Bubonic plague ravages Madagascar

Eddie Haywood

Since August 1, 171 people have died in Madagascar after becoming infected with a virulent strain of bubonic plague. As of November 10, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are 2,119 confirmed cases of people infected in Madagascar. While the rate of infection has declined, the WHO is expecting more cases going into early next year.

Professor Jimmy Whitworth, an international public health scientist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, stated, “This outbreak is the worst for 50 years or more."

The current manifestation of the strain has been particularly resistant to antibiotic treatment. The plague has swept into the capital city Antananarivo, surprising medical personnel, as traditionally the strain usually does not develop in heavily populated areas.

The so-called Black Plague, a virulent infection mainly spread by bacteria in mammals and fleas, can be treated with a regimen of antibiotics, if the disease is discovered early. The bubonic strain of the plague, the so-called “Black Death”, threatened human existence and decimated entire civilizations across Medieval Europe and Eurasia, claiming an estimated 75-200 million lives in the 14th century.

There are three forms of the plague; bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic. The most common form of the disease is bubonic, the form currently in Madagascar. Septicemic is the most deadly, with a 100 percent fatality rate. The pneumonic form of the disease materializes when the bubonic form is left untreated, and the disease moves to the victim’s lungs, making it the most contagious. People infected by the plague generally experience headaches, dizziness, fever and flu-like symptoms.

The WHO reports that 62 per cent of all reported cases of the current outbreak in Madagascar are pneumonic plague, the form most contagious, as persons who become infected will cough and sneeze, making the disease airborne. According to figures published by WHO, the outbreak in Madagascar has a fatality rate of 8 per cent.

In the period of August 1 to November 10, 1,618 cases and 72 deaths in the country have been clinically classified as pneumonic plague; 324 cases classified as bubonic plague; and one case as septicemic plague. Also during the same period, 16 (out of a total 22) regions in Madagascar have reported plague cases, with the Analamanga region, which includes the capital city, Antananarivo, being the most affected, with 72 per cent of all cases.

The outbreak in Madagascar has a high potential to erupt into a full-scale pandemic, as the country is ill-equipped to deal with such virulent outbreaks, due to a lack of vital health care services and poor infrastructure. The WHO has made a mere $4.9 million available to deal with the catastrophic epidemic.

Professor Michael Bayliss of the Institute of Infection and Global Health at Liverpool University, suggested that the plague’s surprising spread was due to the heavy rains and flooding brought about by El Niño.

Bayliss told the UK Express, “We have suspicions--and it is no more than a suspicion--that it could be related to the El Niño we had a year ago.”

The WHO weighed in, suggesting the popular Malagasy religious practice of “Famadihana,” a ceremony which prescribes the digging up of graves of ancestors to rewrap the corpses and dance around the tomb with them before reburying them, contributed to the spread of the plague.

Madagascar’s health minister, Willy Randriamarotia, told reporters, “If a person dies of pneumonic plague and is then interred in a tomb that is subsequently opened for a Famadihana, the bacteria can still be transmitted and contaminate whoever handles the body.”

While cultural practices and environmental factors, such as those brought about by climate change, may exacerbate the effects of plague and other pandemics, it is the configuration of impoverished conditions of life for the Malagasy masses, and the lack of access to decent health care and facilities, which assumes the largest role in contributing to the severity of the plague raging through Madagascar.

Of the 24 million people who make up the Malagasy population, the majority live in abject poverty. According to the most recent figures published in 2012 by UNICEF, 81 percent of the population lives on $1.25 per day or less. While the country’s GDP is nearly $10 billion annually, less than 3 percent is allocated towards health care. The infant mortality rate is roughly 42 per 1,000 live births, and the neonatal mortality rate is 22. Only 48.1 per cent of the population has access to sanitary water facilities.

Hospitals and clinics, where they exist in the country, suffer an acute lack of equipment and properly trained staff necessary to deliver proper health care. Many rural residents are many miles from a doctor or clinic. Due to a starvation of funding made available for quality, adequate medical care, the ability to treat and contain pandemics is severely impacted.

In the midst of such glaring poverty, a mere ten people in the country sit atop an obscene pile of wealth. The ten own a variety of business concerns, including banking and manufacturing, which generate annual revenue of more than $3 billion. In contrast, less than $300 million is allocated for health care in a nation of 24 million, which equates to a pitiful $12.50 per person annually.

That such pandemics as bubonic plague run rampant in the modern era stands as an indictment of not only a privatized-for-profit medical system, but the entire existing setup in which the capitalist politicians in Antananarivo oversee and facilitate the criminal enrichment of a tiny layer of wealthy parasites at the top of Malagasy society, at the expense of the impoverished Malagasy population.

Report notes dramatic increase in homelessness in Germany

Marianne Arens

“Whoever has no house now will not build one anymore.” As beautiful as the Rilke poem about the approaching end of the year may sound—for the homeless, the onset of winter is the worst punishment. The Federal Working Group for Homelessness (BAG W) reported this week that the homeless now number almost 1 million in Germany, approximately 860,000.

The latest figures mean that in “rich” Germany, one in a hundred inhabitants is without a place to live. So much for the ubiquitous media commentary about how well things are going in Germany: “The Germans live well” (FAZ), “Germany is experiencing the strongest economic recovery in a long time” (Süddeutsche Zeitung), and the Frankfurter Rundschau: ”Is the German economy really too good?”

In reality, it is only going well for a narrow layer of the population. The bottom of society confronts a catastrophic social situation that has enormously explosive implications.

The number of homeless is increasing from month to month. Last year it literally exploded. Although there are no definitive statistics, in December 2016, the federal government put the number at 335,000. The BAG W, which calculates its figures from reports produced by support services and social institutions, assumes that homeless population has increased two and a half times since 2014.

Not all homeless people sleep permanently outdoors, beneath a bridge or underpass. Most find refuge in shelters, sleep in public facilities such as a women’s shelter or homeless shelter, or temporarily stay with friends. But the number of those who are living permanently or predominantly on the street has increased massively and is estimated to be more than 50,000 people today.

Most homeless are adult men, but the number of women is growing and the number of children and adolescents on the street is steadily increasing. According to the survey, about 30 percent of those affected are living together with partners and/or children. The percentage of children and adolescents among the homeless is estimated at 8 percent, that of women at 27 percent, and 20 percent young people under the age of 25. The proportion of women among the latter is considerably larger than the total.

Many newspaper reports point out that about half of those affected today are homeless refugees. That may be the case, but, as the authors of the study emphasise, it has little to do with the causes of the misery. Although immigration intensifies the effect, it is by no means the “sole cause of the new housing shortage”, as Thomas Specht, managing director of BAG W, emphasised. The “main causes of housing shortage and homelessness lie in a housing policy in Germany that has failed for decades, in conjunction with an insufficient fight against poverty,” the BAG W press release states.

The widespread lack of affordable housing is the result of systematic deregulation and privatisation over the last 25 years by the politicians responsible at federal, state and local level.

Since 1990, the stock of social housing in Germany has shrunk by almost two thirds, and it continues to shrink. Two parallel processes are responsible for this. The municipal and state housing stock is being systematically sold off and handed over to private interests. And at the same time, the commitment to provide social housing is diminishing, as the authorities cancel any further funding.

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1991, the sale of local authority and cooperative housing stock began on a large scale towards the end of the 1990s. The city of Dresden was one of the first to sell its entire housing stock to pay off its debts. This example was followed by Berlin and many other cities. Four years ago, Bavaria sold 33,000 social housing units, 8,000 of them in Munich.

Those responsible were politicians of all stripes, from the Christian Democratic CDU/CSU to the Free Democratic FDP to the Social Democratic SPD, the Greens and the Left Party. In Berlin, the SPD-Left Party city government sold over 200,000 apartments to financial sharks such as Cerberus Capital Management. While speculation in land was being powerfully fuelled, Social Affairs Senator (state minister) Harald Wolf (Left Party) simultaneously ended subsidies for social housing. Today, Berlin lacks 150,000 apartments for low-income earners.

Recently in Frankfurt am Main, the desperate situation of thousands of students at the beginning of the semester has once again shed light on the housing shortage, which has been rife for a long time. There are officially only 2,900 dorm rooms for over 60,000 students. Students are thus put in competition for affordable housing with those on low incomes, or they sleep in tents, in the car, or far away in the surrounding area.

In Frankfurt, a massive process of displacement from affordable housing has been taking place for years, driven by gentrification and luxury refurbishment on the one hand, and rising rents and homelessness on the other. Again, responsibility lies with the SPD Mayor Peter Feldmann and the former planning department head Olaf Cunitz (Green Party), and his successor Mike Josef (SPD).

Nationwide, speculation in housing construction is on the rise. Freehold apartments and new housing estates are listed on the stock exchange for speculative purposes. So-called premium real estate in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Cologne, Frankfurt, Munich or even Heidelberg and Potsdam is highly regarded as capital investment. Many empty apartments are intended solely for speculation and are completely unavailable as living space.

The lack of affordable housing is compounded by growing poverty. Here, too, the SPD and Greens have set the course. It is precisely the conditions that were created with the Hartz IV laws and Agenda 2010 policies of welfare and labour “reforms” that make the housing situation even more difficult for those affected.

Job centres can sanction unemployed under-25s by withdrawing their accommodation and heating allowance. This leads to many young jobless not being accepted as tenants for an apartment, because landlords fear the rent will not be paid if a young person is sanctioned by the authorities. As a result, many young people without permanent work are unable to find housing from the outset.

The ALG II benefit regulations can also cause problems for older welfare recipients. Often, the job centre will not cover the full cost of housing. Local governments impose certain upper limits for housing costs, forcing people to give up their long-familiar home. But many will not easily find a new apartment, which would be sufficiently small and cheap. The consequences can be high levels of debt, eviction and homelessness.

The situation of the homeless is also becoming increasingly difficult as municipal social services themselves suffer cutbacks due to austerity measures and are increasingly reaching their limits. For example, in Munich, the head of a women’s refuge told regional broadcaster BR, “Unfortunately, it is increasingly the case that we have to send women away. This is completely new and terrible, and we are suffering a lot from it. That just shouldn’t be happening in Munich!”

The level of social polarisation is especially striking in Munich. Homelessness no longer affects just down-and-out alcoholic men. It is often ordinary people on middle-incomes who are threatened and affected. Living in Munich has become very expensive, and once you land on the street, it is increasingly difficult to get back up.

A report from February 2017 by broadcaster ZDF makes clear that by no means all homeless people are perceived as such. Many are not counted in the numbers of homeless, since they do everything humanly possible to not attract public attention. Many homeless people go to work every day, take a shower at public facilities and have their hair cut regularly. They have put all their belongings into storage and their mail is collected from a post office box or goes to the address of acquaintances.

The ZDF report highlighted the situation of people who are homeless despite having work, including a dentist from Slovenia and a 61-year-old nurse.

The programme accompanied a former retail salesman. His “home” is now under a bridge, even though he still pursues a regular job de-cluttering. His income is insufficient to rent a flat in Munich; it is just enough for a monthly public transport ticket. He takes a shower every day and shaves regularly. “You don’t see it. Nobody has spoken to me yet.” But in the evenings, when he rolls out his bedding under the bridge, he often thinks, “You used to have a flat, a car, a roof over your head. ... During the day, I block that out quite well.”

By the end of 2018, according to the BAG W report, the number of homeless people is expected to have increased by another 350,000 to about 1.2 million people.

Patel resignation exposes UK’s covert support for Israel and Islamist proxies

Jean Shaoul 

The sordid tale of the Department for International Development (DFID) Secretary Priti Patel’s fall from grace and resignation highlights the methods and true content of Britain’s “aid” policy.

Forged by lobbyists and fixers behind the backs of the British public, it contrasts sharply with both the official line on aid and the propaganda of the “war on terror.”

Patel, an ambitious politician tipped as a future prime minister and a vehement advocate of Brexit, is a longstanding supporter of Israel and a former vice-chairperson of Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI). She was forced to resign on November 8. Eight days earlier, the BBC’s diplomatic correspondent James Landale reported that she had held 12 meetings with top Israeli officials—including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, opposition leader Yair Lapid of the Yesh Atid party and Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan—while supposedly on a 12-day “family holiday” to Israel in August.

The list of engagements, at least one of which was arranged by Israel’s ambassador to London, reads like the official state visit of a top diplomat. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that she was on a mission that could not be publicly acknowledged. But Patel had allegedly failed to inform Prime Minister Theresa May, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson or Britain’s ambassador to Israel of her meetings.

According to Ha’aretz, she also visited the Golan Heights and the Israeli army’s field hospital, which it uses to treat Al Qaeda linked forces fighting the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, enabling them to return to the battlefield. As Israel’s illegal annexation of the Golan in 1981 is not internationally recognised, she broke the rule that no British politician visits the Golan (or the West Bank and East Jerusalem).

On November 7, the BBC revealed that on her return, Patel had lobbied to divert part of the UK’s international aid budget to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operations in the Golan, and a joint project with Israel in Africa. It is widely reported that Israel has been aiding the Al Nusra Front and other Al Qaeda linked fighters, treating wounded fighters in Israeli hospitals, and providing them with training and reconnaissance information for their targets. Israel has worked closely with Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, the CIA and their proxies in their bid to topple the Assad regime.

Patel thus sought to use her department’s aid budget for IDF field hospitals to support Islamist fundamentalist forces prepared to use atrocities to achieve their objectives. It was nothing but an attempt to launder money to the Islamists via Israel.

This should come as no surprise. Patel famously argued that Britain’s aid budget should be cut unless it works in the national interest, and opposes aid to the Palestinians. Her department provides most of Britain’s $85 million a year aid to the Palestinian Authority and Gaza, as well as grants to human rights organisations that criticise Israel, including Amnesty International.

It emerged that her visits were arranged by Stuart Polak, who for 25 years was president of the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) and was rewarded with a baronetcy and the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for political service by former Prime Minister David Cameron. Lord Polak heads the consultancy firm TWC Associates, whose clients include Israeli arms corporations. He attended several meetings in Israel alongside Patel.

Patel’s unauthorised meetings were generally portrayed in the media as the behaviour of an arrogant politician who has scant regard for the norms of ministerial conduct. She had failed to inform either Number 10 or the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) before or after her visits, which were not attended by civil servants. Nor were they minuted, so no one knows what she discussed with Netanyahu and other politicians.

However, it is now clear that the Israeli politicians and diplomats she met informed the FCO of their discussions almost immediately after they took place. Patel’s meeting with Netanyahu was described as “successful,” while Lapid and Erdan tweeted photos of their meetings with Patel. This means there is every reason to question whether the government was secretly informed beforehand, and that Patel had in fact acted with May’s authorisation.

In any event, Patel’s supposed disregard for diplomatic protocols was evidently not a problem for the FCO or Number 10, nor presumably was the content of her discussions. Rather the government suppressed information about Patel’s meetings for at least two months, until the BBC brought it to public attention.

According to the Jewish Chronicle, Patel maintains that she discussed her proposals to use some of the aid budget for the IDF field hospitals with May in September, prior to the UN General Assembly. May did not dispute the validity of the plan, but said it would need to be agreed with the FCO, which later rejected it.

Speaking in the House of Commons last week, Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt defended Patel’s “perfectly legitimate” right to raise the matter, adding that it was within the context of providing medical help for Syrian refugees who could not get assistance in their own country. He said the idea had been rejected because ministers did not think it would be “appropriate.” May’s spokesman was then forced to clarify that “The UK does not provide any financial support to the Israeli army.”

It later emerged that Patel had two further undisclosed meetings with Israel’s public security minister Gilad Erdan in parliament on September 7 and foreign ministry official Yuval Rotem in New York on September 18. Again, these were held without government officials being present. Although the Department for International Development had declined the proposed meeting with Erdan, Patel’s constituency office later arranged it. It was the revelation of these meetings that finally forced May to demand Patel’s resignation.

Erdan heads Israel’s taskforce that monitors Palestinian and Israeli human rights organisations in Israel, the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement and other groups abroad that Tel Aviv accuses of seeking to delegitimise Israel.

This is not the first time that Israel has sought to influence ministers. Last January, Al Jazeera filmed Israeli officer Shai Masot, attached to the embassy in London, proposing to “take down”—by manufacturing a scandal—Alan Duncan, a Foreign Office minister, and Crispin Blunt, the Conservative chair of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, because they were “strongly pro-Arab rather than pro-Israel”.

Blunt had ordered an inquiry into British policy in the Middle East that would also examine “how UK policy is influenced by other states and interests.” His successor, Tom Tugendhat, closed down the investigation.

According to the Jewish Chronicle and Labour Party deputy leader Tom Watson, Patel had spoke about these two further meetings to May, who asked Patel not to include them in her list, as it would embarrass the FCO.

May fired Patel because her exposure also revealed Britain’s craven support for Israel and Islamist terrorists. The British prime minister’s attitude to Israel’s efforts to directly influence British political life at the highest level of government could not stand in sharper contrast to her pose of outrage over unsubstantiated accusations of Russia’s attempts to subvert Britain’s elections and plant fake stories in the media.

Just five days after quietly shunting Patel from cabinet, May delivered a speech at Mansion House accusing Russia of seeking to “weaponise information” so as to “sow discord in the West and undermine our institutions.”

Puerto Rico proclaims “new government” to intensify austerity

Andrea Lobo

On Tuesday morning, Puerto Rican authorities held a public hearing advancing the “New Government of Puerto Rico Act.” The bill itself and the hearing, which followed the announcement that Hurricane Maria fully destroyed 70,000 households when it devastated the US territory on September 20, both constitute warnings that a brutal offensive against Puerto Rican workers and youth is being prepared.

Referring to the “historically excessive expenditures” of the US territory and the estimation of $100 billion in costs from Hurricanes Irma and Maria, the bill states, “we’ve been forced to re-think and re-design the Government of Puerto Rico.” Among other drastic measures, it calls for “authorizing the Governor to reorganize, externalize, consolidate and suppress agencies, programs, and services of the Executive branch.”

There is little doubt that such dictatorial powers are aimed at imposing the austerity diktats of the financial oversight and management board responsible for ensuring the payments to the bondholders of the island’s $74 billion debt. Local officials acknowledge that, in order to receive any of the $94.4 billion they requested from Washington on Monday in relief aid, the authority of the financial board will have to remain unquestioned.

Puerto Rico’s resident commissioner to the US Congress, Jennifer González Colón, also announced Monday that she introduced a bill to reform the Stafford Act, which currently limits disaster relief aid to the restoration of infrastructure to its previous state, which in the case of Puerto Rico was wholly inadequate.

During the public hearing on the “New Government,” held jointly with members of the colonial upper and lower legislative chambers, public officials took turns in seeking to legitimize the exploitation of the ongoing humanitarian crisis on the island and chaos in the relief efforts to aggressively overhaul public institutions.

The intensity of the measures being prepared is underscored by the insistence that this restructuring will be aimed at fulfilling the existing 10-year fiscal plan, which aims to reduce the number of public agencies from 130 to 35 and to cut $2.75 billion in expenditures annually.

The secretary of labor, Carlos Saavedra, portrayed the crisis as a window of opportunity to further the government’s services to the financial and corporate oligarchies. However, as the bill’s reassurances to public workers also show, the main fear is that such an escalation in austerity and privatizations will provoke a mass upheaval and the independent mobilization of Puerto Rican workers.

“This is a historic opportunity to make a new government,” he said, a process that could lead to some “movements of personnel,” cynically adding that this specific legislation will lead to no layoffs.

Almost immediately, however, the director of the island’s fiscal agency AAFAF, Gerardo Portela, vowed that the main aim was “for the government to save money.” The secretary of Justice, Wanda Vázquez, simply declared that the 130 public agencies are “unnecessary.”

In the middle of this farce, and less than a week after a power blackout reduced the share of Puerto Rican households with electricity from 40 to 18 percent, another massive power outage took place. According to the public electric power company PREPA, a “technical failure” on the same transmission line as the previous week, which covers the San Juan metropolitan area, made the island-wide generation collapse from 50 to 22 percent. Several medical centers lost power.

Even though it took the Electric Power Authority a few hours to fix the failed lines, these incidents expose the unreliability of the infrastructure that is being restored and how urgent it is to modernize it.

Even prior to Tuesday’s blackout, 31 of the 78 municipalities still had no power at all, while most of the other municipalities only had partial supply. On Tuesday, the trade union associated with PREPA’s workforce, UTIER, said that the 50 percent figure is “suspicious,” given that the government has refused to make public recent data on average electricity use across the island.

UTIER also denounced the subcontracting of repair work on the Palo Seco facility to a Puerto Rican private firm, rather than sending available PREPA workers. Such maneuvers are signs that the government is already pushing away the public utility from the still halting reconstruction efforts, which have so far depended upon the public workers.

On the same day, the governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Roselló, and the head of PREPA, Ricardo Ramos, both testified before the US House Natural Resources Committee, in a hearing which amounted to another step towards the privatization of the power utility.

At that hearing, US legislators sought to portray PREPA as an unfixable and corrupt mess, attacking it for signing a hugely over-priced $300 million contract with a tiny and inexperienced firm, Whitefish Energy. In response, Ramos insisted that the company offered the best terms, but recognized that PREPA has been failing for a long time and is susceptible to corruption. On the other hand, Rosselló declared bluntly that he is considering privatizing PREPA.

Since the Obama administration created the financial control board in 2016, assembling a group of right-wing political operatives charged with dictatorially imposing austerity and funneling money to Wall Street, it has rejected restructuring the debt and has openly called for the privatization of PREPA.

A naked illustration of this was given by one of the members of the board, Andrew Briggs. The Intercept reported Tuesday that, at a public event, Briggs listed the barriers preventing Puerto Rico’s recovery, including: “minimum wage laws, labor rules requiring just-cause termination, paid sick days for employees, paternity leave, and overtime pay.” In this sense, he said he hoped the hurricane would incite some changes, “like the alcoholic who hits rock bottom.”

The economic conditions on the island are the result of more than a century of colonial exploitation of the island’s working class as a cheap-labor platform and the more recent flight of investment capital seeking cheaper labor, particularly in Asia, which has resulted in a more than 10 percent economic contraction over the past decade.

Almost two months after Hurricane Maria, the majority of Puerto Ricans are still living a nightmare, with the US Army Corps of Engineers reporting that 80 percent of the 60,000 households requiring temporary roofing still have none, and that only 7 percent of the debris has been cleared.

Laura, a retired New York City sanitation woman who lives in the southeastern town of Arroyo, told the WSWS, “I just got my electricity back on last week. The Stryker company, which has a factory here with 1,000 workers that makes medical equipment, hired a private company to completely redo the electrical infrastructure to get their factory running again. The poles are made of concrete instead of wood, which is easily knocked down in a hurricane. The people in the towns around it hope they can get their power restored too.

“People are cleaning with contaminated water and there is a serious mosquito problem too. A lot of sewerage goes into the water and the rivers go into the sea. There’s a quarter-mile stain on the beaches. But it is even worse in the poorer areas in the countryside and up in the mountains. There are still areas that haven’t been reached where people need clean water. Some houses without roofs still haven’t gotten tarps to cover them from the elements.

“They are saying it could take nine months to get the electricity fully restored. If it were not for the municipal workers and other people here in Arroyo lifting up downed poles and wires, cleaning up and clearing away debris, we would still be in a disaster. Teachers have cleaned the schools, people with extra generators are bringing them to the elderly. But I’m afraid everything is going to be worse after the hurricane. We need help.”

In a blatant signal of Washington’s utter indifference to the suffering of the Puerto Rican people, the Pentagon is pulling out US military units sent to participate in relief efforts, including dozens of helicopters that had been flying relief missions. “We're out of the emergency phase, but people still need help,” Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan told CNN after announcing that his troops were being withdrawn.

This week a new set of schools resumed classes, reaching a total of 932 open schools, out of a total of 1,132. It’s expected that a large portion of those remaining will not open, and that one of the windows of opportunity that Puerto Rico’s officials will seek to exploit is for the wholesale privatization of the education system. Puerto Rico’s secretary of education, Julia Keleher, already tweeted last month that the transformation of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina into an all-charter school district was a “point of reference.”

For its part, the state water utility AAA announced Tuesday that about 10 percent of the households it serves still have no running water. And, in terms of telecommunications, only 60 percent of the island has cellphone coverage.

The global processes behind the parliamentary crisis in Australia

James Cogan

Official politics in Australia is in turmoil. On October 27, the High Court decreed that five elected members of parliament, including the deputy prime minister, were ineligible to sit in parliament because they had dual citizenship in another country.

The court upheld the most literal interpretation of a clause in the country’s 1901 Constitution that proscribes anyone from standing for parliament who “is under any acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power,” or is “entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power.”

The unanimous ruling of the seven judges asserted that members of parliament could not have “foreign loyalties or obligations.” The court endorsed the position that politicians must have “single-minded loyalty” to Australia.

Since the High Court decision, three more parliamentarians have resigned because their parents were born in Britain and they were therefore eligible for citizenship in the “foreign power” that colonised the continent and whose monarch is also the Queen of Australia.

In an agreement struck between the Liberal-National Coalition government and the opposition Labor Party, every member of parliament must now provide a disclosure statement by December 1. All members must swear that they have renounced any entitlement to citizenship elsewhere, stemming not only from where they or their parents were born, but also through their grandparents and even through marriage.

As many as 30 of the 226 members of the two houses of parliament may be forced out as a result. Even before the likely exodus leading up to December 1, the Coalition parties have already lost the threadbare one-seat majority in the lower house they need to govern. The Greens, along with others in the political establishment, have suggested calling for the governor-general—the unelected head of state—to use the dictatorial powers vested in his office to dissolve parliament and order a new election.

The situation has left most Australians, let alone international observers, utterly bewildered. The country is one of the most culturally diverse on the planet. Its population has grown from barely seven million in 1945 to near 25 million today as the direct result of large-scale migration. Under Australian law, three million people have the right to dual citizenship in Britain alone. Millions more can claim dual citizenship in New Zealand, Italy, Greece and dozens of other countries from where people have migrated in the decades since World War II.

The working class suburbs of major cities such as Sydney and Melbourne are a true “melting pot.” Workplaces, and especially the playgrounds of the country’s schools, are testimony to the fact that people of different ethnic, linguistic and religious backgrounds can live and interact in fraternity and harmony, providing they are not disoriented and divided by racism and nationalism.

Yet, in 2017, that is precisely what the High Court has intervened to do. Members of parliament are the initial target of a sinister witch-hunt. The real target, however, is the ethnically and culturally diverse working class. The court, the supreme judicial arm of the capitalist state, has effectively decreed that half the population is “un-Australian” until they prove they have “undivided loyalty” by renouncing their purported “allegiance” to the country in which they, their parents or their grandparents were born.

The significance of what is unfolding can be understood only when it is assessed in the context of world economic and political processes.

The vast globalisation of production that has taken place over the past 40 years has not led to a lessening of national antagonisms and conflicts. It has resulted in the complete opposite. The point has been reached where US imperialism—headed by the degenerate figure of Donald Trump—is openly threatening China, Germany, Japan and other economic rivals with trade war. As in the 1930s, the rupture of international economic relations is the prelude to military conflict.

The patriotic hysteria in Australia is just one expression of universal, global tendencies. In every country, the capitalist elite is stoking xenophobia against “foreigners” as they prepare, behind the backs of the masses, for war. Nationalism is the ideological means by which the ruling class tries to poison the minds of the working class majority into believing that it shares common interests with a tiny minority of ultra-rich corporate oligarchs.

Paul Kelly, the editor-at-large of Rupert Murdoch’s Australian, stressed the paramount importance of demanding unquestioned allegiance to the nation in a comment last week. He denounced any suggestion that the constitution be changed to allow dual citizens to stand for parliament as “a social engineering project aimed at weakening Australian sovereignty in the cause of internationalism.”

As the global struggle between the great powers develops, Australian foreign policy is based on the conclusion that war between its US ally and China over dominance of the Asia-Pacific region is inevitable. The dominant factions of the ruling class, and both the Coalition and Labor, support the complete and unconditional military alignment of Australia with Washington.

A report published this week by the state-funded Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) demonises China as a threat to US and Australian strategic interests. It blandly observes that war with China would “bring into consideration the use of nuclear weapons.”

The Australian welcomed the ASPI report in its November 16 editorial, lauding its authors for having “no time for the diplomatic sensitivities that seek to suggest our multi-billion-dollar submarine, frigate and missile acquisition programs have a potential enemy other than China in mind.”

The witch-hunt over dual citizens in the parliament emerged amid constant agitation in the establishment media for action to be taken against purported “Chinese influence” in Australian politics and society. This is a part of a calculated attempt to create a war-time political atmosphere, with all “loyal” citizens expected to wrap themselves in the Australian flag and demonstrate their fidelity to the nation.

At the same time, the stoking of patriotism is motivated by the fear of the ruling elite. It is a desperate attempt to cultivate a right-wing constituency that will defend the “nation”—that is, the class interests of the capitalist oligarchs—from the inevitable eruption of struggle by the working class against the danger of war and social inequality. The top 10 percent of the population own at least 55 percent of the country’s wealth, with the top 1 percent controlling the lion’s share. Not far from the ostentatious displays of wealth in Sydney’s harbour suburbs, working class families earn so little they can barely keep a roof over their heads and feed themselves.

The consequences of the parliamentary crisis will be the refashioning of official politics. The longstanding two-party system dominated by the Coalition and Labor is disintegrating under the impact of immense geopolitical stresses and class antagonisms. As is the case across Europe and in the United States, the façade of democracy through which the capitalist class could rule in the past is breaking down. More and more openly, preparations are being made to dispense with it altogether and impose outright dictatorial measures.

The machinations of the ruling elite must be answered by the intervention of an independent political movement of the working class, advancing the socialist and internationalist alternative to capitalism and national divisions. In Australia and internationally, it is only the International Committee of the Fourth International and the Socialist Equality Party that fights for this perspective.

Curtin University MBA Scholarship for International Students 2018

Application Deadline: 25th August 2018

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): Australia

About the Award: The MBA International Student Scholarship has been developed by Curtin Graduate School of Business to encourage and support students who have chosen to study the Master of Business Administration (MBA) as full-time students at Curtin Graduate School of Business (CGSB).

Type:  MBA

Eligibility: All students applying for these scholarships should have received an offer into the MBA Program as Full Time Onshore International Students at Curtin Graduate School of Business and should have met all conditions mentioned in the offer letter.

• Be an International student
• Be a commencing student in 2018
• Applying to study the MBA at the Curtin Graduate School of Business
• Will be enrolled as a full-time onshore international student (at least 75 credits) each trimester

Recipients must meet ALL of the following to keep their scholarship:

• Remain enrolled in the MBA at the Curtin Graduate School of Business (CGSB)
• Maintain enrolment each trimester
• Pass all units each trimester
• Successfully complete the MBA course

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: The MBA International Student Scholarship will provide the following support for the expected duration of the (MBA) for up to a maximum of 1.5 years (based on a full-time study load of 75 credits each trimester):

• A total maximum value of $15,000, paid as $1,250 towards the tuition fees of each unit for students completing the 12 units MBA Program

OR

• A total maximum value of $10,000, paid as $1,250 towards the tuition fees of each unit for students who commence the MBA Program after completing a Graduate Certificate in Business and who are required to complete the remaining 8 units of the MBA Program.

How to Apply: All qualifying applications from international applicants for the Master of Business Administration (MBA) at Curtin University will be automatically assessed for the MBA International Scholarship. No separate scholarship application is required.

Applications will be assessed by an assessment panel using the following criteria:

• Responses to questions in the MBA application form
• Academic merit
• Documentary evidence attached to the MBA application

Curtin Graduate School of Business will assess each application accordingly and issue a separate Scholarship Offer Letter, along with the Letter of Offer to the MBA Course, to confirm whether the applicant has been awarded a scholarship.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Curtin University.

Important Notes: 

• Scholarship will be awarded if there are applicants of sufficient merit
• Scholarship will commence from first trimester of study
• Scholarship is not transferrable to another major, course or university

TRACE Prize for Investigative Reporting on Commercial Bribery 2018

Application Deadline: 31st January, 2018.

Eligible Countries: All

Type: Contest

Eligibility: 

• Nominees may be print, broadcast or online reporters from any country who have investigated bribery schemes, business activities that create serious conflicts of interest or similar misconduct.
• Entries must have appeared in print or online during the 2016 calendar year to be eligible for consideration.
• Multiple entries per author are permitted, as are team entries produced by groups of journalists.

Selection: A panel of independent judges will review the submissions and select up to two winning entries.

Value of Contest: Each winning entry will receive a cash prize of $10,000 USD and the reporter will be invited to an award ceremony hosted by TRACE in mid-2018. The judges may also name up to two honorable mentions, who will each receive $1,000 USD.

How to Apply: 

• Download an Entry Form
• Submissions or queries should be emailed to Caitlin Seymour, cseymour@traceinternational.org.

Visit Contest Webpage for details

Award Provider: TRACE

VLIR-UOS Masters & Training Scholarships in Belgium for African/Developing Countries 2018/2019

Application Deadline: Application Deadlines depend on candidate’s chosen programme (See’How to Apply’ link below); deadlines generally between November 2017 – March 2018

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries

• Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Guinea, Cameroon, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Niger
• Asia: Cambodia, Philippines, Indonesia, Palestinian Territories, Vietnam
• Latin America: Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua, Peru

To be taken at (country): Belgium

Accepted Subject Areas: Only the following English taught courses at Belgian Flemish universities or university colleges are eligible for scholarships:

• Master of Human Settlements – Deadline for applications: 1 March 2018
• Master of Development Evaluation and Management – Deadline for applications: 4 February 2018
• Master of Governance and Development – Deadline for applications: 1 February 2018
• Master of Globalization and Development – Deadline for applications: 1 February 2018
• Master of Cultura Anthropology and Development Studies – Deadline for applications: 1 February 2018

Two-year programmes

• Master of Science in Food Technology – Deadline for applications: 1 March 2018
• Master of Aquaculture (IMAQUA) – Deadline for applications: 1 March 2018
• Master of Epidemiology – Deadline for applications: 15 February 2018
• Master of Agro-and Environmental Nematology – Deadline for pre-academic admission: 3 January 2018. Please note you have to send a hard copy of your application and all requested documents to the programme coordinator before 15 January 2018!
• Master of Rural Development – Deadline for applications: 1 March 2018
• Master of Statistics – Deadline for applications: 1 February 2018
• Master of Water Resources Engineering – Deadline for applications: 1 February 2018
• Master of Sustainable Territorial Development – Deadline for applications: 1 February 2018
• Master of Transportation Sciences and Road Safety in Low & Middle Income Countries – Deadline for applications: 1 March 2018
• Master of Science in Marine and Lacustrine Science and Management (Oceans and Lakes) – Deadline for applications: 31 March 2018. Please note you first have to apply for pre-registration.

Training programmes organised in 2018 (14-90 days)

• Audio-visual Learning Materials – Management, Production and Activities (AVLM) – Applications are closed
• Sustainable Debelopment and Human Rights Law (SUSTLAW): 12/02/2018 – 04/05/2018, deadline for applications is 03/11/2017
• International Module for Spatial Development Planning: 05/03/2018 – 01/06/2018, deadline for applications is 24/11/2017 (23:59h)
• Evidence-based decision making in food safety: 15/10/2018 – 14/12/2018, deadline for applications is 15/03/2018
• Modern breeding techniques of maize: 20/08/2018 – 07/09/2018, more info to follow
• I-EBQ (International training on Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Qualitative research methods): 21/10/2018 – 01/12/2018, more info to follow

About the Award: VLIR-UOS awards scholarships to students from developing countries to study for a master or training programme in Flanders, Belgium. VLIR-UOS funds and facilitates academic cooperation and exchange between higher education institutions in Flanders (Belgium) and those in developing countries, which aims at building capacity, knowledge and experience for a sustainable development.

The master programmes focus on specific problems of developing countries. These are designed to enable graduates to share and apply acquired knowledge in the home institution and country. In the shorter training programmes the focus is on transferring skills rather than knowledge, thus creating opportunities for cooperation and networking.

Selection Criteria: The following criteria will be taken into account for the selection of candidates for a scholarship:

• Motivation. The candidate who is not able to convincingly motivate his application, is unlikely to be selected for a scholarship.
• Professional experience: Preference will be given to candidates who can demonstrate a higher possibility of implementing and/or transferring the newly gained knowledge upon return to the home country.
• Gender. In case of two equally qualified candidates of different sexes, preference will be given to the female candidate.
• Regional balance. The selection commission tries to ensure that 50% of a programme’s scholarships are granted to candidates from Sub-Saharan Africa, provided there is a sufficient number of qualifying candidates from this region.
• Social background. In case of two equally qualified candidates, preference will be given to candidates who can demonstrate that they belong to a disadvantaged group or area within their country or an ethnic or social minority group, especially when these candidates can provide proof of leadership potential.
• Previously awarded scholarships: Preference will be given to candidates who have never received a scholarship to study in a developed country (bachelor or master).

Eligibility: You can only apply for a scholarship if you meet the following requisites.

1. Fungibility with other VLIR-UOS funding: A scholarship within the VLIR-UOS scholarship programme is not compatible with financial support within an IUC- or TEAM-project. Candidates working in a university where such projects are being organized, should submit a declaration of the project leader stating that the department where the candidate is employed is not involved in the project.
2. Age: The maximum age for an ICP candidate is 35 years for an initial masters and 40 years for an advanced masters. The maximum age for an ITP candidate is 45 years. The candidate cannot succeed this age on January 1 of the intake year.
3. Nationality and Country of Residence: A candidate should be a national and resident of one of the 31 countries of the VLIR-UOS country list for scholarships (not necessarily the same country) at the time of application.
4. Professional background and experience: VLIR-UOS gives priority to candidates who are employed in academic institutions, research institutes, governments, social economy or NGO’s, or aim a career in one of these sectors. However, also candidates employed in the profit sector (ICP and ITP) or newly graduated candidates without any work experience (ICP) can be eligible for the scholarship. The ITP candidate should have relevant professional experience and a support letter confirming (re)integration in a professional context where the acquired knowledge and skills will be immediately applicable.
5. Former VLIR-UOS scholarship applications and previously awarded scholarships: A candidate can only submit one VLIR-UOS scholarship application per year, irrespectively of the scholarship type. As a consequence, a candidate can only be selected for one VLIR-UOS scholarship per year.
6. The ICP candidate has never received a scholarship from the Belgian government to attend a master programme or equivalent or was never enrolled in a Flemish higher education institution to attend a master programme or equivalent before January 1 of the intake year

Number of Awardees: VLIR-UOS will award up to 180 scholarships to first-year master students and 70 scholarships to training participants.

Value of Scholarship: The scholarship covers ALL related expenses (full cost).

Duration of Scholarship: The master programmes will last for one or two academic years while the shorter training programmes will last 14 to 90 days.

How to Apply: 

• To apply for a scholarship, you first need to apply for the training or Master programme.
• To apply for a training or Master programme, visit the website of the training or Master programme of your interest. Follow the guidelines for application for the programme as mentioned on its website.
• In the programme application, you can mention whether you wish to apply for a scholarship. In case you do,  the programme coordinator forwards your application to VLIR-UOS.
• Applications submitted by the candidates to VLIR-UOS directly will not be considered!

Visit Scholarship Webpage for more details

Sponsors: The Flemish Interuniversity Council (VLIR) responsible actor for the Belgian government

Important Notes: All scholars are obliged to return to their country of origin as soon as possible after the study or training programme has ended. Candidates selected for a VLIR-UOS scholarship will be contacted by VLIR-UOS latest mid June.

Erasmus Mundus MaMaSELF Joint Masters Scholarships for International Students 2018/2019

Application Deadline: 30th January 2018

To be taken at (Universities): 

• University of Rennes 1-UR1, France
• University of Torino-TO, Italy
• Technical University of Munich-TUM, Germany
• Ludwig Maximiillan University of Munich-LMU, Germany
• University of Montpellier-UM, France

About the Award: MaMaSELF is a 2 year ERASMUS MUNDUS Master Course in Materials Science Exploring Large Scale Facilities (MAMASELF). It deals with material characterization using neutron and synchrotron radiation with strong synergies between universities, industrial partners and research centres. In an international environment, it offers excellent academic and industrial opportunities to Master Students.

Type: Masters

Eligibility: Students must have

• A Bachelor (180 ECTS)  in Materials Science or related disciplines : Chemistry, Physics, Geo-science,…
• Proof of good English competencies, e.g.  TOEFL  CBT 230 and PBT  550 IBT 80 / IELTS 6.5 or equivalent, except for applicants native from English speaking countries and for students having been educated in English at secondary or/and university. Students who intend to have a mobility at TUM  must have following level for admission at TUM : TOEFL IBT 88, CBT 234/ PBT 605
• Students coming from main background : civil engineering, medicine, pharmacy, architecture, accounting, law will not be accepted unless they have a minimum background in Chemistry or Physics (at Bachelor level).

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: The Erasmus Mundus scholarship covers tuition fees and allows to cover all expenses that non eu students normally face during their studies.

Duration of Scholarship: 2 years

How to Apply: 

• Bachelor degree (with certified English translation)
• Transcripts (with translation)
• English competencies certificate
• Reference letters
• Passport

Create your account and start your application

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: European Commission

Important Notes: When the results are published, please check your status on your file.