30 Jul 2019

World Economic Forum on Africa 2019 – Start-ups Application

Application Deadline: 5th August 2019

Eligible Countries: African countries

To be Taken at (Country): Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC2), Cape Town, South Africa

About the Award: The programme in Cape Town, South Africa, aims to tackle these issues by focusing on how to scale up the transformation of regional architecture related to innovation, cooperation, growth and stability. Under the theme, Shaping Inclusive Growth and Shared Futures in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the 28th World Economic Forum on Africa will convene more than 1,000 regional and global leaders from politics, business, civil society and academia to shape regional and industry agendas in the year ahead.

Type: Entrepreneurship

Eligibility:

  • Be less than 10 years old 
  • Have received more than $1 million in funding
  • Be headquartered in Africa and/or with a primary market focus on Africa
  • Be developing a product or service that makes a substantial long-term positive impact on business and society
  • Be considered a high-potential company in their field with a disruptive business model or significant product or service innovation
  • Not be a subsidiary or a joint venture
  • The chief executive officer / founder must represent the start‑up at the World Economic Forum on Africa 2019  
Number of Awards: Not specified

Duration of Award: 4 to 6 September 2019.

How to Apply: Apply in Link below

Visit Award Webpage for Details

SCIENCE BY WOMEN Visiting Senior Research Fellowships 2019 for African Women (Fully-funded to Spain)

Application Deadline: 30th September 2019

Eligible Countries: African Countries

To Be Taken At (Country/university): Spain

In this 5th edition our associated research centres are:
Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO)
Vall d´Hebron Institut de Recerca (VHIR)
Institute for Neuroscience (IN)
Kronikgune Research Center
Biocruces Bizkaia
DeustoTech
Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO)
Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII)
Donostia International Physics Center
Material Physics Center – (MPC-CFM)
Principe Felipe Research Center (CIPF)
Spanish National Center of Biotechnology (CNB)
Institute for Sustainable Agriculture (IAS)
Institute of Mathematical Sciences (ICMAT)
Campus of International Excellence in Agrifood


About the Award: Each of these centres will host 1 senior woman researcher with at least 3 years of post-doctoral experience for a six-month fellowship. Applications will be subjected to a rigorous selection process, evaluating the academic merits and leadership of the applicants as well as the scientific quality and expected impact of their research projects. Selected candidates will receive training and integration in a dynamic, multidisciplinary and highly competitive working team, where they will be able to develop their research projects and acquire complementary skills, empowering them to transfer their research results into tangible economic and social benefits.
The main goal is to enable African women researchers and scientists to tackle the great challenges faced by Africa through research in Health and biomedicine, agriculture and food security, water, energy and climate change,  mathematics, Information and Communication Technologies as well as Economic Sciences.

Eligible Fields of Study: The preferred areas of research include:
  1. Health and Bio-medicine
  2. Energy, Water and Climate Change
  3. Agriculture and Food Safety
  4. Mathematics, Information and Communication Technologies
  5. Economic Science
Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: 
  • Being a woman
  • Nationality of an African country.
  • PhD with at least 3 years of post-doctoral professional experience
  • Contractual relationship with a university or a public or private non-profit organization based in Africa dedicated to significant scientific research in the areas indicated
  • Excellent academic record and proven track of relevant research experience
  • Solid working knowledge of English
  • Proven experience leading a research group
Beneficiaries of first and second edition are not eligible. Candidates must have already contacted and identified research groups in the host centres to confirm that their proposed research can be carried out in collaboration with those research groups and, when needed, in their laboratories.

Selection Criteria: Applications will be subjected to a highly competitive selection process by the Women for Africa Foundation’s Scientific Committee. The jury will evaluate the following criteria:
  • The candidate’s research career, curriculum vitae and experience as independent research group leader.
  • The project’s scientific -technical quality and innovative potential.
  • The expected and measurable economic or social impact of the research project.
  • The candidate’s plan to communicate and disseminate the project’s results.
  • The proper consideration of ethical issues where appropriate.
Successful applicants will present innovative research projects that respond to the needs of African populations and that are likely to be transferred into products or patents for commercial exploitation, or services and public policies which have a social impact in terms of people’s welfare and quality of life, as well as an economic impact in terms of companies’ productivity and competitiveness.

Number of Awards: 10

Value of Award: Successful candidates will have access to the following benefits:
  • Flight from their centre of origin to the host institution and back
  • Living allowance of 2.400 Euros gross per month to cover accommodation, personal expense and health and occupational accident insurance coverage.
Duration of Program: 6 months

How to Apply: Only applications submitted in English via the Science by Women microsite at www.mujeresporafrica.es will be accepted. They must include the following documents:
  • Letter of Interest (max. 1 page)
  • Full curriculum vitae • Fully filled form
  • Brief but concise description of the project to be developed in the Spanish
  • host centre (max. 2 pages)
  • A letter of the prospective host group’s stating its interest to support the project proposed by the candidate.
APPLICATION FORM


Visit Programme Webpage for Details

European Investment Bank/Global Development Network (GDN) Special Recruitment Drive in International Finance 2019/2020 for Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 2nd August 2019

Eligible Countries: The Fellowship is open only to nationals of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries (see link below).

To be Taken at (Country): While EIB will make every effort to match location with project assignment, Candidate Fellows may be required to travel to countries outside of their home countries.

About the Award: The Global Development Network (GDN) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) have partnered to create the EIB-GDN Program in Applied Development Finance to study the impact of projects in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries financed under EIB’s Impact Financing Envelope.
The purpose of the program is to provide a select group of highly qualified and motivated young researchers a practical opportunity to hone their impact assessment skills, by working on real-world projects in private sector development funded by one of the world’s leading financial institutions, under the mentorship of top international experts.
The researchers will be inducted into the Program as Candidate Fellows at an inception workshop at EIB Headquarters in Luxembourg City on 21-30 September 2019. At the end of the 12-month program cycle and on satisfying all program requirements, the Candidate Fellows will receive joint certification from EIB and GDN as EIB-GDN Fellows in Applied Development Finance

Type: Job, Fellowship

Eligibility: The ideal candidates should be first-rate, early career researchers or research professionals at universities, think tanks, government, development institutions, economic consultancy, or in professional transition. The typical profile of an inductee should be as follows:
  1. Academic credentials: Candidates should ideally hold or be close to holding a PhD in Economics, Finance or Business with specialization in International Finance or Open Economy Macroeconomics.
  2. Subject matter knowledge: Candidates should be able to demonstrate through coursework, publications or professional experience advanced knowledge about at least a few of the following: international development finance, exchange rate determination, credit markets, risk management in financial markets, currency exchanges and solutions, volatility, risk and hedging instruments and derivates, with applicability in micro- and SME finance, infrastructure, or other developmental sectors. Candidates should also be familiar, through academic knowledge and/or professional experience, with impact investing, development finance or impact evaluation or assessment.
  3. Ability and willingness to think and work creatively, flexibly and proactively, in cooperation with other partners: candidates should have the ability to work independently and proactively and should be able to demonstrate that, for example through experience in research consultancy or through independent and self-driven collection of field data. Preference will be given to candidates who, in addition to academic credentials, have employment or other substantive experience with the private sector.
  4. Language Skills: Demonstrated professional written and oral communication skills in English. Some of the projects may be in Francophone Africa or the Caribbean, for which fluency in French or Spanish may be required.
  5. Age: The program targets early-career researchers, typically inducting in the 35-40 age-range. However, slightly older, but otherwise qualified, candidates will also be considered.
  6. Gender: Applications from qualified female candidates are particularly encouraged.
Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: The program aims to fast track the professional development of promising young researchers and research professionals in the field of Development Finance. Qualified young researchers interested in evaluation will get a practical opportunity to hone their impact assessment skills by working on real-world projects under the mentorship of top international experts and to work with the EIB, GDN, and with young, innovative private sector companies. There is also the opportunity, in some cases, to work together with other research partners. The program is designed to provide career growth and learning opportunities along multiple dimensions, including soft-skills, modeling consumer preferences and business problems, formulating theory-of-change, econometric and methodological issues, and writing skills.
For successful candidates, the program offers the following benefits:

  1. Firsthand experience in the rapidly developing fields of Impact Investing and Development Finance;
  2. The opportunity to apply academic knowledge and training to real world private sector development projects;
  3.  Deepening of subject matter expertise in evaluation methodologies, with mentoring from some of the world’s leading evaluation experts;
  4. Working with two leading international institutions;
  5. Professional certification;
  6. Inclusion in a knowledge network which can work locally in ACP countries for national and regional development; and
  7. Part-time commitment with excellent financial support.
Financial and Non-financial Support
Each researcher inducted into the program will receive a stipend of €15,000 (to cover time costs), along with a grant of up to €10,000 to cover all direct and indirect expenses of conducting the research (including field trips, data collection and analysis). These will be disbursed in installments through the length of the 12-month program cycle and will be tied to deliverables and contingent upon satisfaction of all program requirements. GDN will provide administrative, management and logistical support.

Duration of Award: 12 months

How to Apply: Candidates are encouraged to apply at the earliest. Applications submitted after 02 August 2019 will be considered only on a contingency basis. Candidates shortlisted for the program will be informed by mid-August.
  • It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Mastercard Start Path Global Accelerator Program 2020 for Innovative Startups

Application Timeline:
  • Application deadline: Ongoing
  • Global Pitch Day: In Sept (tbc) Virtual
  • Immersion Day: Btw Nov – Dec (tbc)
Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Global

To be taken at (country): Dublin, Ireland

About the Programme: Mastercard works with an ever growing portfolio of later stage startups with unique solutions across fintech and commerce. Start Path Global is based on what has worked best for our portfolio of startups: more flexibility, more customization, and no distractions from your current business.

Offered Since: 2014

Type: Entrepreneurship

Eligibility: Start Path Global is designed for later stage startups:
* That have raised investment
* That are looking for support to scale
* That are targeting the fintech and broader commerce space
* That can benefit from partnering with MasterCard and accessing our ecosystem


Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Programme: 
* Six month virtual programme tailored to the individual needs of your company
* No need to move from your home location
* No equity taken up front (but an option to participate in your next round)
* Immediate access to 60+ MasterCard experts
* Connections to potential customers – global corporate brands spanning banking, retail, tech and telecoms
* Funds provided so that you have no out of pocket expenses


How to Apply: Apply here

Visit Programme Webpage for details

Award Provider: Mastercard Foundation

Thomson Reuters Foundation Reporting Workshops on Illicit Finance in Africa 2019 for African Journalists – Cape Town, South Africa

Application Deadline: 13th August 2019.

Eligible Countries: African countries

To Be Taken At (Country): Cape Town, South Africa

About the Award: Wealth of Nations is a long-term engagement, and journalists who take part must commit to all elements of the scheme, signing an agreement to this effect. These elements include:
  • The production of stories on illicit financial flows
  • A mentoring support scheme that will help produce these stories
  • Intensive training on reporting illicit finance with a workshop from 22 – 23 October 2019
  • Attendance of a two-day conference related to illicit financial flows in Cape Town as part of the workshop
Journalists will not be considered to have completed the scheme until they have completed all the elements, which include producing at least one story or investigation on illicit financial flows and will not receive their certificates until this point.

Type: Workshops

Eligibility: 
  • Journalists with at least two years of professional experience and fluent English
  • It is an advantage if you are familiar with investigative journalism, reporting on finances and/or dealing with numbers more generally, but if you have a strong motivation to learn about and understand these issues then we will consider your application. Early career journalists are invited to apply.
  • You must be able to spend significant time working on illicit finance stories.
  • Both freelancers and staff journalists may apply. Journalists working for a news organisation will need consent from their editor to take part. Freelancers should provide evidence that one or more media organisations will be willing to take their work.
  • Journalists working in any medium or multiple media are welcome to apply (print, online, radio or television).
  • Journalists should be based in Africa and working for one or more African media organisations.
  • Journalists applying must have fluent English.
Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: 
  • If selected, you will take part in one intensive workshop (5 days) covering illicit finance, reporting on companies, accounts and budgets, and investigative techniques. The Workshop will take place in Cape Town, South Africa.
  • During the workshop you will also attend a two-day conference related to illicit financial flows. Being at the conference will allow you access to leading experts on illicit financial flows.
  • You will propose one or more story ideas that you wish to work on within the scheme – we will provide experienced journalists to help you pursue your stories right up to publication/broadcast.
  • You will have exclusive access to expertise through our network of illicit finance experts.
  • You will also have access to story ideas and editorial advice, and will be invited to share your own expertise with participants from other regions.
Successful applicants will receive a full bursary that will cover air travel expenses (economy class), accommodation, local transfers and meals. Please note that you need to check visa requirements and ensure you have the necessary documentation required. The cost of your visa and any other related costs will be the responsibility of the participant.

Duration of Program: 21 October – 25 October 2019

How to Apply: 
  • Two work samples
  • A letter from your editor consenting to your participation and confirming that they will publish any story produced through the programme. For example, the letter should say “I confirm that we will publish any story produced through the programme”.
Please have these ready before you begin the form.

Click here to begin the application form.


Visit Program Webpage for Details

World Bank Group IFC Investment Analyst Program 2019 for sub-Saharan African and MENA Professionals

Application Deadline: 14th August 2019 at 11:59pm UTC

Eligible Countries: Sub-Saharan African and Caribbean countries

To be Taken at: Nairobi, Kenya; Johannesburg, South Africa;  Lagos, Nigeria; Amman, Jordan; Cairo, Egypt; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Dakar, Senegal; Accra, Ghana

About the Award: The Financial Institution Group (FIG) of IFC is recruiting Investment Analysts to join the Investment and Portfolio Team, which originates, manages and monitors IFC’s financial sector investments in Africa and the Middle-East.
IFC recruits investment analysts globally on two-year term contracts extendable to a maximum of four years. Upon completion of their contracts, investment analysts typically leave to pursue a graduate degree or additional work experience.

Type: Job/Internship

Eligibility: 
  • Bachelor’s or equivalent degree;
  • Up to 3 years work experience in a financial institution, particularly in investment projects;
  • Ability to develop complex financial models;
  • Keen interest in development finance and multicultural environments;
  • Highly motivated, committed to highest ethical standard, ability to work successfully in multicultural teams and across boundaries;
  • Strong knowledge of financial markets;
  • Strong analytical and conceptual skills including corporate/project finance;
  • Ability to communicate clearly and concisely both orally and in writing;
  • Fluency in English required, proficiency in additional languages is preferred.
The World Bank Group values diversity and encourages all qualified candidates who are nationals of World Bank Group member countries to apply, regardless of gender, gender identity, religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability.  Sub-Saharan African nationals, Caribbean nationals, and female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Duration of Award: IFC recruits investment analysts globally on two-year term contracts extendable to a maximum of four years. Upon completion of their contracts, investment analysts typically leave to pursue a graduate degree or additional work experience.

How to Apply: Apply for the job in the Link below. 

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Domestic Violence is Widespread in the Middle East

Cesar Chelala

Gender violence, manifested essentially as violence against women, is one of the most significant epidemics in the Middle East today. This kind of violence occurs in practically all countries in the region and affects families of all backgrounds, religions, and social spheres. It affects not only families but societies as a whole.
It is estimated that 37 percent of women in Arab countries have experienced domestic violence. According to a United Nations report, approximately 200,000 women were victims of domestic violence in Israel between 2014 and 2015.
Various cultural, economic, and social factors, including shame and fear of retaliation from their partners, contribute to women’s reluctance to denounce these acts. The women who speak up mostly turn to their families and friends rather than the police. The lack of effective judicial response to their accusations contributes to their discouragement. North Africa and the Middle East have the fewest legal protections against domestic violence.
Consequences of domestic violence
“Violence against women has multiple consequences, at the individual level, within the family, community and wider society. It can lead to fatal outcomes and have a significant burden on the economy,” said Manal Benkirane, regional program specialist at the UN Women’s Regional Office for Arab States.
Worldwide, violence is as common a cause of death and disability as cancer is among women of reproductive age. It is also a greater cause of ill-health than traffic accidents and malaria put together. Public health experts increasingly consider violence against women a public health issue, one requiring a public health approach.
The experience of violence makes women more susceptible to a variety of mental health problems such as depression, suicide, and alcohol and drug abuse. Sexual violence also increases women’s risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS (through forced sexual relations or because of the difficulty in persuading men to use condoms). It may also lead to serious gynecological problems.
The World Organization against Torture has expressed its concern regarding the high levels of violence against women worldwide. Although provisions related to domestic violence are included in several national policies and laws, there are difficulties in implementing them. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “nearly half of women who die due to homicide are killed by their current or former husbands or boyfriends.”
Public health experts increasingly consider violence against women a public health issue. Studies carried out in the Arab world show that 70 percent of violence occurs in big cities, and that in almost 80 percent of cases those responsible are the heads of families, such as fathers or eldest brothers. In most cases, they assert their right to punish their wives and children in any way they see appropriate.
Of the 22 United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) member states, only Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are considered to have laws to protect women against domestic abuse.
There has been some progress, however, regarding this problem. Tunisia, for example, continues to raise the bar for Arab women’s rights in the 21st century. In 2014, The Ministry of Women and Family Affairs wrote a draft bill condemning and criminalizing domestic violence. The draft law was approved in 2016.
In Lebanon, there are no reliable statistics about domestic violence, a subject that to a large extent still remains a taboo in Lebanese society. In 2009, the second Arab Regional Conference for Family Protection took place in Jordan. It was held under the patronage of Her Majesty Queen Rania, chairperson of the National Council for Family Affairs (NCFA). The conference formulated a unified strategy for safeguarding families from domestic violence, with the attendance of family experts and sociologists from the Arab world.
In Morocco, the Union of Women’s Action (UAF) has organized forums to raise public awareness of violence against women, and lobby local groups to protect victimized women. At the same time, counseling centers have been set up to allow women to talk about their problems and receive help. In Egypt, where the phenomenon is pervasive in society, Beit Hawa (The House of Eve) was founded as the first comprehensive women’s shelter in Egypt and the Arab world.
In December of 2018, protesters across Israel criticized the government’s failure to address violence against women. Chanting to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “wake up, our blood is not cheap,” the protest was a reaction to the killings of 24 women last year at the hands of a partner, family member or an acquaintance. After the protests, the Welfare Ministry reported a 150 percent increase in complaints about domestic violence cases in the country.
Addressing domestic violence
However, more work has to be done if this epidemic of violence is going to be controlled. Government and community leaders should spearhead efforts to create a culture of openness and support to eliminate the stigma associated with this problem.
Furthermore, it is necessary not only to enact but also to enforce legislation that criminalizes all forms of violence against women, including marital rape. Laws should be followed up with plans for specific national action.
The 2009 report by the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) stated that women’s lack of social participation “is primarily attributable to the existence of discriminatory laws, failure to implement the nondiscriminatory legislation that does exist, and a lack of awareness by women of their rights in such matters.”
There cannot be true development in the Middle East without women’s progress and the recognition of their rights. As a Human Development Report stated, “The rise of Arab women is in fact a prerequisite for an Arab renaissance and is causally linked to the fate of the Arab world and its achievement of human development.”

Feeding 7.7 billion

James Haught

When I was born in 1932, the world had 2 billion people. Today, the global population has swelled to 7.7 billion – soon to quadruple in a single lifetime.
How can the planet feed the mushrooming manswarm? Here are some thoughts:
I grew up in a meager farming region of West Virginia. We had no electricity. Small-town families had gaslights, and everyone else used kerosene lamps.
Our valley was mostly a string of dirt farms, horse-operated like in medieval times. My boyhood was during World War II, when most men had gone to combat. My aging uncle ran his farm with two mismatched horses and a crew of granddaughters, plus a scrawny pubescent nephew, me.
We milked cows by hand, plowed and mowed by team, found Indian arrowheads in corn rows, cut creekbank weeds to feed pigs, killed copperhead snakes, straightened bent nails to save money – long days of manual work. It seemed like slavery. Other family farms along the valley were little different.
As soon as I graduated from a little country high school (13 in my senior class), I fled to urban life and a newspaper job. In decades after the war, when I returned home, I found most of those old farms abandoned, overgrown in thickets. I guess parents died and children went to city jobs, as I did.
(When back-to-the-land urbanites came to rural West Virginia farms in the 1960s, I told them they were rushing toward the life I had spurned. Many of them didn’t last long at hoeing and shoveling.)
Most food production shifted away from skimpy family farms to big commercial plantations capable of much greater output. But even those huge farms couldn’t keep pace with the soaring human population.
In the 1960s, alarm spread that the manswarm was exceeding the food supply, and famines were likely. Stanford professor Paul Erlich wrote a 1968 book, The Population Bomb, warning that mass starvation seemed certain in the 1970s. Church groups held public discussions of the impending crisis. Erlich wrote:
“The battle to feed all of humanity is over…. In the 1970s and 1980s, hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”
But, out of the spotlight, Norman Bourlag had unleashed the Green Revolution in Mexico, Pakistan and India, using high-yield crops and heavy fertilization. Massive food increases resulted. His technique spread around the world. Bourlag got the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize. He was credited with saving a billion lives.
Yet the population upsurge didn’t stop. Before he died in 2009, Bourlag said his Green Revolution had peaked and couldn’t keep up with the worsening need.
So, what’s the future regarding hunger? I’m an ardent believer in science. I hope that genetic engineering will make breakthrough after breakthrough, producing ever-better plants and animals to feed humans.
A technique called CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) snips a plant’s own DNA as needed – rather than inserting bits of foreign DNA as in past gene-splicing. The revised genome duplicates itself endlessly as new generations of improved crops ensue. National Geographic says it has potential to “help feed the world.”
Here’s hoping that gene science spawns a second Green Revolution and keeps humanity thriving.

Records Show Palantir Made $60 Million Contracting with ICE for Mobile App

Eric Draitser

Palantir, the secretive data company founded by billionaire Trump surrogate and well-known Silicon Valley techno-goblin Peter Thiel, has come under fire in recent months for its work with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other government agencies involved in implementing Trump’s racist anti-immigrant policies. Protests organized both from within the tech community and from immigrants’ rights organizations have highlighted the essential role that Palantir plays in keeping the wheels of ICE raids turning.
A critical July 2019 exposé from WNYC based on documents obtained via FOIA request shows how Palantir’s proprietary software, in this case the FALCON mobile app, is essential to the removal operations of ICE and related agencies. As WNYC explained, “FALCON mobile allows agents in the field to search through a fusion of law enforcement databases that include information on people’s immigration histories, family relationships, and past border crossings.”
But while the information contained in the WNYC story, as well as reporting from other news outlets, is important for what it reveals about how Palantir collaborates with the deportation machine, we have not yet had the financial side of the Palantir-ICE relationship come into focus. Until now.
CounterPunch has learned that since 2016, Palantir has made more than $60 million in contract awards from ICE for access to FALCON and for Operations & Maintenance (O&M) for the mobile application. This, of course, is solely for FALCON and related services, and likely just scratches the surface of the true scope of Palantir’s profits from collaboration with ICE, to say nothing of Palantir’s lucrative relations with other government agencies such as CIA, DoD, etc.
“We Just Provide the Tools”
Peter Thiel and his fellow ghoul, Palantir CEO Alexander Karp, are fond of describing Palantir’s mission as simply providing the US government and other clients with the best data aggregating tools available. Oh, Palantir isn’t responsible for any of the abuses of its technology, nor is it directly involved in their application to policies in violation of international law and human rights. No. Palantir simply develops the technology and sells it, right?
Well, that’s certainly the cover story that Thiel, Karp et al like to employ. But US Government financial records reveal a much more direct and intimate collaboration between Palantir and ICE, down to the individual user level. As the documents obtained by WNYC reveal:
In one email from April of last year, a Palantir staffer notifies an ICE agent that they should test out their FALCON mobile application because of his or her “possible involvement in an upcoming operation.” Another message, in April 2017, shows a Palantir support representative instructing an agent on how to classify a datapoint, so that Palantir’s Investigative Case Management [ICM] platform could properly ingest records of a cell phone seizure.
What these emails show in glimpses is a company that is much more than a mere third-party vendor. Rather, Palantir’s relationship with ICE is more that of an intimate partner involved in the day-to-day operations of the organization. Karp and Palantir are more than just “providing the tools,” they’re providing the brains. The speed and scope of ICE operations would be impossible were it nor for FALCON and Palantir’s hand-holding.
To be fair to Karp, Thiel, and their army of orcs in t-shirts and blazers, nothing that Palantir is doing today is out of step with the crimes it has previously been involved in.
Palantir: Thiel’s Own Totalitarian Collective
In his 2009 essay for the right-wing Cato Institute, Thiel wrote:
I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. For all these reasons, I still call myself “libertarian.”
Interestingly, while Thiel was busily virtue-signaling his hatred of “totalitarian collectives” he was even busier expanding a company that rightly is seen as a primary node in the architecture of contemporary authoritarianism, and a linchpin of a totalitarian future.
In 2011, journalist Barrett Brown and his colleagues revealed a plot by a consortium of powerful private intelligence contractors intending to target activists, journalists, and those associated with WikiLeaks on behalf of its wealthy US private clients.
Called “Team Themis” the plan was to use Palantir, in collaboration with intelligence contractors HBGary and Berico, to gather information and intelligence on journalists like Glenn Greenwald (among others) and use that information for the purposes of infiltration, intimidation, and disruption of groups organizing against the financial interests of Team Themis’s clients. The tactics ranged from intelligence gathering and data analysis to outright targeting of activists, journalists, and their families.
While the Team Themis plot was exposed after an Anonymous hack of HBGary led to the publication of thousands of internal emails, the underlying strategic thinking behind such a plan remained in place. Essentially, Palantir was moving out of the realm of software development where it had styled itself a mere toolmaker and into the realm of corporate espionage. This early foray into the world of spies and intelligence work highlighted the increasingly broad, and truly dangerous, scope of Palantir’s capabilities.
The Many-Headed Hydra
Today Palantir is a world unto itself, with its fingers in just about every spook pie one could imagine. As Prof. Sarah Brayne, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas-Austin wrote in her 2017 study Big Data Surveillance: The Case of Policing, Palantir has become something of a “secondary surveillance network,” able to track individuals and those in their personal and social networks without any crime being committed or even a specific query about a person. In effect, Palantir has become the Orwellian Big Brother we have feared for decades.
Palantir software can be found in the hands of LAPD and NYPD cops using Gotham and similar programs to track individuals with almost no information; just a license plate number and name can be used to track every movement of an individual associated with a vehicle, every email address and cell phone number is catalogued, every bank account and family relationship, etc.
It can be found in corporate headquarters where data analysts use Palantir products to generate actionable information about customers, markets, investments, and more. It can be found on every battlefield where the US military is engaged, and in most major cities.
It can even be found in the election of Donald Trump, as revealed by the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Chris Wylie who told MPs in the UK that Palantir worked directly with SCL Group to harvest user data that was used directly in the election of Midtown Mussolini in 2016.
If there’s a data point, chances are Palantir has it stored or can access it.
In effect, Palantir’s products have transformed society into Bentham’s panopticon, a nightmarish vision from a Foucault fever dream. Sadly, this is our reality…and it’s monetized.
Palantir has made hundreds of millions of dollars collaborating with those elements of the military-industrial-intelligence complex that are paving the way for the true fascist state.
Or perhaps Thiel, Karp, and Palantir aren’t so much paving the way for the fascist state as announcing that it’s already here.

The Root Cause of Human Population Growth

Steven Earl Salmony

Homo sapiens is a creature of the earth. Understand that food is the tap root of life for the human species. There may be other factors that help sustain human life, but food is the ‘tap root’ for the growth of absolute human population numbers, just as is the case with other species of earth.
Our problem is a biological one. A positive feedback loop has been established in the food-population relationship because natural limiting factors to the unbridled growth of absolute human population numbers have been eliminated by human ingenuity. Human beings are unique creatures of earth. We are exceptional in many wondrous ways, but not in terms of population dynamics. Hence the recent ‘bloom’ of absolute global human population numbers that are primarily caused by spectacular increases in the food supply which is derived from greatly enhanced production and distribution capabilities.
The conundrum: increasing food production annually to meet the needs of growing population is fueling a human population explosion. With every passing year more people are being fed and more people are going hungry.
Perhaps we can agree to a desperate need for an adequate-enough explanation for ‘why’ we have ended up where are, in this global predicament. A growing body of unfalsified research has been ubiquitously denied and consequently not widely shared much less consensually validated by population experts of science as well as those professionals with appropriate expertise in the fields of demography and economics. Uncontested science makes it possible for us to answer the question posed now, here.
A new biological understanding is emerging from ongoing scientific research. It is simply this: as is the case with other species, human population numbers appear or not as a function of food availability; food is the independent, not the dependent, variable in the relationship between food and population numbers; and human population dynamics is essentially similar to, not different from, the population dynamics of other species.
Sound scientific research provides straightforward empirical data of a non-recursive biological problem that is independent of economic, political, ethical, social, legal, religious, and cultural considerations. This means human population dynamics is like the population dynamics of other species. It also means that global human population growth is a viciously cycling positive feedback loop, a relationship between food and population in which food availability drives population growth, and population growth fuels the false perception, the mistaken impression, the fatally flawed misconception that food production needs to be increased to meet the needs of a growing population.
With every passing year, as food production is increased leading to a population increase, millions go hungry. Why are those hungry millions not getting fed year after year after year… and future generations of poor people may not ever be fed? Every year the human population grows. All segments of it grow. More people with blue eyes and more with brown ones. More tall people and more short ones. All segments of the population grows. Every year there are also more people growing up well fed and more people growing up hungry. The hungry segment of the global population goes up just like all the other segments of the population. We are unexpectedly increasing the number of hungry people in the course of feeding more people. We are not bringing hunger to an end by increasing food production.
The skyrocketing increase of the human population in our time on a planet with the size, composition and ecology of Earth has caused a growing number of apparently unforeseen and exceedingly deleterious ecological occurrences. Among these potentially catastrophic, human-driven consequences is climate destabilization. What is fortunately becoming clearer to naked eyes, as we observe what is happening, is the manifold ways overproduction, overconsumption and overpopulation activities of the human species are occurring synergistically and simultaneously threatening life as we know it, environmental health, and future human well being. The spectacular increase of these distinctly human, overgrowth activities is causing the mass extirpation of earth’s biodiversity, the relentless dissipation of its limited natural resources, the unbridled degradation of its environs and the reckless threat to a good enough future for children everywhere.
For a moment let us carefully consider the remote possibility that the human community writ large pulls itself together on a war footing to fight climate change and wins that battle by reducing carbon emissions of all kinds to net zero in 2020, while the tap root cause of anthropogenic climate change continues to be denied. We may win a major Pyrrhic victory. That is certainly a good thing. And yet, if we do not accurately enough locate the foremost cause of the biological problem that is ailing humankind, the problem that is precipitating climate change, we could lose the prospects of a good enough future for life as we know it.
We have run out of time for population experts to remain reticent. They have to assume their responsibilities by examining data and reporting findings regarding the question, “Why are human population numbers exploding?” The time has come to disclose all of what we know — the whole truth — with regard to human creatureliness and human population growth, according to the best available science and ‘lights’ we possess.
After hundreds of thousands of years of relatively stable population numbers of H. sapiens, why has the total human population increased in size from 1 billion to 7.7 billion in the brief time that is framed by the past 225 years?
Unfalsified ecological science of human population dynamics indicates that the population dynamics of H. sapiens is essentially similar to, not different from, the population dynamics of other species, how are humans going to limit sensibly and effectively the current unbridled growth of their population numbers without beginning to limit “increases only” in the total production of food for human consumption? More attractive alternatives to this necessary step (e.g., educational/economic opportunities for females and contraception for males/females) represent useful proposals, that is certain. But these ‘interventions’ are patently insufficient to stabilize population numbers of the human species because human population numbers appear or not as a function of food supply. See articles by Hopfenberg, Pimentel, 2001 and Hopfenberg, 2003.
Take a moment to reflect upon the way in which a thoughtful, effective and systematic redistribution of the world’s abundant food resources, if implemented simultaneously with limits placed on total food production, would feed the human population and stabilize absolute human population numbers. That is to say, limiting increases only in the total supply of food for human consumption, when coupled with a sensible food redistribution program, will lead to population stabilization and starvation reduction.
Let the word go forth from this time and place. The unfalsified, willfully ignored, ecological science of human population dynamics that makes crystal clear to all that the UN mantra “food production must be increased annually to meet the needs of a growing population,” is a widely shared and consensually validated fool’s errand. If ever the human community is sensibly and meaningfully able to restrain the bacteria-like growth of absolute global human population numbers (recall that human population dynamics is essentially similar to the population dynamics of other species), limiting increases only in total food production for human consumption must be a part of any program of action. If superabundant harvests are also simultaneously and fairly redistributed so as to assure substantial baseline subsistence to people everywhere on the planet, such a program will lead to population stabilization initially and population reduction in the long term, all the while reducing human starvation.

The 9% lie: industrial food and climate change

Ronnie Cummins

The Climate Emergency is finally getting the attention of the media and the U.S. (and world) body politic, as well as a growing number of politicians, activists and even U.S. farmers.
This great awakening has arrived just in time, given the record-breaking temperatures, violent weather, crop failures and massive waves of forced migration that are quickly becoming the norm. Global scientists have dropped their customary caution. They now warn us that we have to drastically reduce global emissions – by at least 45 percent – over the next decade. Otherwise, we’ll pass the point of no return – defined as reaching 450 ppm or more of CO2 in the atmosphere sometime between 2030 and 2050 – when our climate crisis will morph into a climate catastrophe. That’s when the melting polar ice and Arctic permafrost will trigger catastrophic sea rise, fueling deadly forest fires, climate chaos, crop failures, famine and the widespread disintegration of society as we know it.
Most people now understand that we must quickly move to renewable forms of energy, such as wind and solar, and reduce our fossil fuel emissions as much as possible. But it’s far less widely understood that energy conservation and renewables can’t do the job alone.
Alongside the massive political and economic campaign to move to 100% (or nearly 100%) renewable energy as soon as possible, we must put an end to the massive emissions of our corporate-dominated food and farming system and start drawing down and sequestering in our soils and forests billions of tons of “legacy” CO2 from the atmosphere, utilizing the enhanced photosynthesis of regenerative farming, reforestation and land restoration.
Regenerative Agriculture” refers to farming and grazing practices that, among other benefits, reverse climate change by rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil biodiversity. This results in both carbon drawdown and improved water infiltration and storage in soils. Regenerative practices include:
• Reduction/elimination of tillage and use of synthetic chemicals.
• The use of cover crops, crop rotations, compost, and animal manures.
• Integrating animals with perennial and annual plants to create a biologically diverse ecosystem on the farm.
• Grazing and pasturing animals on grass, and more specifically using a planned multi-paddock rotation system.
• Raising animals in conditions that mimic their natural habitat.
If regenerative food, farming and land use – which is essentially moving to the next stage of organic farming, free-range livestock grazing and eco-system restoration – are just as essential to our survival as moving beyond fossil fuels, why aren’t more people talking about this? Why is it that moving beyond industrial agriculture, factory farms, agro-exports and highly-processed junk food to regenerating soils and forests and drawing down enough excess carbon from the atmosphere to re-stabilize our climate is getting so little attention from the media, politicians and the general public?
The International Food Information Council Foundation released a poll on May 22, 2019, that found that “22 percent [of Americans] had heard of regenerative agriculture and 55 percent said they had not heard of it but were interested in learning more.”
Why don’t more people know about the incredible potential of regenerative agriculture, or more precisely regenerative food, farming and land-use practices, to fix our climate, restore the environment, improve the livelihoods of farmers and rural communities and produce more nutritious food? Why is it that the U.S. and global climate movement until recently has focused almost exclusively on reducing emissions through renewable energy?
Our collective ignorance on this crucial topic may have something to do with the fact that we never learned about these things in school, or even college, and until recently there was very little discussion of regeneration in the mass media, or even the alternative media.
But there’s another reason regeneration as a climate solution doesn’t get its due in Congress or in the media: powerful corporations in the food, farming and forestry sector, along with their indentured politicians, don’t want to admit that their current degenerate, climate-destabilizing, “profit-at-any-cost” production practices and business priorities are threatening our very survival.
And government agencies are right there, helping corporate agribusiness and Big Food bury the evidence that these industries’ energy-intensive, chemical-intensive industrial agricultural and food production practices contribute more to global warming than the fossil fuel industry.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) repeatedly claim that industrial agriculture is responsible for a mere 9 percent of our nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. As the EPA explains, GHG “emissions from agriculture come from livestock such as cows, agricultural soils and rice production.”
After hearing this 9-percent figure regurgitated over and over again in the media, most people draw the conclusion that food and farming aren’t that important of a factor in global warming, especially when compared with transportation, electricity generation, manufacturing and heating and cooling our buildings.
What the EPA, USDA, Big Ag, chemical, and food corporations are conveniently hiding from the public is that there’s no way to separate “U.S. agriculture” from our “food system” as a whole. Their faulty math (i.e. concealing food and farming emissions under the categories of transportation, manufacturing, etc.) is nothing but a smokescreen to hide the massive fossil fuel use and emissions currently belched out by our enormously wasteful, environmentally destructive, climate-destabilizing (and globalized) food system.
USDA and EPA’s nine-percent figure is ridiculous. What about the massive use of petroleum products and fossil fuels to power U.S. tractors and farm equipment, and to manufacture the billions of pounds of pesticides and chemical fertilizers that are dumped and sprayed on farmlands?
What about the ethanol industry that eats up 40 percent of our chemical- and energy-intensive GMO corn production? Among other environmental crimes, the ethanol industry incentivizes farmers to drain wetlands and damage fragile lands. Taking the entire process into account, corn production for ethanol produces more emissions than it supposedly saves when burned in our cars and trucks.
What about the massive release of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide from factory farms and the GMO, monocrop industrial grain farms that supply these feedlots and CAFOs with animal feed?
What about the methane emissions from the fracking wells that produce the natural gas that is used in prodigious amounts to manufacture the nitrogen fertilizer dumped on farmlands – fertilizer that then pollutes our waterways and creates oceanic dead zones as well as releasing massive amounts of nitrous oxide (300 percent more damaging than even CO2) into our already over-saturated atmosphere?
What about the 15-20 percent of global fossil fuel emissions that come from processing, packaging (most often non-recycled plastic), refrigerating and transporting our highly processed (mainly junk) food and agricultural commodities on the average 1,500 miles before they reach the consumer?
What about the enormous amounts of GHG emissions, deforestation and ecosystem destruction in the international supply chain enabling Big Box stores, supermarket chains and junk food purveyors to sell imported cheap food, in many cases “food-like substances” from China and overseas to undernourished and supersized U.S. consumers?
What about the enormous emissions from U.S. landfills where wasted food (30-50 percent of our entire production) rots and releases methane, when it could be used to produce compost to replace synthetic fertilizers?
A more accurate estimate of GHG emissions from U.S. and international food, farming and land use is 44-57 percent, not the 9 percent, as the EPA and USDA suggest.
We’re never going to reach net zero emissions in the U.S. by 2030, as the Green New Deal calls for, without a profound change, in fact a revolution, in our food, farming, and land use practices.