The Development Finance Corporation (DFC), a little-known government agency, opened its first Wall Street outpost last week — and it’s got $205 billion and a mission to out-invest China on the world stage.
Just over four years ago, the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan rapidly collapsed, marking the end of a two-decade effort to transform the country. The final days of U.S. involvement proved bizarrely emblematic of the tragedy that had unfolded up to that point. Afghans clinging to a U.S. airplane tumbled from the sky to their deaths. A suicide bomb left 13 U.S. service members and 170 Afghans dead. A U.S. drone killed seven children in what the U.S. militaryineptlymischaracterized as a “righteous strike.” Good intentions and moral high ground gave way to national embarrassment.
In the 1990s, the Soviet Union fell apart, and Russia began moving towards a market economy. However, this transition brought with it a severe economic collapse, widespread poverty, and a sharp rise in organized crime.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the most ambitious infrastructure and economic integration project ever devised, linking over 140 countries across Asia, Africa and Europe. Much unlike the political West, Beijing is trying to project power through economic means, a starkly different approach to that of the most aggressive power pole in human history.
The United States Embassy in Kampala, Uganda is actively involved in Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) activities targeting audiences in East Africa. This was the verdict of selected journalists who took part in a secret program it organised in Kampala last week, ostensibly to train them on countering what it terms ‘Russian propaganda and disinformation.’ The clandestine program – where participants were electronically surveiled to ensure they recorded nothing – took place between Monday 19 May and Friday 23 May, 2025 under the theme “Understanding and Countering Russian Propaganda and Disinformation in Uganda.”
He hob knobbed with neoliberals such as Jeffrey Sachs, various presidents of the World Bank, promoted pharmaceutical companies in Africa and of course was on the side of Bush in the Iraq War, at least in practice and helped whitewash the reputations of many of those involved. He hedged his bets a bit on Iraq, not wanting to seem too hawkish, saying the war was justified but the US should get UN backing for it. He then went on to endorse Clinton and Blair time and again. Jim Kerr from the Scottish band Simple Minds put it succinctly at the time.
Yet, Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua are the “enemies of humanity.” In contrast to the US, these countries provide their people with free healthcare and education from preschool through university, and housing for all. And they invade no one.
In February 2024, Traoré ordered the suspension of the issuance of export permits for small-scale private gold production, a move aimed at tackling illegal trade. According to the World Gold Council’s 2023 figures, Burkina Faso is the 13th-largest gold producer in the world, producing about 100 tonnes, equivalent to about US$6 billion in value, each year.
Wynn-Williams testified that Meta censored a Chinese dissident at the request of Chinese officials, and that the dissident was Guo Wengui, a federally convicted fraudster and MAGA-friendly ally of far-right activist Steve Bannon. Wynn-Williams said Facebook’s claim that a 2017 suspension of Guo’s account stemmed from a temporary glitch was a lie, and that the decision to temporarily kick him off the platform actuallycame as a result of pressure from a Chinese official.
Stone, the Meta spokesperson, said in a statement that Guo “faced account restrictions because he shared personally identifiable information such as passport numbers, social security numbers and addresses,” The Washington Post reported.
After downloading the book and searching for mentions of Palestine, the sole reference I found involved the author criticizing Facebook Maps for labeling a location in Israel as Palestine (p.71)—a claim I find dubious, given the platform’s well-documented history of censoring Palestinian content. Most Palestinian activists are likely aware of this pattern, as evidenced by countless reports and articles easily accessible through a simple Google search for “Facebook censorship of Palestine.”
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