People marched in the capital today toward the US embassy in rejection of the US’s economic influence and military presence. The US’s Pax Silica global tech agreement, launched at the end of last year, builds supply chains for AI and semiconductor technologies - including a 1,600 ha industrial hub in the Luzon Economic Corridor. The project will see much of the Philippine’s resources handed over to transnationals. Further, under the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement, the US has access to some Philippine military bases, which the US can use in its competition with China.
There has been little to no critical English-language media coverage of the Pax Silica initiative, with attention focusing on how much of an edge it gives the US over China. But the hub to be built in the Philippines would consume copious amounts of water and energy, impacting nearby communities and the environment. -BTN, PS, R, ABS-CBN
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Bolivia records its first same-sex civil marriage - MP
Israel blows up school, strikes religious commemoration site in southern Lebanon despite truce - MEM
Congo’s Fastest-growing Ebola Outbreak Reaches a Sixth Province - PANW
New right-wing president in Colombia swears in, promises a heavy hand - BBC
Mass protests defeat unpopular land reform in Argentina -BTN
Wildfire ravages Indonesia’s Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park - M, M
Syrian court sentences ousted president Assad to death in absentia - TRT
Hundreds of thousands in India protest proposed trade agreement with the US - BTN
Peru: Far-right Fujimori sworn in as president, amid protests - GL
Brazilian students protest against Flavio Bolsonaro, education policies -GSW
Urban heat islands have solutions; many tropical cities can’t afford them
In West Bank Village, a New Israeli Order Enables Settler Attacks While Claiming to Prevent Them
Present but Displaced: What Western Objections to Reparations Fail to See
The US is committing a “silent genocide” in Cuba (short video), Cuban doctor on shortages (short video)
Resilience Is Not Enough: OCHA Sounds Alarm on Underfunded Humanitarian Crisis in Afghanistan
A border spectacle (Ceuta)
Deadly skies, empty plates: How escalating drone warfare is starving Sudan
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