China’s rise in the world market led the Chinese diaspora in Africa to make contact with relatives in their homeland. Renewed relations created a portal through which African demand for low-price consumers goods could flow.[18] Chinese businessmen in Africa, with contacts in China, brought in skilled industrial engineers and technicians such as mechanics, electricians, carpenters, to build African industry from the ground up.[19]
The 1995 official Go Global declaration and the 2001 Chinese entry into the WTO paved the way for private citizens in China to increasingly connect with, import from, and export to the budding Sino-African markets.
Expansion of military presence (1990 to the present)
Africa does not stand at the center of China’s security strategies, yet the continent has been and remains a major source for China’s commodity stocks. Africa was also seen as an important bid for international legitimacy against the eastern and western blocks. In the 1960s, China contributed to Africa’s military power by assisting and training liberation groups, such as Mugabe‘s ZANU.
The Chinese military presence in Africa has increased since 1990 when China agreed to join in UN peace-keeping responsibilities.[21] In January 2005, 598 Chinese peace keepers were sent to Liberia. Others were sent to Western Sahara as part of Operation MINURSO,[22]Sierra Leone, the Ivory Coast and the DRC.[21] This was a carefully handled and largely symbolic move, as China did not want to appear as a new colonialist power overly interfering in internal affairs.
China currently has military alliances with 6 African states, 4 of which are major oil suppliers: Sudan, Algeria, Nigeria and Egypt.[21] On the whole, however, China’s influence remains limited,[23] especially when compared with Western powers such as France, whose military involvement in the 2004 Ivory Coast conflict and the 2006 Chad conflict was significant. China is particularly unable to compete with the ex-colonial powers in providing military training and educational programs, given the latter’s continuing ties via military academies like Sandhurst in the UK and Saint Cyr in France.[23]
In 2015, despite growing economic interests in Africa, China has not yet settled any military base on the continent. However, with a naval logistics center is planned to be built in Djibouti raises questions about China’s need to set military bases in Africa. China’s increasing reliance on Africa’s resources warrants it to hold a stronger military position.[24]
Effects of the global economic downturn (2007 to the present)
Since 2009, a switch has been noticed in China’s approach to Africa. The new tack has been to underline long-term stability in light of the worldwide economic crisis.[25]
Some major projects get stopped, such as in Angola, where 2/3 of a US$4 billion CIF fund disappeared, it is unclear where this money went.[26][27] Following this, a major Chinese-backed oil refinery project was scrapped by Angolan officials, with unclear reasons, causing problems for Sino-Angolan relations.[27]
At the dawn of the 21st century, while Africa suffered from China’s withdrawal, it is less dependent of external powers to build a self-reliable economy.[28]
The China Africa Research Initiative estimated that there were over 88,371 Chinese workers in Africa in 2022, down from a high of 263,696 in 2015.[29]
≈ Comments Off on First Amendment Rights: right to assemble.
…First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Alarm after FBI arrests US army veteran for ‘conspiracy’ over protest against Ice
Legal experts say charges against Afghanistan war veteran Bajun Mavalwalla II mark an escalation in the Trump administration’s crackdown on first amendment rights. Aaron GlantzTue 2 Sep 2025 06.00 EDTShare: The Guardian
The arrest of a US army veteran who protested against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has raised alarms among legal experts and fellow veterans familiar with his service in Afghanistan.
Bajun Mavalwalla II – a former army sergeant who survived a roadside bomb blast on a special operations missionin Afghanistan – was charged in July with “conspiracy to impede or injure officers” after joining a demonstration against federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in Spokane, Washington.
Legal experts say the case marks an escalation in the administration’s attacks on first amendment rights. Afghanistan war veterans who know him say the case against Mavalwalla appears unjust.
“Here’s a guy who held a top secret clearance and was privy to some of the most sensitive information we have, who served in a combat zone,” said Kenneth Koop, a retired colonel who trained the Afghan military and police during Mavalwalla’s deployment. “To see him treated like this really sticks in my craw.”
The 11 June protest against Ice that led to Mavalwalla’s arrest was confrontational, leaving a government van’s windshield smashed and tires slashed, but Mavalwalla was not among the more than two dozen people arrested at the scene. More than a month passed before the FBI arrived at his door on 15 July.
The 35-year-old, who used his GI Bill to earn a degree in sustainable communities fromSonoma State University, was set to move into a 3,000-sq-ft house that day, which he had bought with his girlfriend, a nurse and fellow Afghanistan war veteran, with the help of a loan backed by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Mavalwalla’s father, a retired US army intelligence officer with three Bronze Stars earned during tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, brought his truck for the occasion. He planned to move his son into a dream home in a bucolic, southern section of Spokane that was large enough to accommodate their blended family (Mavalwalla has one child; his girlfriend, Katelyn Gaston, has three) and solidify the couple’s life together.
But at 6am the FBI knocked on Mavalwalla’s door and they arrested him. Cell phone video shot by Mavalwalla’s father shows the veteran – tall, fit, with wire-rimmed glasses, tight ponytail and trim goatee – smiling in apparent disbelief, his hands shackled behind his back.
“This is not how I planned to spend my moving day,” Mavalwalla says, as agents search his pockets and force him into a black pickup truck. “I’m a military veteran. I’m an American citizen.”
At 3pm, Mavalwalla, who receives disability compensation for post traumatic stress disorder connected to his service in Afghanistan, appeared in federal court along with eight other people indicted in connection with a protest against an Ice transport that occurred a month earlier.
While the indictment alleges other protesters struck federal officers and let the air out of the tires of an Ice transport, Mavalwalla was not charged with obstruction or assault. Instead, he was charged with “conspiracy to impede or injure officers”.
According to the indictment, Mavalwalla and his co-defendants “physically blocked the drive-way of the federal facility and/or physically pushed against officers despite orders to disperse and efforts to remove them from the property”.
Mavalwalla, who has no criminal record, pleaded not guilty.
The conspiracy count carries a maximum penalty of six years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release. He was released on his own recognizance while awaiting trial, with a judge even giving him permission to travel to Disneyland for a previously planned family vacation.
The US attorney’s office in Spokane, which brought the charges, declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation.
The indictment was handed down two days after career prosecutor Richard Barker, the acting US attorney for eastern Washington state, resigned. In a social post, Barker called his exit “a very difficult decision”.
“I am grateful that I never had to sign an indictment or file a brief that I didn’t believe in,” he wrote.
The current acting US attorney, nominated for the permanent post by Donald Trump, is Pete Serrano, a former litigator for the Silent Majority Foundation, a conservative advocacy group. In February, Serrano filed an amicus brief in support of Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship, a position at odds with the 14th amendment. He has no prosecutorial experience and has described the January 6 US Capitol rioters as “political prisoners”.
Patty Murray, a Democratic senator from Washington state, has pledged to block his confirmation.
Legal experts say the conspiracy charges against Mavalwalla underscore the lengths the Trump administration will go to quash protests against Ice, giving the immigration agency a free hand as it steps up raids, adds agents and seeks to achieve the president’s goal of 3,000 deportations per day.
So far, the Trump administration has primarily charged demonstrators for assault and obstruction, acts that typically involve a victim and an assailant. But a federal conspiracy charge is a crime of intent. In this case, prosecutors would just have to prove that defendants agreed in concert to impede or injure an officer.
The charges against Mavalwalla sent shockwaves through a tight community of veterans with connections forged in Afghanistan that intensified after the bungled August 2021 US withdrawal. The fall of Kabul to the Taliban brought them together again to evacuate Afghans who worked alongside the US military.
After his arrest, Mavalwalla’s commanding officer, Col Charles Hancock, who is retired, wrote on Facebook that he knew the trained crypto-linguist to be “honest, direct, polite and very trustworthy” and was “deeply concerned about the current state of affairs in our country”.
Koop, the retired colonel, said Mavalwalla put the diplomatic connections he gained due to his security clearance at the disposal of Koop’s translator, who escaped and otherwise might have been murdered by the Taliban. “It was no surprise to me that concern for the individual, human rights and safety would be right up Bajun’s portfolio and mindset,” Koop said.
A military transport plane launches off while Afghans who cannot get into the airport to evacuate, watch and wonder while stranded outside, in Kabul, Afghanistan, on 23 August 2021. Photograph: Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
Mavalwalla sprung into action, locating safe houses for 20 members of the former custodian’s extended family and at least a dozen other Afghan civilians whose family members collaborated with the US military, she said. He helped them acquire travel documents, arranged for safe transport over land to Pakistan and raised $130,000 to pay expenses, including visa applications and flights there to Brazil and eventually to the United States.
“It was hard,” Piper said, but Mavalwalla was patient.
In text messages, he urged Piper to be sure to take care of herself and her family. “It does no good for us to neglect those right in front of us,” he wrote on 25 September 2021, a month after the Taliban takeover.
“You cannot save the world,” he added. “It’s good to try though.”
Mavalwalla was one of hundreds of people to respond to a 11 June social media post from the former president of the Spokane city council that encouraged protesters to block an Ice transport they believed would carry two Venezuelan immigrants who were in the country legally, petitioning for asylum when they were detained.
“I am going to sit in front of the bus,” Ben Stuckart, the former city council president, wrote. “Feel free to join me.”
In interviews, former prosecutors said the conspiracy statute was broad and afforded the Trump administration potentially sweeping powers.
“Federal conspiracy charges are a wondrous thing,” said Bruce Antkowiak, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at Saint Vincent College in Pennsylvania. “It is a vast net which you can use to catch a bunch of people.”
Under this law, prosecutors won’t have to prove that Mavalwalla blocked the bus or attacked agents, Antkowiak said. “The major issue in a conspiracy case is intent,” he said. “You have to prove an agreement. You don’t have to prove that people sat down together and made a pledge. You don’t even have to write up an agreement they have verbally, but you have to prove that these people agreed to act in concert,” he said.
Because of the law’s sweeping power, prosecutors typically use discretion, experts said.
“It seems like what we have here is an issue of selective prosecution,” Robert Chang, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, said that will lead to a “chilling effect on free speech under the first amendment”.
Antkowiak said he expected the justice department to bring conspiracy charges more frequently in the months ahead, given the Trump administration’s desire for Ice agents to pursue an agenda of rapid deportations unhindered.
Jennifer Chacón, a Stanford University law professor who studies the intersection of immigration and criminal law, said she would not be surprised if Ice increased monitoring social media to bring more cases like the one against Mavalwalla.
“You could view this as an attempt to send a message to everyone who feels a sense of justice and moral outrage over Ice raids – you could face prosecution, too,” she said.
Mavalwalla’s mother, US army veteran Ellyn Mavalwalla, said her son did not know Stuckart, the former city councilman whose social media post sparked the demonstration, and only met him in jail on 15 July, after both were arrested on federal charges by the FBI.
His father, retired intelligence officer Bajun Ray Mavalwalla, said he believed his son had been racially profiled – that in reviewing footage from the demonstration, federal authorities had fixated on the demonstrator “with a funny name”.
He said he worried the United States was being “taken over by fascists”, but also that the promise of America that drew his family here generations ago would endure.
“My father left India on the deck of a boat, at 19 years old,” the elder Mavalwallasaid. “He floated for six days across the Arabian Sea to Kuwait. He nearly died when he arrived. Then an American family sponsored him to come to the US.”
Gandhi’s legacy
In addition to military service, a commitment to peaceful protest has been at the heart of the Mavalwalla family for generations.
Rustomjee and Gandhi. Photograph: undefined/Courtesy Mavalwalla Family
Mavalwalla II’s great-great, grand-uncle, Parsee Rustomjee worked withGandhi in South Africa and supported the Indian independence leader when he launched his legendary, non-violent revolution against British imperialism.
The two families were close – according to the family, Gandhi was godfather to Mavalwalla’s great-grandmother – “and Bajun grew up with stories,” his mother said, with social justice at the center.
After Gandhi was assassinated in 1948, his burial shroud was distributed among his family’s closest confidants, including members of Mavalwalla’s family, and is now held by Mavalwalla’s mother.
Three days after the protest, his mother texted him: “Channel your inner Gandhi.”
Krause and Miller were among the more than 300 students who gathered to protest the expansion of the Cambodian campaign, which President Richard Nixon had announced in an April 30 television address. Scheuer and Schroeder were in the crowd of several hundred others who had been observing the proceedings more than 300 feet (91 m) from the firing line; like most observers, they watched the protest during a break between their classes.[11][12]
We need to remember what the National Guard are capable of. Those are real guns with real bullets.
The answer is, in general yes. However, recently research indicates that although the hormone estrogen does play a part in women’s longer lives; factors like drinking and smoking are the most likely culprits to men’s shorter life spans. As the younger generation turns away from smoking, longevity increases.
Do Men Age Faster Than Women?
Men Age Faster Than Women, but the Younger Generation Is Closing the Gap
Summary: Researchers shed light on why the life expectancy and aging gap is narrowing between men and women.
Source: University of Jyväskylä
In the Western world, life expectancy rapidly increased in the twentieth century, but women still have longer life expectancy than men. In Finland, women live on average five years longer than men.
The gap between the sexes was greatest in the 1970s, when life expectancy at birth was almost 10 years higher for women than for men. However, in recent decades, this gap has gradually narrowed.
The difference between the sexes can also be seen in biological aging, as revealed by a study recently published in The Journals of Gerontology: Series A.
The study investigated whether there are differences in biological aging between men and women and whether the potential differences can be explained by lifestyle-related factors. These differences were investigated in young and older adults.
Several epigenetic clocks were used as measures of biological aging. Epigenetic clocks enable studying lifespan-related factors during an individual’s lifetime. They provide an estimate for biological age in years using DNA methylation levels determined from a blood sample.
“We found that men are biologically older than women of the same chronological age, and the difference is considerably larger in older participants,” says Anna Kankaanpää, doctoral researcher at the Gerontology Research Center and the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences.
More frequent smoking among men explained the sex gap in aging in older but not in young adult twins. In addition, men’s larger body size explained a small part of the sex gap in both age groups.
Several epigenetic clocks were used as measures of biological aging. Image is in the public domain
“In our study, we also used a quite rare study design and compared aging pace among opposite-sex twin pairs. A similar difference was also observed among these pairs of twins. The male sibling was about one year biologically older than his female co-twin.
“These pairs have grown in the same environment and share half of their genes. The difference may be explained, for example, by sex differences in genetic factors and the beneficial effects of the female sex hormone estrogen on health,” Kankaanpää says.
The results help to understand lifestyle behaviors and sex differences related to biological aging and life expectancy. The results suggest that the decline in smoking among men partly explains why the sex gap in life expectancy has narrowed in recent decades.
Abstract
Do Epigenetic Clocks Provide Explanations for Sex Differences in Life Span? A Cross-Sectional Twin Study
Background
The sex gap in life expectancy has been narrowing in Finland over the past 4–5 decades; however, on average, women still live longer than men. Epigenetic clocks are markers for biological aging which predict life span. In this study, we examined the mediating role of lifestyle factors on the association between sex and biological aging in younger and older adults.
Results
In comparison to women, men were biologically older and, in general, they had unhealthier life habits. The effect of sex on biological aging was partly mediated by body mass index and, in older twins, by smoking. Sex was directly associated with biological aging and the association was stronger in older twins.
Conclusions
Previously reported sex differences in life span are also evident in biological aging. Declining smoking prevalence among men is a plausible explanation for the narrowing of the difference in life expectancy between the sexes. Data generated by the epigenetic clocks may help in estimating the effects of lifestyle and environmental factors on aging and in predicting aging in future generations.
Corporation for Public Broadcasting Addresses Operations Following Loss of Federal Funding
Corporation for Public Broadcasting Addresses Operations Following Loss of Federal Funding
August 1, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 1, 2025) – The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced today that it will begin an orderly wind-down of its operations following the passage of a federal rescissions package and the release of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s FY 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-H) appropriations bill, which excludes funding for CPB for the first time in more than five decades.
For nearly 60 years, CPB has carried out its Congressional mission to build and sustain a trusted public media system that informs, educates, and serves communities across the country. Through partnerships with local stations and producers, CPB has supported educational content, locally relevant journalism, emergency communications, cultural programming, and essential services for Americans in every community.
Trump pulls the plug on Public Broadcasting that has been part of the media scene since 1967. More marching backwards into the dark ages.
Based on recent reports, several Republican representatives from Arizona voted in favor of a budget resolution that included cuts to Medicaid:
Juan Ciscomani: Representative Ciscomani, representing Tucson, voted for the legislation despite concerns and even co-signing a letter asking for no cuts to Medicaid. He has stated that the bill strengthens and protects Medicaid by tackling waste and fraud, implementing work requirements and stronger eligibility verification.
David Schweikert: Representative Schweikert, whose district includes Scottsdale, voted for the bill despite pressure from constituents to oppose it.
Eli Crane: Representative Crane, representing the Navajo Nation, voted for the cuts, which could leave a significant portion of his constituents at risk of losing coverage.
These votes have drawn criticism, particularly due to the potential impact on vulnerable populations and rural hospitals that rely on Medicaid funding. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has identified these districts as potentially vulnerable in upcoming elections.
It’s important to note that the term “Trump’s anti-Medicaid bill” is a characterization used by opponents of the legislation. Supporters argue that the bill includes measures to strengthen and protect Medicaid by tackling waste, fraud, and abuse.
compare 5 points in donald trumps speeches with those of adolf hitler
ChatGPT said:
Comparing speeches by Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler is a sensitive and complex task. It’s important to note that while rhetorical techniques may sometimes overlap across political figures (e.g., appealing to nationalism or using populist language), the historical contexts, ideologies, and outcomes of their leadership are vastly different.
That said, here’s a comparative look at five rhetorical or thematic points often discussed in academic or journalistic analyses — not equating the two figures, but rather examining rhetorical parallels.
1. Nationalism and “Making the Country Great Again”
Trump: Frequently used slogans like “Make America Great Again” to evoke a return to a perceived better past, often emphasizing American exceptionalism.
Hitler: Promoted “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer” (One People, One Empire, One Leader), focusing on reviving German pride and power after WWI and the Treaty of Versailles.
Similarity: Both appealed to national pride and a nostalgic vision of a lost golden age.
2. Scapegoating of Outsiders
Trump: Spoke harshly about illegal immigrants, particularly from Mexico, labeling them as criminals and calling for a border wall.
Hitler: Blamed Jews, communists, and others for Germany’s problems, using them as scapegoats to unify the majority.
Similarity: Both used scapegoating to create a sense of “us vs. them” and to rally support around a common enemy.
3. Attacks on the Press
Trump: Repeatedly called the media “fake news” and “the enemy of the people,” undermining trust in journalism.
Hitler: Called the press the “lying press” (Lügenpresse) and took steps to control and censor the media after gaining power.
Similarity: Both discredited the press as a tool of opposition, portraying it as dishonest or dangerous.
4. Populist Appeal
Trump: Framed himself as a voice for the “forgotten” American, criticizing elites and positioning himself as an outsider to Washington politics.
Hitler: Spoke as a man of the people against the political establishment of the Weimar Republic, claiming to restore the will of the common German.
Similarity: Both used anti-elitist language to appeal to mass dissatisfaction and presented themselves as the solution.
5. Strongman Persona and Law-and-Order Messaging
Trump: Emphasized “law and order” during civil unrest and portrayed himself as a tough leader who would restore order.
Hitler: Promised strict control, discipline, and the end of chaos under the Nazi regime, emphasizing authority and militarization.
Similarity: Both emphasized strength, order, and control in the face of perceived chaos or disorder.
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Rhetoric has a history. The words democracy and tyranny were debated in ancient Greece; the phrase separation of powers became important in the 17th and 18th centuries. The word vermin, as a political term, dates from the 1930s and ’40s, when both fascists and communists liked to describe their political enemies as vermin, parasites, and blood infections, as well as insects, weeds, dirt, and animals. The term has been revived and reanimated, in an American presidential campaign, with Donald Trump’s description of his opponents as “radical-left thugs” who “live like vermin.”
This language isn’t merely ugly or repellent: These words belong to a particular tradition. Adolf Hitler used these kinds of terms often. In 1938, he praised his compatriots who had helped “cleanse Germany of all those parasites who drank at the well of the despair of the Fatherland and the People.” In occupied Warsaw, a 1941 poster displayed a drawing of a louse with a caricature of a Jewish face. The slogan: “Jews are lice: they cause typhus.” Germans, by contrast, were clean, pure, healthy, and vermin-free. Hitler once described the Nazi flag as “the victorious sign of freedom and the purity of our blood.”
Stalin used the same kind of language at about the same time. He called his opponents the “enemies of the people,” implying that they were not citizens and that they enjoyed no rights. He portrayed them as vermin, pollution, filth that had to be “subjected to ongoing purification,” and he inspired his fellow communists to employ similar rhetoric. In my files, I have the notes from a 1955 meeting of the leaders of the Stasi, the East German secret police, during which one of them called for a struggle against “vermin activities” (there is, inevitably, a German word for this: Schädlingstätigkeiten), by which he meant the purge and arrest of the regime’s critics. In this same era, the Stasi forcibly moved suspicious people away from the border with West Germany, a project nicknamed “Operation Vermin.”
This kind of language was not limited to Europe. Mao Zedong also described his political opponents as “poisonous weeds.” Pol Pot spoke of “cleansing” hundreds of thousands of his compatriots so that Cambodia would be “purified.”
In each of these very different societies, the purpose of this kind of rhetoric was the same. If you connect your opponents with disease, illness, and poisoned blood, if you dehumanize them as insects or animals, if you speak of squashing them or cleansing them as if they were pests or bacteria, then you can much more easily arrest them, deprive them of rights, exclude them, or even kill them. If they are parasites, they aren’t human. If they are vermin, they don’t get to enjoy freedom of speech, or freedoms of any kind. And if you squash them, you won’t be held accountable.
Until recently, this kind of language was not a normal part of American presidential politics. Even George Wallace’s notorious, racist, neo-Confederate 1963 speech, his inaugural speech as Alabama governor and the prelude to his first presidential campaign, avoided such language. Wallace called for “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” But he did not speak of his political opponents as “vermin” or talk about them poisoning the nation’s blood. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps following the outbreak of World War II, spoke of “alien enemies” but not parasites.
In the 2024 campaign, that line has been crossed. Trump blurs the distinction between illegal immigrants and legal immigrants—the latter including his wife, his late ex-wife, the in-laws of his running mate, and many others. He has said of immigrants, “They’re poisoning the blood of our country” and “They’re destroying the blood of our country.” He has claimed that many have “bad genes.” He has also been more explicit: “They’re not humans; they’re animals”; they are “cold-blooded killers.” He refers more broadly to his opponents—American citizens, some of whom are elected officials—as “the enemy from within … sick people, radical-left lunatics.” Not only do they have no rights; they should be “handled by,” he has said, “if necessary, National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”
In using this language, Trump knows exactly what he is doing. He understands which era and what kind of politics this language evokes. “I haven’t read Mein Kampf,” he declared, unprovoked, during one rally—an admission that he knows what Hitler’s manifesto contains, whether or not he has actually read it. “If you don’t use certain rhetoric,” he told an interviewer, “if you don’t use certain words, and maybe they’re not very nice words, nothing will happen.”
His talk of mass deportation is equally calculating. When he suggests that he would target both legal and illegal immigrants, or use the military arbitrarily against U.S. citizens, he does so knowing that past dictatorships have used public displays of violence to build popular support. By calling for mass violence, he hints at his admiration for these dictatorships but also demonstrates disdain for the rule of law and prepares his followers to accept the idea that his regime could, like its predecessors, break the law with impunity.
These are not jokes, and Trump is not laughing. Nor are the people around him. Delegates at the Republican National Convention held up prefabricated signs: Mass Deportation Now. Just this week, when Trump was swaying to music at a surreal rally, he did so in front of a huge slogan: Trump Was Right About Everything. This is language borrowed directly from Benito Mussolini, the Italian fascist. Soon after the rally, the scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat posted a photograph of a building in Mussolini’s Italy displaying his slogan: Mussolini Is Always Right.
The Atlantic Daily: The atmosphere of a Trump rally
These phrases have not been put on posters and banners at random in the final weeks of an American election season. With less than three weeks left to go, most candidates would be fighting for the middle ground, for the swing voters. Trump is doing the exact opposite. Why? There can be only one answer: because he and his campaign team believe that by using the tactics of the 1930s, they can win. The deliberate dehumanization of whole groups of people; the references to police, to violence, to the “bloodbath” that Trump has said will unfold if he doesn’t win; the cultivation of hatred not only against immigrants but also against political opponents—none of this has been used successfully in modern American politics.
But neither has this rhetoric been tried in modern American politics. Several generations of American politicians have assumed that American voters, most of whom learned to pledge allegiance to the flag in school, grew up with the rule of law, and have never experienced occupation or invasion, would be resistant to this kind of language and imagery. Trump is gambling—knowingly and cynically—that we are not.
Meta whistleblower alleges company worked with China on censorship
Lily Jamali
North America Technology Correspondent
Reporting fromSan Francisco
A Meta whistleblower told US senators on Wednesday that the company undermined national security in order to build a $18 billion business in China.
At a congressional hearing, Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former global public policy director at Facebook, said she watched as executives decided to provide the Chinese Communist Party with access to the data of Meta users, including that of Americans.
Meta has disputed Ms Wynn-Williams’s statements.
“Sarah Wynn-Williams’ testimony is divorced from reality and riddled with false claims,” said Meta spokesman Ryan Daniels.
Mr Daniels said CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been public about the company’s interest in offering its services in China, but added. “[T]he fact is this: we do not operate our services in China today.”
Meta does, however, generate advertising revenue from advertisers based in China.
During her testimony before a Senate judiciary subcommittee, Ms Wynn-Williams also alleged the parent company of Facebook and Instagram worked “hand in glove” with Beijing to build censorship tools aimed at silencing critics of the Chinese Community Party.
Specifically, she said Meta capitulated to China’s demands that it delete the Facebook account of Guo Wengui, a Chinese dissident living in the US.
Meta maintains it unpublished Mr Guo’s page and suspended his profile because it violated the company’s Community Standards.
“One thing the Chinese Communist Party and Mark Zuckerberg share is that they want to silence their critics. I can say that from personal experience,” Ms Wynn-Williams said during her testimony.
In March, Ms Wynn-Williams released a memoir called “Careless People” about her experience at the company, which was then called Facebook.
Meta won an emergency ruling in the US that temporarily blocked her from promoting her book, which included several critical claims about her time at the company.
“[T]he false and defamatory book should never have been published,” Meta said at the time.
Wednesday’s hearing before members of the US Senate was led by Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri.
Sen Hawley opened the hearing by saying Meta had “stopped at absolutely nothing to prevent” Wednesday’s testimony by Ms Wynn-Williams, who joins Frances Haugen and Arturo Béjar as former employees who have spoken out against the social media giant.
“Why is it that Facebook is so desperate to prevent this witness from telling what she knows?” Hawley said.
At a fiery January 2024 congressional hearing at which Mr Zuckerberg also testified, Sen Hawley demanded that the CEO apologise to families who said their children had been harmed by social media.
Behind Mr Zuckerberg at the 2024 hearing sat a row of families who said their children had self-harmed or killed themselves as a result of social media content.
Mr Zuckerberg turned and told families in the audience that “no one should go through” what they had.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Sen Hawley said Meta had suggested Ms Wynn-Williams could face financial penalties for speaking out.
“They have threatened her with $50,000 in punitive damages every time she mentions Facebook in public, even if the statements that she is making are true,” Sen Hawley alleged. “Even as we sit here today, Facebook is attempting her total and complete financial ruin.”
On Wednesday, the company told the BBC the $50,000 in damages is for each material violation of the separation agreement that she signed when she departed the company in 2017.
Ms Wynn-Williams says Meta told her that creating exceptions to the non-disparagement agreement would “eat the rule,” which Meta later clarified to the BBC was the comment of an arbitrator, not the company.
The company added that she was not restricted from testifying before Congress.
But Meta declined to directly respond to a BBC inquiry about whether Ms Wynn-Williams may indeed face financial penalties initiated by the company or its lawyers for statements she made on Wednesday in front of Congress.
Ms Wynn-Williams told lawmakers that all of this had taken a personal toll on her.
“The last four weeks have been very difficult,” she told members of the Senate committee. “Even the choice to come and speak to Congress is incredibly difficult.”
Greenland is in strategically important territory.
Most of Greenland lies within the Arctic Circle, a region that the world’s powers are vying for over for its untapped natural resources and its proximity to emerging shipping corridors that would accelerate global trade. Already, melting Arctic ice has transformed the region that was once largely unnavigable into an area of competitive commerce, as more ships traverse the Arctic Circle and countries with land in the region scramble to lay claim to as much of the seabed as possible.
Routes between Asia and Europe, or Asia and the United States, are about 40 percent shorter through the Arctic than either the Suez or Panama Canals, according to the U.S. Naval Institute. That makes the question of who controls the seas there critical for both financial and security purposes, especially given the claimants also happen to be rival geopolitical superpowers.
Only five countries can claim to have an extended continental shelf into the Arctic: Canada, Russia, Norway, Denmark via Greenland, and the United States via Alaska. Acquiring Greenland would give the United States a significantly bigger claim in the Arctic.
“We need Greenland for national security and even international security,” Mr. Trump said in March during an address to Congress, adding the territory was “very, very important for military security.”
The United States has had troops in Greenland since World War II, and keeps a small missile defense base there called Pituffik Space Base — formerly Thule Air Base, before Mr. Trump renamed it during his first administration. The delegation will be touring that base on Friday.
It is possible that base could become part of the “Golden Dome” missile defense system, modeled after Israel’s Iron Dome system, that Mr. Trump has said he wants to build to protect the entirety of the United States from potential threats from adversaries, especially China. In an executive order, Mr. Trump told Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, to produce the plans for that missile defense shield by March 28.
But there are market-based threats Mr. Trump is concerned with as well. Russia and China are already cooperating on Arctic shipping routes, and with Russia’s extensive presence in the region — it has the largest area of Arctic coastline — that partnership threatens to remain the dominant economic force in the area.
Greenland could be a rich source for rare earth minerals and energy.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the Arctic holds 13 percent of undiscovered oil resources and 30 percent of undiscovered natural gas, most of it offshore. Controlling Greenland would give the United States an expanded claim to those seabed resources.
But Greenland also has huge stores of rare earth minerals that are vital to the production of batteries, cellphones, electric vehicles and other technology — and the Trump administration has been looking globally to augment its rare earth mineral holdings.
Rare earth minerals have been an instrumental part of an agreement that the United States has been trying to strike with Ukraine. Greenland’s stores of cobalt, nickel, copper, lithium, zirconium and other minerals have proven challenging to mine, but there is another incentive for the United States to seek to control that market: China.
China dominates the world’s raw mineral market, and has already attempted to make inroads in Greenland. Acquiring the territory would allow Mr. Trump to check Beijing’s efforts to exploit minerals there and expand America’s holdings.
Part of the reason it has been difficult to exploit Greenland’s resources to date is that it is so darn cold. But with climate change, melting ice is creating new opportunities for resource exploitation. In the last 30 years, about 11,000 square miles of ice sheet have melted, an area about the size of Maryland.
Denmark has also recognized the potential of Greenland’s resources to be vital in the global transition to greener forms of energy. The local population sees the potential for an economic boon from mining as helpful in its bid for independence, which a majority of the population wants.
But the development of the industry has been slow. Greenland has taken steps to limit the potential for environmentally destructive mining practices through laws, including a ban on uranium mining in 2021. But those could be overturned if the United States acquires the territory.
A correction was made on
March 25, 2025
:
An earlier version of this article misstated how much of the world’s undiscovered resources are in the Arctic. It holds 13 percent of undiscovered oil resources, not gas resources.
What is the cost to move ships through the Panama Canal?
The cost to transit the Panama Canal depends on the vessel’s size and type, with fees ranging from a few thousand dollars for smaller private boats to hundreds of thousands, or even millions, for large commercial ships, especially when bidding for expedited slots. (Retrieved Internet 3/31/25)
Donald Trump and his cronies can just get ready to pay for the service to use the Island just like everybody else. Let’s stop this nonsense about military takeovers before someone gets hurt. Donald have you totally lost your mind??????
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