“American working men and women have much of which to be proud. Our democracy is based on their good sense and commitment to liberty. It was the hard work and skill of working people that turned a vast American wilderness into the world’s most powerful economy.”
“The great safeguard of our liberty is the totality of the constitutional system, with no one part getting the upper hand.”
“Indeed, I believe that the world of the future can be just that — a world of liberty, a world in which human rights are respected in the political and economic spheres alike.”
Strong leaders don’t fear criticism, but weak ones do.
Support free speech before we start looking like our communist neighbors!!!!!!
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]
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.”
I hate to date myself; I really do, but guess I have to.
In my lifetime, I have met three people who had suffered from polio infections. All three were women. One a friend, had fortunately only gotten it in one leg. She walked a bit stiffly on that leg, but that was the only noticeable thing. Another women had gotten it in both legs. She was able to reeducate other muscles in her legs. However, she took up running, over-worked the legs and eventually was back on crunches and her husband left her (creep.)
The third was a woman in our church. She had gotten a full body infection and it affected every part of her body to include her organs. She was a small woman, never in very good health and constantly beleaguered with health problems. Each of these individuals were a bit older than me and had contracted the illness in the late 40’s before the Salk vaccine was available.
I remember being in kindergarten when the Salk vaccine was administered at our school. We all lined up in the cafeteria and the nurses had little white cups, each with one sugar cube each, and the vaccine had been dropped on the sugar. We all ate our sugar cubes. I feel comfortable saying I have never known anyone in my generation to contract polio.
Two years ago, I was working with a church group that was assisting individuals from Mexico and Central America coming to this country on sponsorships. All individuals at that time were tested for Covid before they were allowed to enter. I remember that one entire bus came up positive.
About that time, there was also a report of a active case of polio being reported from an immigrant person residing in New York. It was then I went to Walgreens and asked for a polio shot. I was told insurance would not cover it as ‘polio isn’t a problem in this country.’ I told them to give me the shot anyway as there is some concern that the vaccines we given as children might not still be effective. I paid the money and was glad to do so.
As soon as I heard that JFK, Jr., the anti-vaxxer, had been approved as Health Secretary, I dialed up my Walgreen’s account and checked on my vaccines. I have a short list of boosters for this year. I will be sure to get them soon before Medicare starts to tell the pharmacies, “those aren’t covered.”
The advantage for someone like me is that: 1) I have the resources to cover the vaccines even if Medicare doesn’t pay, 2) I know full well what happens to people who don’t get the shots and I will get them regardless.
Not everyone has either this knowledge or these resources. I fear that we are heading into the waters of misery that few of us have ever known. It will be very difficult to re-invent the wheel in these situations. Unfortunately, it is usually the most vulnerable of our society: children and low-income folks who end up paying the price. What’s new.
Department of Education Releases Proposed Rules on Accountability for Certificate and For-Profit Programs and Transparency into Unaffordable Student Debt
Today, the U.S. Department of Education (Department) released proposed regulations to establish the strongest set of safeguards ever to protect students from unaffordable debt or insufficient earnings from career training programs, along with new measures to increase transparency across all postsecondary programs. The proposal would create the strongest-ever Gainful Employment (GE) rule, which would terminate access to Federal financial aid for career training programs that routinely leave graduates with unaffordable debt burdens or with earnings that are no higher than workers without any education beyond high school. The proposed GE rule is estimated to protect more than 700,000 students annually who would otherwise enroll in one of nearly 1,800 low-performing programs, because access to postsecondary programs that produce poor outcomes is not really access at all. These accountability measures will not only better protect students enrolled in low-financial-value programs, but will also encourage improvements across all of higher education.
The proposed regulations would also bring increased transparency to the true costs and financial outcomes of nearly all undergraduate and graduate degree programs. This includes disclosures of what students and families are likely to pay out-of-pocket for a given program and a requirement that students acknowledge this information before receiving federal financial aid to attend programs that consistently leave participants with high debt burdens.
“President Biden has taken unprecedented steps to fix our broken student loan system and help millions of Americans struggling with student debt, creating new opportunities for borrowers, their families, and their communities. At the same time, we need to hold colleges accountable for unaffordable costs and better protect students from programs that fail to deliver real value and upward mobility,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “The rules proposed today are about helping ensure that when students invest in a postsecondary education, they get a solid return on investment and a greater shot at the American dream.”
Today’s announcement is part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s ambitious reimagining of college finance to ensure that all students can afford to get the education and skills they need after high school. President Biden has championed a $900 increase to the maximum Pell Grant and laid out a path to doubling the maximum award by 2029. He has also proposed tuition-free community college and tuition assistance at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities, and Minority-Serving Institutions. The Department has fixed targeted debt relief programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness and relief for borrowers whose colleges took advantage of them, approving more than $66 billion in discharges for nearly 2.2 million borrowers so far. In the coming months we will finalize the most affordable repayment plan ever. Today’s proposed rules complement these efforts by ensuring that institutions of higher education (institutions) do their part to deliver real financial value to students and taxpayers.
“We cannot turn a blind eye to the college programs that are leaving students with mountains of unaffordable debts,” said Under Secretary James Kvaal. “The data show that the problem is concentrated at for-profit and career colleges. This package of accountability proposals would create the strongest-ever protections for students and taxpayers against low-value, debt-fueled colleges.”
