Allegations and accusations that China is trapping Africa into unsustainable debt agreements have dominated the conversation around Africa-China relations in Western media, but what does the data tell us? The reality is that China is canceling 23 loans to African countries amid this 'Debt Trap' debate. We look at the international implications of this claim, what debt trap diplomacy is, and who owns most of Africa's external debts. Featuring Sri Lanka, the African Development Bank, and the “secret” lenders they don’t tell us about, with Mikaela Nhondo Erskog researcher at TriContinental Institute for Social Research and one of the hosts of the new podcast The Crane, an African China podcast by the Dongsheng Collective. Plus: We discuss Mikhail Gorbachev’s legacy, what to make of Biden’s student loan debt moves, Lindsey Graham’s threats of “riots in the streets” if Trump is prosecuted, and more...
Media pundits and politicians blame lax gun laws, social isolation and mental illness for mass shootings, but ignore the advent of a fascist culture that venerates the U.S. military.
In the wake of a barrage of mass shootings, the media have offered a variety of explanations centering predominantly on the...
What is Black August and the FilmFest Named After It?
The inaugural Black August Film Festival, zooming in on what Frantz Fanon called “the wretched of the Earth” and their opposition to systemic racism, took place in Pasadena, California, August 13-14. Unlike other Black-themed filmfests that may screen socially conscious...
Pink Floyd Star Declared “Enemy of Ukraine”
I have written about the Ukrainian hit list known as Mirotvorets, or “Peacekeeper,” twice before. The first time was in an article about internet censorship, and the second time was when a 13-year-old Ukrainian girl, Faina Savenkova, was added to the list for publicly speaking out against Kyiv’s...
Protesters in Seoul demand withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea
During his trip to the Indo-Pacific in May, U.S. President Joe Biden made his first stop in South Korea where he hoped to inaugurate a new golden era of U.S.-South Korean relations.
South Korea’s newly elected President Yoon Suk-yeol was...
None of the above. The correct answer is Winston Churchill.
In a March address to the U.S. Congress which earned him a standing ovation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, fashioning his country’s struggle against the Russians as one of good versus evil, echoed some of the rhetoric of British wartime leader...
“It’s also in your hands to prevent the return of corruption and robbery to take hold of the country…It’s you who can prevent the release of a prisoner convicted of corruption”
—Geraldo Alckmin speaking during his 2018 presidential campaign. Four years on, the former governor of São Paulo is...
Douglas Valentine says that “Zelensky doesn’t go to the bathroom without asking permission from his CIA case officer.”
CIA expert Douglas Valentine, author of the seminal book The Phoenix Program (1990), believes that the CIA was behind the car bomb that killed Darya Dugina, a journalist and daughter of well-known...
Twitter’s former head of security, Peiter “Mudge” Zatko has come forward blowing the whistle on the company’s internal security practices—which he says are serious national security threats. Zatko sent the complaint and supporting documents to the Justice Department and the F.T.C. and has gone public with his concerns about the platform. We dive deeper into what it’s alleged that Twitter has been hiding and its implications.
Ukraine continues to fire internationally-banned anti-personnel mines on civilian areas of Donetsk and other cities in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), in violation of international law and of the mine ban convention Ukraine signed in 1999 and ratified in 2005.
Since July 27, Ukraine has been firing rockets containing cluster...
