Does Our Civilization Has At Least Some Chance To Survive?

Andre Vltchek

Lately, I have been asked this question on several occasions. “Can our humanity really survive?” “Am I an optimist or a pessimist?”

My replies vary, as I don’t think there can ever be one single answer to this most urgent, the most important query.

Sometimes my answer gets influenced by location: where I am at that moment, or where I have been recently? In a Taliban-controlled village in Afghanistan, on a rooftop of a whorehouse in Okinawa while filming deadly US air force bases, or perhaps in an elegant café after visiting an opera performance with my mom, in Stuttgart or in Paris.

Whether I have been injured on a battlefield or in a slum, or have been applauded (most of the time, hypocritically) at some event where I was invited to speak? Have I been doing something ‘forbidden’, insane and dangerous, or merely processing my visual or written materials in Japan or in Bangkok?

Depending on the circumstances, I can sound negative or cautiously optimistic.

But the truth, the honest truth is: I am scared.

Not scared for my own life, or my health or even my well-being. My work and my struggle: nobody forced me into it; all that I do is my own choice. I want to do it and therefore I do it. And while I do it, as it is often not safe, I have to understand that my life may end, prematurely, or that something else, very unpleasant, could happen. I have to understand, and I do understand. Shit happens! Unfortunately, it happens often. But that’s not what makes me scared.

What truly frightens me is something else, something much more essential: this beautiful ‘project’, this incredible,gigantic experiment called humanity, could very soon end in ruins and up in smoke.

What scares me even more is that, perhaps, it is already ending although I sincerely hope that it is not.

I have no religion, and I have absolutely no idea whether there is some sort of afterlife or not. Afterlife, God: what I am absolutely certain of is that no one on this planet really knows any answers to these so-called big questions, and those who claim that they do, know even much less than me.

This world and this damn humanity of ours is all that I know, and it is all that I have and care about. And I love it, because I have no other choice but loving it, despite all of its brutality and foolishness, recklessness and short-sightedness. But this planet, which used to be so brilliantly beautiful and pleasing, to all of our human senses, is now frightened, humiliated and plundered. It is getting raped, savagely, in front of our own eyes. And we are just watching, ruminating like cattle, shitting, and amusing ourselves in increasingly brainless ways.

That’s what we are actually supposed to do, according to those bastards who are ‘in charge’.

Our humanity had been derailed from its natural aims, goals and dreams. Goals like egalitarianism, social justice, beauty and harmony, used to be on everyone’s lips, no matter where they were living; just so recently, just one century ago.

The brightest minds, bravely and determinedly, worked on finishing with all forms of inequality, exploitation, racism and colonialism. Crimes against humanity committed by Western imperialism, racism, slavery and capitalism were being exposed, defined, condemned and confronted.

Unfortunately, it was one century ago that we were just about reaching the peak of enlightenment, and as humanity we were much closer to harmony and peaceful co-existence, than we are now.

Our grand-grandparents had no doubts whatsoever, that reason and logic would soon be able to triumph, everywhere on earth, and that those who had been ruling so unjustly all over this world, would either “see the light” and voluntarily step down, or would be once and for all defeated.

Great revolutions erupted on all continents. Human lives were declared to be well above profit. Capitalism seemed to be finished. Imperialism and capitalism were discredited, spat at and stepped on with millions of feet. It was clearly just a matter of years, before all people of all races would unite, before there would be no more dictatorship of greedy and degenerate business people, of crooked religious demagogues, of perverse monarchs and their serfs.

In those days, humanity was full of optimism, of ground-breaking ideas, inventions, intellectual, as well as emotional courage and artistic creativity.

A new era was beginning. The epoch of serfdom and capitalism was ending.

But then, the dark revanchist forces of oppression, of greed, regrouped. They had money and therefore could pay to buy the best psychologists, propagandists, mass-murderers, scholars, and artists.

*

A hundred years later, look where we are! Look at us now.

There is nothing to celebrate, and plenty to puke about.

Gangsters and moral degenerates,who ruled during all previous centuries, are still in full control of the planet. As before, oppressed people form majority: they inhabit Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, Sub-Continent and Southeast Asia.

Actually, things have gone much further than before: the majority of people on our planet lost their ability to think logically. They have been brainwashed by the propagandist mass media, by mass produced movies and pop music, by bizarre ‘trends’ in fashion and by aggressive consumerism.

Education and media outlets have lost all their independence and become subservient to the interests of the regime.

Western ‘democracy’ (not much of a project to begin with), has kicked the bucket quietly and discretely, and its advocates again began taking direct dictates from big business, multi-billionaires and their multi-national corporations. The system has evolved from turbo-capitalism into turbo-kleptocracy.

I work all over the world, on all continents, and what terrifies me is how ‘complete’, or call it ‘bulletproof’ the system has become.

With advanced computerization, with the ability of the regime to monitor and analyze basically all corners of our planet, there seems to be no place on earth that can escape the advances and attacks of Western imperialism and neo-colonialism.

Just imagine: some country decides to resist and to work for the well-being of its own people, and immediately the Western propaganda, its NGO’s, academia, media outlets, and potentially its mercenaries and military, get to work, systematically smearing the rebellious government, and potentially ruining entire countries. This is how Argentina collapsed, and then Brazil. This is how Syria was first destabilized and later almost destroyed.

It appears that nothing can withstand the global dictatorship.

And the global dictatorship has no mercy; it lost all rationale.

Greed, the maximization of profits, knows no boundaries. Sacrificing human lives is now commonly perpetrated. Thousands of human lives, or a few millions, it does not seem to matter. In the Democratic Republic of Congo or in West Papua, who cares, as long as coltan, uranium, gold and oil are flowing.

I witnessed entire nations ‘sinking’, becoming uninhabitable, due to global-warming: Kiribati, Tuvalu, Marshall Islands. I see tremendous islands like Borneo (known as Kalimantan in Indonesia) being thoroughly and irreversibly ruined. And nobody gives a damn. Corrupted(by the West and their own servile governments) scientists in places such as Indonesia,are still arguing that global warning and deforestation, as well as the palm oil plantations, are actually not threatening the world and its survival.

Some fifty years ago, there would have been powerful books written on these subjects. Wonderful art films were made,songs written and sang by brave bards,and the masses in both the oppressed world, but also in the West itself, bought revolutionary novels by the millions of copies. Multitudes of people stood in line, to watch films that were depicting their life, their struggle and their suffering.

Now? The destroyed masses are conditioned to forget about their nightmares and instead watch brainless horror films, some Star Wars ‘epic’, ‘romantic comedies’ depicting sweet suffering or the rich and famous. After saving for months, poor families in the devastated world are dragging their children to Disney Worlds; to those factories of plastic, emotionless dreams, to those Burger Kings of fairy tales!

Mobile phones have replaced paper books, newspapers and magazines. For centuries, paper books were symbols of knowledge. No computer or telephone screen can ever replace the printed word. A scholar, a man or a woman of letters has always been surrounded by books, by notes, by documents.

All this is not happening by chance.Electronic offering is much easier to control, divert and choke, than materials that are printed on paper. Thede-intellectualization of the world is clearly being done by design, step by step, in an organized fashion. Forget about ‘renaissance men and women’ in the 21st Century: even educated Western anti-capitalist thinkers are now ‘specialized’. They ‘don’t read fiction’. They are collecting ‘facts’, producing non-fiction essays and books, as well as documentary films and videos, but fully neglecting the point that all successful revolutions were always based on emotions, creativity and art; inspiring the masses, making people laugh and cry, dream and hope.

The world has become full of ‘data’, of digits. ‘Facts’ are widely available, but they do not inspire or move anybody. They do not call people to action; to the barricades. Everything is standardized. Western propaganda has managed to regulate human desire, dictating how the ‘perfect’ female or male body should look and behave. Or what the ‘correct’ perception of ‘democracy’should be,or what is trendy and what should be considered boring and outdated.

The life of both the victims and victimizers appears to be ‘de-politicized’. But it is not! The acceptance of Western propaganda and collaboration with the regime is actually an extremely political act!

*

I am scared because it appears that a great majority of the people have accepted what the twisted regime has ordered them to accept.

They have accepted surveillance, trends, de-humanized ‘desires’, ‘political correctness’, global imperialist fascism, pop, grotesque capitalism and grey uniformity.

Like parrots, they repeat anti-Communist slogans, as well as propaganda barks against all the countries and governments that are still resisting this monstrous Western dictatorship brought to its most bizarre extreme.

I am scared, and at the same time, I am increasingly furious. If this is the future for humanity, do we, as human beings, really have right to exist; to survive as a species? Are we so submissive, so uninventive that we always end up begging for crumbs, praying to some invented superior forces, and prostrating ourselves in front of evil greedy monarchs and morally-corrupt individuals and systems?

Fortunately, not everyone is blind, and not everyone is on his or her knees. Not all of us have lost the ability to resist, to dream, and to fight for a world that appeared to be so possible just one century ago.

Those who are still alive and standing on their feet, know perfectly well: Revolution is possible and morally justifiable. Capitalism and imperialism are totally inhuman. A Socialist or Communist system is the only way forward: not in some ‘conservative’, dogmatic form, but in an ‘internationalist’,enlightened and tolerant way.(As clarified in my latest book Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism. ).

It is the beginning of the year; 2019. Let us try to recap some basics:

Destroying entire parts of the world, and ransacking their natural resources for cold, selfish profit, is wrong.

Brainwashing countries, overthrowing their progressive governments, and derailing their natural development, is damn wrong, too.

Turning populations of the entire planet into idiots and zombies, making them consume violent and brainless movies, listen to crap music and eat junk food, dreaming about making love to shop window figurines and their human equivalent, is evil.

Using the media, education and entertainment for indoctrination purposes is barbaric.

And so is turning the entire planet into some primitive consumer market.

To fight such a system is glorious. And it is by definition ‘trendy’ and fun.

To use the terminology of the empire: collaboration and uniformity can never be ‘cool’. Listening and watching the same garbage cannot be ‘fashionable’. Banging into the same mobile phone screens can hardly be defined as ‘advanced’, and broad-minded.

Licking the boots of some old fart who owns banks or destructive corporations, is far from a modern, elegant and refined way of living.

Watching how our beloved planet is going up in flames, due to neo-imperialism and turbo-capitalism, while not doing anything to stop it, is nothing else other than stupid.

*

I began 2019 by writing the first chapter of my 1000-page novel “One Year of Life”. This novel began in 2019 and it will finish at the end of the same year. At the very end of it. Enough of non-fiction only!

As a novelist and playwright, I believe in human emotions. I have also witnessed enough uprisings and revolutions to finally realize that naked facts and data will never bring people to the barricades.

Time to un-dust the old banners, to bring back poetry, art, literature, films, theatre, and music. They are our best allies.

The West tries to silence emotions, ‘burn’ books and hit us all with ugly, meaningless noise and images, because it knows perfectly well that beauty is creative and inspiring.Beauty and creativity are also ‘dangerous’, in fact fatal to the regime’s dark and depressing designs.

I may be scared, but I am also cautiously hopeful. We can still win. Actually, it is our obligation to win. This Planet has to survive. If we win, it will. If we lose, it will go to hell.

It will be an extremely tough struggle that lies ahead of us. And no one will fight just in the name of facts and data, people are known to fight only in the name of a beautiful future.For us to win, all great muses are expected to march by the side of brave and determined revolutionaries!

New Zealand Labour government entrenches anti-worker measures

John Braddock

Throughout 2018, the working class in New Zealand, spearheaded by thousands of nurses, teachers, public servants and transport workers, joined the mass struggles against austerity and declining living standards taken up by workers internationally.

The movement is continuing in the New Year. Some 3,300 junior doctors at public hospitals struck for 48 hours this month and will hold another strike beginning January 29, in opposition to a freeze in real wages and demands for longer shifts.

Strikes by thousands of teachers over unsettled contract claims have been foreshadowed for when the new school year begins in February. Learning support workers employed by the Ministry of Education, managing services for children with extra learning needs, this week walked out for a month over a rejected pay claim.

The response of the Labor-NZ First-Green Party coalition government has been to present a phoney “progressive” façade, while implementing the austerity agenda dictated by big business.

Installed in office after the 2017 election, Labour and its right-wing populist partner, the NZ First Party, pledged to restore capitalism’s “human face” with policies based on “kindness.” One widely-promoted promise was to change the law to strengthen workers’ rights to organise and improve their conditions. As with vows to address the housing crisis and the under-funding of hospitals, this has proven completely hollow.

Labour’s amended Employment Relations Act (ERA), which became law in December, retains the draconian anti-working class measures from the 1999–2008 Labour government’s industrial laws. These continue to outlaw strikes, except during collective contract negotiations, or over health and safety issues.

When 30,000 nurses struck last year, they faced restrictive “good faith” bargaining provisions, which require ongoing negotiations between the union and employers, and strike-breaking requirements for large numbers of nurses to remain in hospital wards. After Labour declared there was “no more money” to grant substantial wage and staffing increases, the NZ Nurses Organisation shut down the movement and imposed a three-year settlement which fails to meet the increased cost of living.

The trade unions and pseudo-left groups have hailed the new industrial laws. Mike Treen, head of the Unite union and former leader of the now-defunct Socialist Action League, last year claimed that the changes would “significantly enhance workers’ power” by giving more power to the unions. However, these same organisations have suppressed any real struggle against austerity and pro-business deregulation for the past four decades.

In fact, under the ERA, the hated 90-day “trial” period for new hires has been ended only in firms with over 20 workers. Small businesses, which account for some 97 percent of workplaces, can still summarily dismiss workers during this period. Minor legal rights to tea and meal breaks are restored.

To bolster the unions’ role in policing the working class, the new law grants them improved access to workplaces. Union representatives can enter workplaces without consent in order to negotiate or enforce collective agreements. Workers will have protections against discrimination on the basis of their union membership, while union delegates gain guaranteed paid time for union activities.

After pressure from business and NZ First, the draft legislation was altered to enable employers to unilaterally opt out of multi-employer collective agreement (MECA) bargaining. Business NZ chief executive Kirk Hope said this change made the bill “more acceptable” to business.

Fifteen months into its term in office, far from improving the lot of working people, the government and the trade unions are centrally responsible for an intensifying assault on the social position of the working class.

A recent Council of Trade Unions (CTU) cost-of-living survey highlighted the crisis facing workers. While intended by the union bureaucrats to feign sympathy for their plight, the survey pointed to the underlying conditions that have driven the upsurge in workers’ struggles.

Seventy percent of the 1,195 survey respondents reported their incomes were not keeping up with rising costs, while over 55 percent said their workloads had worsened. One commented: “After… coming back to NZ it is ridiculous how expensive basic groceries are—not to mention fuel and power.” Another said: “I have been in my current job 10+ yrs. I have had to do 2 merit steps to be paid $22.60 per hour. This is the same pay I was on when I left Australia 12 years ago. My position can be stressful & holds a lot of responsibility. I feel undervalued & underpaid.”

Economist Bill Rosenberg cited figures revealing the declining share of workers’ income in the overall economy, a process that began under the 1984–90 Labour Party government, and deepened following the 2008 global financial crisis.

According to a new Oxfam report, in the first year of the Ardern Labour government, the poorest half of the population, 2.4 million people, “became collectively $1.3 billion poorer.” The country’s richest 5 percent now have more wealth than the bottom 90 percent, with the two richest individuals adding $1.1 billion to their fortunes in 2017–18.

Labour’s priority is to keep taxes low for corporations and the rich, and public spending restricted, while boosting funding for the military and police. Government spending, at 28 percent of gross domestic product, is lower than for almost all of the three terms in office of the previous National government.

Amid rising anger among workers over the unions’ role in enforcing the requirements of big business, pseudo-left commentators are seeking to subordinate workers to these pro-capitalist organisations.

On the Redline blog, Don Franks, formerly of the Maoist Workers Party, feebly criticised the “concessions” in the ERA legislation. He appealed to the CTU leadership for a change of tactics, declaring: “Together we can make 2019 a great year for working people. If we get back to some hardball union basics.”

This is a fraud. The plummeting social position of the working class, and ongoing strangulation of workers’ struggles requires nothing less than a complete political break from Labour and the establishment parties, and a rebellion against the union bureaucrats, who function as tools of management and the government. New organisations, rank-and-file workplace committees democratically controlled by workers themselves, must be built in a fight for a workers’ government and socialist policies.

Minister’s resignation highlights unravelling of Australia’s ruling Coalition

Mike Head

Two developments this week point to the intensifying rifts tearing apart the governing Liberal-National Coalition—one of the main parties of capitalist rule in Australia since World War II—as well as the growing popular disaffection with the entire political establishment, including Labor and the Greens.

The first event was the supposedly unexpected announcement last Sunday by senior cabinet minister Kelly O’Dwyer that she would quit parliament at the looming federal election, which must be held by May. She is a supporter of Malcolm Turnbull, who was ousted as the Coalition’s prime minister last August.

The second was a call last Monday by Tony Abbott, a previously-deposed Coalition prime minister, for disenchanted voters to support the opposition Labor Party rather than independents, because Labor was a politically responsible “party of government.”

O’Dwyer, the minister for jobs, industrial relations and women, cited “very personal reasons” of wanting to spend time with her children. But there was no mistaking the political implications of her move, which the media reported as a “shock.”

On one level, it was a desertion from an apparently sinking ship. Polling continues to indicate that the Coalition faces a severe defeat at the election. There was speculation that O’Dwyer could even lose her inner-Melbourne seat, previously regarded as a “blue ribbon” Liberal Party electorate.

In damage control mode, Prime Minister Scott Morrison stood beside O’Dwyer as she announced her decision. He insisted she had his “full support” in making a “great choice” for her family, and he wanted her to continue as minister until the election. Morrison evidently wanted to avoid another cabinet reshuffle, but that leaves the key post of industrial relations—that is dealing with the working class—in the hands of a lame duck.

Clearly, O’Dwyer’s action goes deeper. It undermines Morrison’s efforts to hold the government together while shifting the Coalition further to the right, in league with Abbott and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton. Together, they triggered last August’s removal of Turnbull, the leader of the Liberal Party’s self-titled “socially progressive and economically conservative” wing.

Twice last year, O’Dwyer spoke out against the Abbott-Dutton wing, which is seeking to refashion the Coalition into a Trump-style right-wing populist formation. This faction is trying to divert the rising social discontent, produced by destruction of permanent jobs, falling living standards and decaying social services, in reactionary nationalist, anti-immigrant and “law and order” directions.

In early September, just after Turnbull’s dumping, O’Dwyer told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that members of the right faction had subjected Liberal Party parliamentarians to “threats, intimidation and bullying” in order to remove Turnbull.

Following the Liberal Party’s heavy defeat in November’s Victorian state election, O’Dwyer told a party room meeting that “crusades” by “ideological warriors” among her colleagues had hijacked the party and left it regarded by voters as “homophobic, anti-women, climate-change denyers.”

As soon as O’Dwyer announced her departure, Turnbull took to twitter to hail her as a “true liberal.” Her move sparked reports that other government MPs could make similar announcements, including two Turnbull ministers who refused to serve under Morrison—Julie Bishop who was foreign minister, and Craig Laundy, who was small business and workplace minister. Immigration Minister David Coleman, another Turnbull backer, was also named.

They would follow other Liberal Party MPs in not contesting the election. They include Julia Banks, who quit the party after Turnbull’s removal, Ann Sudalis, who was targeted for a pre-selection challenge by the right faction, and David Bushby, the chief government whip in the Senate, a right-wing faction member to whom the government last week handed a plum job as Consul-General in Chicago.

Unnamed Liberal Party “sources” told journalists that key ministers were likely to quit as well if the party suffered a seismic defeat at the election. Those mentioned were Defence Minister Christopher Pyne and Foreign Minister Marise Payne—two leading members of Turnbull’s “moderate” wing—and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, who swung behind Turnbull’s replacement by Morrison.

The crisis engulfing the government only intensified yesterday, following Morrison’s decision to install prominent indigenous businessman Warren Mundine as the Liberal candidate for a regional New South Wales (NSW) seat, at the expense of the already nominated local candidate, Grant Schultz.

Schultz responded by resigning from the Liberal Party, publicly denouncing Morrison and announcing he would stand against Mundine as an “independent.”

The ABC reported today: “Angry Liberals are tearing up their party memberships on the New South Wales south coast over the decision.” Among those who have resigned are the presidents of two local branches. Gerringong branch president Philip Motby told the ABC: “Head office seem to think they know more than we do so they’re bringing their man in. That’s fine, [then] let them come in and man the polling booths and do the running around.”

Abbott’s remarks take on a particular significance in this context. He told 2GB radio: “If you want a credible parliament, if you want serious government don’t vote independent. It is better to vote for the Labor Party than to vote for an independent. Because for all Labor’s faults at least they are a party of government or potential government and that means there is a level of responsibility which the Labor Party has to take, which no independent or minor party does.”

This message echoes the reported comments of Rupert Murdoch in telling a fellow media mogul, Kerry Stokes, last year that “Turnbull has to go,” even if it meant a period of Labor government. Murdoch, a major figure in the US and global corporate elite, reportedly said he could make money under Labor and the trade unions.

Under conditions of a rapidly deteriorating economic situation internationally and in Australia—including a US-China trade war, slowing Chinese and global growth, falling share and property prices—the ruling class would rely on a Labor government to impose the burden of a crash onto the back of working class households.

Labor, backed by the trade unions, has served this function for more than a century, taking office in periods of crisis, such as war and economic breakdown, to inflict sacrifice on the population.

At the same time, Abbott’s plea to voters reflects fears in ruling circles that this bitter record is now fueling a deeper political disenchantment that so-called independents and minor parties can exploit, further destabilising the parliamentary order that has maintained capitalist rule since the late 19th century.

With voting support for the establishment parties plunging over the past quarter century, Australia’s political system has become increasingly unstable, with seven short-lived prime ministers since 2007.

Various far-right formations are jostling to outflank the Coalition in trying to channel the unrest in reactionary directions. Abbott specifically attacked iron ore billionaire Clive Palmer, who has vowed to plunge more than $50 million into an election campaign for his rebadged United Australia Party (formerly the Palmer United Party).

After being wiped out in the 2016 election, Palmer’s party has just one member of parliament, Senator Brian Burston, who defected last year from another right-wing party, Pauline Hanson’s anti-immigrant One Nation. Palmer is bombarding voters with television advertisements, roadside billboards and unsolicited text messages in the hope of filling the political vacuum created by the discrediting of the Coalition, Labor and the Greens.

Also vying for position are One Nation, Liberal Party defector Cory Bernardi’s Australian Conservatives, Bob Katter’s Australian Party and the recently registered Fraser Anning Conservative National Party. Anning, a previous member of both One Nation and Katter’s party, used his maiden speech in parliament last year to demand a “final solution” to stop immigration and a return to the racist “White Australia” policy.

Labor, while claiming to oppose the far-right groups, is fully committed to enforcing the dictates of the financial elite if it returns to office, creating fertile ground for these formations.

Above all, together with Labor, these outfits and assorted independents are trying to head off an eruption of strikes and other forms of working class opposition. Their greatest fear is a turn by workers and youth toward a socialist perspective, as the only alternative to capitalism’s escalating social inequality and lurch toward war.

Sri Lankan president praises Philippine-style “war on drugs”

Vijith Samarasinghe

In a speech to a state banquet at Malacanang Palace in Manilla last week Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena hailed President Rodrigo Duterte’s so-called war on drugs as an “example to the whole world.”

Sirisena’s praise for the campaign of arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial violence, including thousands of summary executions, against alleged drug dealers, is an indication of his own dictatorial agenda.

Sirisena and Duterte signed bilateral agreements on defence, agriculture, industries, tourism, education and culture during the state visit. Sri Lanka also agreed to facilitate the opening of a Philippines embassy in the Colombo.

The main purpose of Sirisena’s tour, however, appears to have been to strengthen relations with Duterte and his so-called anti-drug war. Significantly, Sirisena visited the Philippine National Police (PNP) headquarters in Quezon City and attended a closed-door meeting with key officials, including PNP Chief Director General Oscar Albayalde and Interior Secretary Eduardo Año.

Toasting Duterte at Malacanang Palace, Sirisena declared, “The war against crime and drugs carried out by you is an example to the whole world, and personally to me. The drug menace is rampant in my country and I feel that we should follow your footsteps to control this hazard.”

It is not the first time that the Sri Lankan president has endorsed Duterte’s “neutralisation [i.e., killing] of illegal drug personalities nationwide.” The “footsteps” that Sirisena wants to follow is a criminal escalation of police-state violence and preparation for dictatorship.

The “war on drugs” became official national policy in June 2016 when Duterte was installed as president. In 2017, the Philippines congress reinstated the death penalty for drug-related crimes and equipped the nominally civilian Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) with a 500-strong military Task Force to conduct operations along with PNP officers, vigilante groups and other informal armed formations nationwide.

According to official statistics, the official death toll in the war on drugs stood at around 5,000 last year. Human rights organisations, however, have pointed out that the real figure could be up to 20,000 and that most of those killed are the urban poor. The International Criminal Court is currently conducting a preliminary investigation into whether the extrajudicial killings constitute crimes against humanity.

The “war on drugs” policy replicates the methods used by the Davao Death Squad which Duterte established when he was Davao City mayor. It carried out extrajudicial killings of hundreds of street children, petty criminals and drug users.

Upon return to Sri Lanka, Sirisena defended his praise for the Philippines dictator and hit back at criticism by the media and human rights groups.

Addressing a ceremony to launch national drug prevention week at a school in the war-devastated northern town of Mullaithivu, Sirisena declared: “NGOs that talk about human rights only take the side of the drug racketeers… I ask the human rights organisations to remove their masks and protect our children.”

Sirisena said he would adopt a “novel approach to eradicate drugs” and not step away from his decision to introduce capital punishment for drug racketeers. He also launched a phone hotline, with the number 1984, for the public to provide information on narcotics or organised crime.

Sirisena, with the support of many government MPs, has long been calling for a national anti-drugs campaign. In July 2018, he called for an end to Sri Lanka’s 43-year moratorium on executions, and for hanging to be introduced as punishment for repeat drug offenders.

Cabinet endorsed this, with Sirisena’s official spokesperson, Rajitha Senaratne, declaring that the government would bring the fight against drugs onto the streets: “The Philippines has been successful in deploying the army and dealing with this problem [drugs]; we will try to replicate their success.” Nineteen drug offenders who were serving life sentences in Sri Lanka now face the death penalty.

The drug problem is not the primary concern of Sirisena and Duterte or the ruling elites in their respective countries. If this was the case, there would be far more effective measures to combat this social problem by improving living standards for millions of the oppressed masses, and providing funds for drugs education, psycho-social support and healthcare, and at a fraction of the cost of waging the murderous war on drugs.

The real concern of the Sri Lankan ruling class, and its political elite, is not drugs, but the most serious political crisis it has faced since the end of British colonial rule.

Last year the government was rocked by intensifying class battles by railway, ports, petroleum, education and health sector workers. This was followed in December by protests and a nine-day national strike action for higher wages by more than 100,000 estate workers. Sri Lanka’s astronomical and growing debt burden, along with austerity demands by the International Monetary Fund, will deepen the widespread anti-government opposition by workers and the oppressed masses.

Unsettled by this growing resistance, all factions of the Sri Lankan ruling class have been calling for more authoritarian forms of rule, and numerous comments published in the media for a “strong leader.”

Last October, Sirisena, in a constitutional coup, ousted Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister, replacing him with so-called “strong man” Mahinda Rajapakse, the former president. Rajapakse’s presidency, from 2005 to 2014, was characterised by war, ruthless repression and austerity.

Having failed in his attempts to install Rajapakse, Sirisena is now using the war against drugs as a pretext for a rapid turn towards dictatorial methods. During the recent political crisis, Sirisena, who is constitutionally the head of the armed forces and commander-in-chief, took control of the law and order ministry.

Duterte’s national “war on drugs” policy was launched in the face of sharp social tensions. Its escalation coincided with large strikes by workers in 2016–2017 and thousands of poor Manilla residents taking over more than 15,000 empty government housing units in March 2017.

As the WSWS explained, the “real purpose of the war on drugs was to establish a vast police-state apparatus that will be used to suppress social opposition from workers and the poor. It is no accident that the vast majority of the victims of the war on drugs come from the poorest layers of society.”

The Sri Lankan ruling elite launched its communal war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 1983 with the support of major powers including the US and neighbouring India. The war ended under Rajapakse with the death of tens of thousands of Tamils and the detention of around 300,000 people.

Sirisena, who constantly appeals to the Buddhist hierarchy and the military, repeatedly promotes his own role in the war. He has consistently opposed the arrest and detention of military officers accused of war crimes.

Sirisena’s attack on human rights groups, and anyone who criticises his anti-drugs campaign, indicates that he will turn, not just against those groups, but his political opponents.

Sirisena’s open praise for Duterte’s violent police-state methods is a clear warning to the Sri Lankan working class. This danger cannot be defeated by appeals to the ruling elites to protect “human rights” but only through the development of a revolutionary movement of the working class based on socialist internationalism to put an end to the profit system.

Ninety three dead and dozens in critical condition from Mexico pipeline explosion

Andrea Lobo

At least 93 people have died and dozens were severely wounded in an explosion of a gasoline pipeline with a leak in the community of San Primitivo in the central Mexican state of Hidalgo, just over 50 miles north of downtown Mexico City.

The victims are being treated in hospitals across Mexico and the United States, most of them with severe burns and fighting for their lives, according to the Secretary of Health. This includes one 12-year-old boy. Four died from their injuries on Tuesday.

The explosion and the enormous human toll are an indictment and a direct result of the reactionary and militaristic policies of the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known as AMLO) to accelerate the privatization of the country’s oil.

On Sunday, the state governor, Omar Fayed, announced that most of the remains of those killed in the blast are unidentifiable and will take days or even months to identify by way of genetic samples provided by their families.

Hours before the explosion, a leak was reportedly opened deliberately, creating a 22-foot fountain of gasoline that up to 800 neighbors approached during the afternoon to fill bottles for their families to use. At the time of the fire, about 200 people were reportedly in the immediate surroundings.

Shortly after, harrowing images appeared everywhere on social media and the news stations showing dozens of men and women running away from what had become a giant wall of fire. Family members nearby, calling out the names of their loved ones and telling people on fire to roll on the ground, captured with their phones the moments victims approached them, pleading, “Help me, I’m dying.”

The deadly fire took place in the context of a new supply and distribution system implemented by the recently-elected National Regeneration Movement (Morena) government of López Obrador to prevent the stealing of gasoline from pipelines.

The government’s “strategy,” implemented the first week of 2019, has consisted in deploying more than 5,000 members of the military and police to Pemex installations—including six refineries, 39 storage and distribution terminals and others—and closing down 1,050 miles of pipelines until they can be policed by the armed forces or repaired.

At least ten states in the center of Mexico have reported shortages of fuel, and the Federal Consumer Protection Office (Profeco) reported last Tuesday that 69.5 percent of gas stations in these states surrounding the capital, Mexico City, had no oil.

In the colonias or neighborhoods and surrounding cities of this scattered metropolitan area of more than 25 million people, getting gas has required waiting hours in lines that extend for a mile or more. This has produced the immediately desperate conditions in which hundreds approach such dangerous leaks, something that continues even after the fire on Friday.

More broadly, however, as part of the oil privatization scheme initiated by the previous administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto, cuts to gas subsidies to liberalize the market have made the product increasingly unaffordable for workers.

The explosive and massive Gasolinazo protests all across the country in January 2017 in response to a 20 percent price hike caused by subsidy cuts demonstrated the widespread and profound popular opposition to the ongoing privatization scheme, but also the obstinate determination of the ruling class to carry it through, deploying the military and police to suppress the protests, leaving four dead and hundreds arrested.

The policy of the Morena administration to deal with oil theft is a continuation of the militarized response of the ruling class to any obstacles to the implementation of energy reform and social cuts, including preparation to crack down on future protests like those in 2017 against privatization.

This is yet another measure by López Obrador repudiating his campaign promises to remove the military from domestic operations, after years of being implicated in widespread abuses and even massacres like the 2014 killing of the 43 Ayotzinapa teaching students.

The 2019 budget approved by López Obrador and the Morena-controlled Congress was celebrated by ruling circles because of its continued social austerity under the banner of “fiscal responsibility.” It also provides the largest disbursement to the armed forces in Mexico’s history, in part to create a new National Guard of up to 150,000 soldiers, as a guarantee that the new government will not hesitate to defend the private interests of the bourgeoisie against any challenge from below.

On Sunday, López Obrador stated in a press conference that he didn’t blame or “criminalize” the victims, and rejected criticism by some officials of the failure of a few dozen soldiers present to forcibly remove people from the vicinity of the pipeline before the explosion. “We shouldn’t do that because we have to resolve these things from their root,” he said. “Those practices will be eliminated with the support of people and options for people with needs who chose to do these things.”

And yet, this is precisely what his policy against oil theft has been, criminalizing and deploying the military against the impoverished workers and youth compelled to take such risks. López Obrador said one honest thing Sunday, pledging “all the support to the military,” demonstrating that his response to generalized poverty and staggering levels of social inequality will be no different from his predecessors—militarization and mass repression.

This was seen clearly in Matamoros this past week, where the administration’s response to an ongoing 10-day strike by 70,000 maquiladora workers has been to ignore their demands for just salaries, and deploy police and Navy soldiers with assault rifles to harass workers at the picket lines.

The government has also indicated that the stealing of oil represented losses for the state oil company Pemex of about $3 billion each year, claiming its measures are meant to “save” money for the government.

However, all signs indicate that they are directed at accelerating the privatization of the oil fields. In fact, the government is assuming new costs on behalf of private companies. On top of the military and police deployments, Pemex will be buying 1,600 new tanker trucks and hiring 3,600 new drivers and other staff from private contractors also profiting from Obrador’s measures.

When the Peña Nieto administration implemented a sweeping energy reform in August 2014 annulling the 1938 constitutional provision that nationalized the oil industry under President Lázaro Cárdenas, 17 percent of proven reserves and 79 percent of prospective ones were opened for private investment.

As of mid-2018, about 3 percent of oil reserves were in private hands, according to Forbes. After a sharp fall in oil prices after 2014 slowed down the pace of privatization, higher prices since the beginning of 2018 (in spite of a significant fall since November 2018) and a relatively cheaper peso, cutting labor and other production costs for the last two years, has accelerated investments and pressures on Pemex to create new incentives.

Back in May 2018, when the tide was turning, Carlos Morales-Gil, CEO of the new oil company Petrobal created by Mexican billionaire Alberto Bailleres González, told a meeting of oil magnates in Houston, Texas, “Mexico is a country with social challenges. So, the value of our natural resources needs to be realized more efficiently, and monetized quicker. We are a welcoming market… If liberalization still remains the objective, we [private companies] also need open access to infrastructure built by Pemex.”

The discussion in Houston, according to Forbes, continued on the sidelines of the meeting with demands that Pemex increase its “transportation capacity and storage” and dismissing any concerns that a Morena administration will have less of an “appetite for privatization.”

In other words, the oil-supply policies of the López Obrador administration cut across its demagogic claims that it seeks to cut costs for social investment. They expose Obrador’s nationalist bluster about making Mexico less “dependent” on US oil by building more refineries, pipelines and investing more on exploration. This rhetoric has all been a façade for transferring enormous wealth from previously state-owned and future oil reserves and from government coffers into the profit-making schemes of the Mexican, US and international financial elite, with fatal consequences for Mexican workers and youth.

Germany, France step up military, police alliance with Aachen treaty

Alex Lantier

Fifty-six years after the signing of the 1963 Elysée treaty, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron met yesterday in Aachen to sign another Franco-German friendship treaty. Despite its tired references to international amity and social rights, a reading of the treaty makes clear that it is part of an aggressive, wide-ranging and unpopular agenda to impose police-state regimes across Europe in order to collectively rival America as a military power.

Comparisons of the Aachen and Elysée treaties are fundamentally misleading. While the Elysée treaty was signed shortly after France’s bloody neo-colonial war in Algeria and amid growing financial tensions with Washington over the US dollar, it was signed amid the post-war economic boom. The German government intervened to insert provisions in the Elysée treaty specifying that it would be subordinated to the NATO alliance with the United States.

Now, after nearly three decades of imperialist war and growing economic crisis since the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, a far deeper crisis of capitalism and of inter-imperialist relations is unfolding. Amid US threats of trade war, transatlantic relations are disintegrating and Germany is seeking to remilitarize its foreign policy. Just before mass “yellow vest” protests against austerity and inequality erupted in France last November, Macron said Europe should be prepared to confront Russia, China or the United States.

Speaking in Aachen yesterday, Merkel confirmed this is the central purpose of the new treaty: “We are committing ourselves to the development of a common military culture, a common defence industry and a common policy on weapons exports. This is how we want to make our contribution to the development of a European army.”

The treaty lays this out, pledging Berlin and Paris to “seek a common foreign and security policy that is both strong and effective, and reinforce and deepen economic and monetary union. … The two states will deepen policy cooperation on foreign, defence, exterior security and interior security, and development while seeking to reinforce Europe’s independent capacity for action. They will work to define common positions on any important decision affecting their common interests.”

The treaty creates “a Franco-German Council for Defense and Security as the political organ to guide these common commitments.” With German troops already fighting in France’s war in Mali, it pledges to “further reinforce cooperation between their armed forces in order to create a common culture and plan joint deployments.” It sets up a yearly dialogue between Berlin and Paris on Africa policy, including “management of peacekeeping and post-conflict situations.”

Amid calls for an EU army and after the creation of a €13 billion European Defense Fund last year to boost funding for European weapons systems, including tanks and fighter jets, the treaty calls for a close integration of German and French arms industries. Berlin and Paris, it declares, “support the closest possible cooperation between their defense industries, on the basis of mutual trust. The two states will formulate a common approach on exports of jointly-produced weapons.”

While the treaty maintains the pretense that Berlin and Paris work within the NATO alliance, in fact it calls for coordination between German and French officials at the UN, NATO, and the EU to work out an independent Franco-German policy. It adds, “The admission of the Federal Republic of Germany as a permanent member of the UN Security Council is a priority of Franco-German diplomacy.”

The treaty commits Germany and France to coordinating economic policy, as well as environmental policy and research on artificial intelligence and “other cutting-edge innovations.” It also calls for coordinating transport and infrastructure policies in regions along the German-French border. This is to be achieved via yearly joint meetings of the full German and French ministerial cabinets, and exchanges between them every trimester.

EU policies of austerity and militarism are widely despised among workers in Germany, France and across the European continent. And so the drive towards militarism abroad is inseparable from the drive to police-state measures and coordination of police and domestic intelligence operations across the continent. The treaty specifies that joint Franco-German police operations will proceed not only on German or French soil but, remarkably, in foreign countries as well.

It states, “On internal security, the governments of the two states will further reinforce their bilateral cooperation against terrorism and organised crime, as well as their cooperation on judicial matters, intelligence and police. They will set up measures for joint training and deployment and create a common unit designed for stabilisation operations in other countries.”

One indication of the character of Franco-German police operations is the collaboration two years ago of German and French officials to censor and shut down the German linksunten.indymedia.org website hosted in France. This was a blatant attack on freedom of speech. Now, the Aachen treaty is being signed amid widely reported fears that French police could be swamped by the “yellow vest” protests.

The Aachen treaty is a warning to workers across Europe and beyond. Militarism, austerity and police-state repression of social opposition are not accidents or mistakes by individual heads of state. Rather, the accelerating turn towards military-police rule is an international process, rooted in a systemic breakdown of world capitalism. It can only be fought by uniting the working class internationally on a socialist program for struggle against capitalism, dictatorship and war.

The only progressive opposition to the maneuvers of the Merkel-Macron axis comes from the working class. From within the political establishment, the only criticisms came from neo-fascistic or nationalist politicians seeking to advance their imperialist interests at the expense of the other member of the German-French tandem.

Alice Weidel of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) attacked the treaty as an attempt to subordinate Germany to French interests: “Macron gets what he wants. Germany commits in the first article to ‘strengthen and deepen’ economic and monetary union, that is, to build a union that transfers and redistributes money … a better, quicker grab at German tax funds for French inflationary policy.” She also said French defense contractors could be the “main profiteers” from a European defence policy.

In France, neo-fascist politicians led attacks on Macron for betraying French interests to Germany without public discussion. Marine Le Pen said, “Macron is selling our country, destroying its sovereignty. … He ultimately may think of sharing our UN Security Council seat with Germany, maybe even sharing our nuclear arsenal because he wants arms industry agreements at any price.” She said that the issue of France’s UN Security Council seat was “extremely serious.”

Passing over in silence German-French police cooperation against the population, Le Pen warned against any defence industry cooperation with Germany as harmful to French arms exporting interests. She said, “If we build weapons with the Germans, we French people will have to ask for permission from the Bundestag [German parliament] before exporting weapons.”

Jean-Luc Mélenchon of Unsubmissive France (LFI), affiliated to Germany’s Left Party and the pro-austerity Syriza government in Greece, called the treaty “a step back for our sovereignty” and a “social and ecological step backward.” He said German-French collaboration would mean “fewer public services and less public investment, wage cuts, attacks on the unemployed.”

In fact, the record of Syriza—which took power in 2015 pledging to end austerity, but then trampled the will of the electorate, imposing billions in new social cuts to work out a deal with the EU and the banks—is the clearest indication that there is no national perspective for the workers. The only way forward against austerity and the move to military-police rule is the mobilization of the growing opposition in the working class and its unification in a struggle for the United Socialist States of Europe.

Scottish teachers balloted for strike action in pay dispute

Darren Paxton

Teachers in Scotland are demanding a 10 percent pay increase, having rejected on several occasions the Scottish government’s offer of a paltry 3 percent. Teachers argue this does not cover the huge income losses they have experienced over the last decade, during which pay dropped by nearly a quarter.

Teachers have been demanding industrial action for almost a year and, after months of prevaricating, the EIS (Educational Institute of Scotland) finally conceded a ballot on the issue.

In March 2018, after teachers rejected the 3 percent offer, Scottish First Minister and Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon stated that even 5 percent was “unaffordable,” making clear the Scottish government’s attitude towards 10 percent.

Seeking to divert and disperse workers’ anger, the EIS launched a token petition campaign to “pressure” Scottish MPs into supporting the demand for a 10 percent increase. This petition received 25,000 signatures.

Last June, EIS President Alison Thornton made clear the goal of the EIS was not to mobilise teachers but rather to suppress moves towards a strike, stating, “The EIS remains committed to seeking a negotiated solution in order to remove any prospect of a formal dispute...”

In a further attempt to drag matters out, the EIS opened yet another ballot in October on the already rejected 3 percent offer. The ballot lasted almost a month and the offer was yet again thrown out.

On October 27, 30,000 teachers, students and family members took to the streets of Glasgow to demonstrate their willingness to fight back against decades of attacks on their pay, terms and conditions.

The size of the demonstration, expressing the frustration felt by workers over the long period of inaction, took the EIS by surprise.

The EIS invited representatives of the SNP, Labour, Liberal Democrats and Green Party to speak at the rally, revealing their utter complicity with those who have either carried out or covered up for the assault on teachers over the past decade. One after another, speakers stepped up to the podium to urge a demobilisation and acceptance of a future sell-out offer.

The unions are working to isolate this movement from lecturers and local authority workers. An equal pay demonstration in Glasgow took place just days before the teachers march. This demonstration drew in 6,000 local authority care workers and won spontaneous support from every waste collection worker in Glasgow.

One month later, local authority workers across Scotland rejected a 3 percent pay rise from COSLA (Convention of Scottish Local Authorities). Seventy-nine percent of the members of the public sector trade union Unison rejected the COSLA offer while 67 percent voted for industrial action. GMB and Unite union members also rejected the offer. Scottish local authorities employ around 244,000 workers overall.

GMB, Unison and Unite are fully aware of the toll taken on council workers due to cuts, increasing workloads and low pay. In July last year, the unions filed a Freedom of Information request which revealed that, in 2017, 918 workers from Glasgow City Council took time off work suffering from stress.

A further 685 Glasgow City Council workers were unable to attend work, between January and July of 2018, due to stress, anxiety, depression and nervous debility. Between 2012 and July 2018, as many as 5,030 Glasgow City Council workers were off due to stress.

These figures forced Glasgow City Council to put an “early intervention” policy in place that will supply counselling for workers suffering from stress. This, however, does nothing to address the roots of the problem.

Unmanageable working conditions for teachers were also exposed by an anonymous letter sent to Scottish National Party Deputy First Minister of Scotland and Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills John Swinney.

The teacher insists “the SNP and Scottish government are not tackling the underlying issues in education but are rather just putting a plaster on a gaping wound.”

The letter highlights increasing numbers of physical and verbal assaults from challenging children and identifies the attacks on education funding to be the root of the issue. “There are an increasing number of challenging children within our schools, and yet our resources are being continuously depleted. We have fewer classroom support worker hours. ... Children’s needs are simply not being met.”

The letter explains teachers often find themselves targeted for blame when pupils do not receive adequate care or attention, when in reality there is very little they can do with the resources on offer.

The teacher reported having to evacuate a classroom of pupils whilst one challenging pupil proceeded to “trash” the class, explaining that it is incredibly difficult to be attentive to every pupil adequately with a lack of staff when some individual pupils need extra support. Teachers are “worn down from day to day stress ...”

In the final paragraphs of the letter, the teacher expresses frustration and opposition toward the SNP administration’s inaction: “I sincerely hope you take the content of this letter seriously, because I know I am starting to feel quite disillusioned with the SNP government’s lack of concern for our failing education system at present.”

All this expresses that there is the basis for a broad movement uniting education and local authority workers against austerity. But the unions refuse to link up these struggles, instead working to splinter and isolate disputes from each other.

The EIS held a strike of Scottish lecturers on January 16 for a 2.5 percent pay increase in line with inflation. The EIS-FELA ballot saw a 90 percent vote in favour of industrial action. This strike was held in complete isolation from the 10 percent pay campaign, with some of the striking lecturers entirely unaware of the teachers’ pay dispute.

In Edinburgh, Queen Margaret University workers voted 64 to 36 percent in support of a strike in opposition to plans from management to sack around 10 percent of the workforce. Opposed to taking up this struggle and linking it to the struggles of teachers and local authority workers, the University and College Union are advising that management make cuts elsewhere.

The National Education Union (NEU) refuses to call a single strike in the UK despite years of cuts to the public education budget amounting to billions of pounds. The union is actively resisting their members’ demands a fight be organised against the cuts. This week the NEU announced the results of a consultation of 257,849 school teachers and 4,550 sixth form college staff members. It received 82,487 responses overall with 99 percent of teachers replying “Yes” to the question, “Do you believe the Government funding cuts are having a negative impact in your school?” Eighty-two percent of teachers and 84 percent of college staff responded they were prepared to strike to secure more funding for their institutions and for an increase in pay. In response the union has announced nothing in the form of any action.

The role of the EIS, NEU and other education unions expresses their transformation into labour management outfits, who serve as an industrial police force seeking to suppress the class struggle while maintaining the most harmonious relations with government and employers.

To advance their struggle teachers must shake off the straitjacket imposed on them by the unions.

In a recent statement “ A fighting strategy for California teachers ,” the WSWS Teachers Newsletter explained, “A real fight can be carried out only if teachers take the initiative into their own hands. In every school and community ... teachers should hold meetings to discuss and debate a real strategy to win. Rank-and-file strike committees should be elected to formulate real demands, including a 30 percent wage increase, a 25-student cap on class sizes, a vast expansion of funding and the immediate reconversion of charter schools into public schools.”

The same struggle is posed before teachers across Britain.

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)/World Trade Organization (WTO) 2019 Colloquium for Teachers in Developing Countries (Fully-funded to Geneva, Switzerland)

Application Deadline: 17th March 2019

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

To be taken at (country): Geneva, Switzerland (WIPO-WTO

About the Award: The Colloquium focuses each year on a different range of specialized IP topics. Participants are expected to discuss on case studies and relevant teaching experience in relation to those topics. The Program will include visits to WIPO and WTO libraries and meetings with WIPO and WTO officials.

Type: Training

Eligibility: To be considered, applicants should:

• hold an advanced degree and have teaching experience in intellectual property law or international law/economics/management with a specialization in IP; and
• be fluent in English.

Number of Awards: 27

Value of Award: Scholarships cover:

• Return ticket
• Any fees related to the Colloquium
• Full board and lodging
• Medical insurance

Visa costs, if any, are at the charge of participants.

Successful applicants for WIPO and WTO scholarships are notified by the WIPO Academy and the WTO Intellectual Property Division. Thereafter, they will be provided with relevant information, including travel arrangements.

Duration of Programme: 17-Jun-2019 –  27-Jun-2019

How to Apply: Register now

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

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

MEST Pan-African Pitch Competition (up to $50,000 equity investment) 2019

Application Deadline: 15th February 2019

Eligible Countries: Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Cote d’Ivoire, South Africa

About the Award: Are you the founder of a technology startup currently operating in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Cote d’Ivoire or South Africa, ready to scale across Africa?
Submit your company for the MEST Africa Challenge! Country winners from each region will be flown to the finals at the MEST Africa Summit in Nairobi to compete for up to $50,000 in equity investment and a range of other support to accelerate their Pan-African scale-up.
For more than 10 years, MEST has trained aspiring African entrepreneurs and invested in exceptional businesses with Pan-African ambitions. These businesses have gone on to enter new markets, with MEST growing alongside them as we’ve learned about the opportunities and challenges they face as they scale. Today, MEST Africa is the continent’s largest incubator network, present in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa and Cote d’Ivoire.

Type: Entrepreneurship

Eligibility: Companies must:

• Be post-revenue
• Operate in the market in which they are applying
• Be primarily tech-focused

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Winners will receive up to $50k equity investment from MEST, a space in the MEST incubator of their choice and the chance to pitch at the finals on a global stage at the 2019 MEST Africa Summit in Nairobi.

Duration of Programme: Regional pitch events will be held on the following dates, at MEST Incubator locations or local partners office:

• Accra: Wednesday, February 27
• Nairobi: Wednesday, February 27
• Lagos: Thursday, February 28
• Cape Town: Thursday, February 28
• Abidjan: Thursday, February 28

How to Apply: 

• Apply here for the 2019 MEST Africa challenge.

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

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

British Association of International and Comparative Education (BAICE) Compare Fellowship 2019/2020 for Researchers in Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 1st March, 2019

Eligible Countries: Afghanistan; Benin; Burkina Faso; Burundi; Central African Republic; Chad; Comoros; Congo, Dem. Rep; Eritrea; Ethiopia; Gambia, The; Guinea-Bissau; Haiti; Korea, Dem. People’s Rep.; Liberia; Madagascar; Malawi; Mali; Mozambique; Nepal; Niger; Rwanda; Sierra Leone; Somalia; South Sudan; Syrian Arab Republic; Tajikistan; Tanzania; Togo; Uganda; Yemen, Rep.; Zimbabwe 

To be taken at (country): UK

About the Award: Compare is a leading journal of international and comparative education, publishing six issues a year of high quality articles on diverse issues of educational policy and practice around the world. It is the official journal of the British Association of International and Comparative Education (BAICE), which works to support activities of research, teaching and collaboration in the field.
In order to maintain its significant global standing, one of Compare’s missions is to develop the diversity of its authorship, and support underrepresented groups, in light of the significant inequalities of global academic publishing.
For this reason, it established in 2017 an annual Compare Fellowship, to support early career academics from the Global South in disseminating their research and scholarship to a global audience.

Type: Research

Eligibility:

1. To be based currently in a university in a low-income country (according to the World Bank classification¹)
2. To have completed their doctoral degree within the last six years
3. To be teaching or researching in the field of education

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value and Duration of Award: The fellowship will run from 1 September 2019 – 31 August 2020 and provide full financial support (including travel, accommodation and subsistence) for the following activities:

• Attending the UKFIET conference in Oxford, UK, from 17-19 September 2019 (candidates are strongly encouraged to submit a presentation)
• Attending the Compare writers’ workshop at the conference (a full-day course for early career researchers)
• 2-4 week stay at an institution in the UK following the conference (to carry out library research, attend academic events, and develop publication ideas with the guidance of a mentor)

On returning to their country of origin, the Compare Fellow will be expected to continue with the following activities:

• Participating in the e-mentoring following on from the writers’ workshop
• Developing an article for Compare
• Facilitating the organization of activities to support academic writing for other academics in their institution/country
• Participating in Compare as a reviewer

How to Apply: All applicants should send the following documents via email to compare@uea.ac.uk

1. CV / resume (including qualifications, professional experience and publications)
2. Supporting statement of 1000 words (outlining research interests, publication trajectory to date and future plans, and potential benefits of the fellowship for themselves and their institutions/countries)
3. Abstract submission for the UKFIET conference (see requirements at www.ukfiet.org from 21st January)

If contact has already been made with a potential institution and mentor in the UK, then candidates should state this; however, it is not essential to have arranged this beforehand.

Visit Programme Webpage for Details