella term of “security”.  Call it surveillance, or call it monitoring the global citizenry; it all comes down to the same thing.  You are being watched for your own good, and such instances should be regarded as a norm.

Given the weaknesses of international law and the general hiccuping that accompanies efforts to formulate a global right to privacy, few such restrictions, or problems, preoccupy those in surveillance.  The entire business is burgeoning, a viral complex that does not risk any abatement.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has released an unnerving report confirming that fact, though irritatingly using an index in doing so.  Its focus is Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology.  A definition of sorts is offered for AI, being “an integrated system that incorporates information acquisition objectives, logical reasoning principles, and self-correction capacities.”

When stated like that, the whole matter seems benign.  Machine learning, for instance, “analyses a large amount of information in order to discern a pattern to explain the current data and predict future uses.”

There are several perturbing highlights supplied by the report’s author, Steven Feldstein.  The relationship between military expenditure and states’ use of AI surveillance systems is noted, with “forty of the world’s top fifty military spending countries (based on cumulative military expenditures) also [using] AI surveillance technology.”  Across 176 countries, data gathered since 2017 shows that AI surveillance technologies are not merely good domestic fare but a thriving export business.

The ideological bent of the regime in question is no bar to the use of such surveillance.  Liberal democracies are noted as major users, with 51 percent of “advanced democracies” doing so.  That number, interestingly enough, is less than “closed autocratic states” (37 percent); “electoral autocratic/competitive autocratic states” (41 percent) and “electoral democracies/illiberal democracies” (41 percent).  The political taxonomist risks drowning in minutiae on this point, but the chilling reality stands out: all states are addicted to diets of AI surveillance technologies.

Feldstein makes the fairly truistic point that “autocratic and semi-autocratic” states so happen to abuse AI surveillance more “than governments in liberal democracies” but the comparisons tend to breakdown in the global race for technological superiority.  Russia, China and Saudi Arabia are singled out as “exploiting AI technology for mass surveillance purposes” but all states seek the Holy Grail of mass, preferably warrantless surveillance.  Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013 did more than anything else to scupper the quaint notion that those who profess safeguards and freedoms are necessarily aware about the runaway trends of their security establishment.

The corporation-state nexus is indispensable to global surveillance, a symbiotic relationship that resists regulation and principle.  This has the added effect of destroying any credible distinction between a state supposedly more compliant with human rights standards, and those that are not.  The common thread, as ever, is the technology company.  As Feldstein notes, in addition to China, “companies based in liberal democracies – for example, Germany, France, Israel, Japan, South Korea, the UK, the United States – are actively selling sophisticated equipment to unsavoury regimes.”

These trends are far from new.  In 1995, Privacy International published a report with the unmistakable title Big Brother Incorporated, an overview of surveillance technology that has come to be aptly known as the Repression Trade.  “Much of this technology is used to track the activities of dissidents, human rights activists, journalists, student leaders, minorities, trade union leaders, and political opponents.”

Corporations with no particular allegiance except to profit and shareholders, such as British computer firm ICL (International Computers Limited) were identified as key designers behind the South African automated Passbook system, Apartheid’s stand out signature.  In the 1980s, the Israeli company Tadiran, well in keeping with a rich tradition of the Repression Trade, supplied the murderous Guatemalan policy with computerised death lists in their “pacification” efforts.

The current galloping power in the field of AI surveillance technology is China, underpinned by the clout-heavy Belt and Road Initiative rosily described by its fans as a Chinese Marshall Plan.  Where there are market incentives, there are purchasing prospects for AI technology.  “Technology linked to Chinese companies are found in at least sixty-three countries worldwide.  Huawei alone is responsible for providing AI surveillance technology to at least fifty countries.”  Chinese technology, it is speculated, may well boost surveillance capabilities within certain African markets, given the “aggressiveness of Chinese companies”.

Other powers also participate in what has become a field of aggressive competitors.  Japan’s NEC is its own colossus, supplying technology to some 14 countries.  IBM keeps up the pressure as a notable American player, doing so to 11 countries.  That particular entity made something of a splash in May, with a report revealing sales of biometric surveillance systems to the United Arab Emirates security and spy agencies stirring discussion in May this year.  Another recipient of IBM surveillance technology is the Philippines, a country more than keen to arm its police forces with the means to monitor, and more than occasionally murder, its citizens.  (The Davao City death squads are a bloody case in point.)

Issues with the report were bound to arise.  A humble admission is made that the sampling method may be questionable in terms of generating a full picture of the industry.  “Given the opacity of government surveillance use, it is nearly impossible to pin down by specific year which AI platforms or systems are currently in use.”  Nor does the index “distinguish between AI surveillance used for legitimate purposes and unlawful digital surveillance.”  A murky field, indeed.

For all the grimness of Feldstein’s findings, he is also aware of the seductive element that various platforms have offered.  Rampant, amoral AI surveillance might well be a hideous by-product of technology, but the field teems with promise in “deep learning; cloud computing and online data gathering”, “improved performance of complex algorithms; and market-driven incentives for new uses of AI technology.”  This shows, in a sense, the Janus-faced nature in critiquing such an enterprise; such praise tends to come with the territory, given Feldstein’s own background as former deputy assistant secretary of state in the Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Bureau of the US State Department.

Feldstein leaves room to issue a warning.  “As these technologies become more embedded in governance and politics, the window for change will narrow.”  The window, in many instances, has not so much narrowed as closed, as it did decades ago.