World News

DESTITUTE MYANMAR FAMILIES PUT KIDS TO WORK TO SURVIVE – Ever Since the military coup that ended Myanmar the republic and replaced it with a military junta, the new regime has failed to consolidate power and secure the land.  As a result, the people are now largely unable to make a living in an economic reality that offers no stability.  Families are making hard decisions, including sending their small children off to get money working whatever jobs they can get, for however little the jobs pay.

NEWSWATCH BLURB:

Myanmar’s desperate families are sending their children out to work – news.google.com
Excerpt:

When 17-year-old Ma Thawdar Lin’s* father lost his job at a shoe-making shop in October of last year, responsibility fell on her shoulders to support the family, which is drowning in debt. Her elder sister is disabled and her younger brother is only six years old, so it was up to Thawdar Lin to take a job at a garment factory in Yangon’s South Okkalapa Township, where she has been working for over nine months now. 

“At work, I’m scolded and bullied by my supervisor every day. I must put up with it for my family. Even though I’m unhappy, I don’t dare complain to anyone because I’m afraid I’ll lose my job,” she told Frontier in November.

When she started in March, she was paid only K60,000 per month, although four months later her salary was up to K100,000…

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CHINA USES BRI TO CONQUER MEXICO – China is moving into Latin America through its BRI projects, especially in Mexico.  Recently, China broke ground on two massive projects, a $2.16 billion railroad project and was given a license to broadcast in the nation through China Unicom, which even Biden hasn’t allowed entry into the U.S.

NEWSWATCH BLURB:

China’s Financial Footprint Deepens In Latin America – news.google.com
Excerpt:

In the last two weeks ending October 31, Latin America saw the highest number of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects. These are largely Chinese state-funded development projects in infrastructure. Over that two-week period, China dished out around $5.3 billion in fresh capital, and Mexico got almost half of it — a $2.16 billion railroad project in Guadalajara.

On October 19, a 30-year operating license was given by Mexico’s Federal Telecommunications Institute to China Unicom — a state-owned telecommunications company that was banned from doing business in the U.S. over spying concerns in January 2022. The license gives China Unicom permission to provide services in the fixed and mobile telephone markets in Mexico.

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INDIA ONCE AGAIN REBUFFS CHINA’S BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE – India is proving to be a growing competitor to China across more than just physical borders.  The nation was notably absent from a list of nations that issued a joint communique confirming the BRI.  That list includes Russia and Pakistan.  India continues to reject China’s BRI.  Xi’s decision to seek to create closer relations with Pakistan is adding to the friction between the two nations.

NEWSWATCH BLURB:

India’s ‘No’ To Belt and Road Initiative at SCO Meet Is A Continuation of Foreign Minister S Jaishankar’s China Policy – news.google.com

Excerpt:

By 2017, India had sharpened its critique of the BRI and rejected  an invitation to the first BRI Forum in Beijing. In a statement issued hours before the forum was scheduled to open, the MEA issued a comprehensive statement on its objections which were threefold.

First, that the corridor included projects in territory belonging to India. Second that it could push smaller nations on the road to a debt crisis and be ecologically destructive and disruptive to local communities. And third, that China’s agenda was unclear, implying that this was more about extending Beijing’s political influence than in creating public goods.

In response to the Indian criticism, China did signal that it was willing to discuss the issues and possibly even rename CPEC to assuage Indian concerns. Wang Yi indicated that China was willing to work in the language of its 1963 agreement with Pakistan, that all agreements relating to Kashmir would be subject to re-negotiation after the “settlement of the…

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AMERICA IS SO BAD, AMERICANS ARE NOW FLEEING TO MEXICO – An Interior Ministry migration report reveals that the rise in requests for temporary resident visas to Mexico has risen by 85 percent compared to the pre-pandemic period of 2019,  The number of approved visas increased by 48 percent compared to the same pre-pandemic period of 2019.

NEWSWATCH BLURB:

U.S. citizens moving to Mexico in record numbers, govt. data shows – mexiconewsdaily.com
Excerpt:

….Data published in an Interior Ministry migration report shows that 8,412 U.S. citizens were issued temporary resident visas in the first nine months of the year, an 85% increase compared to the same period of 2019 – when the coronavirus pandemic hadn’t yet had an impact on people’s life and work choices and options. The figure is the highest since comparable data became available in 2010, the news agency Bloomberg reported…..

The number of U.S. citizens who were granted permanent residency in the first nine months of 2022 also increased significantly, rising 48% from 2019 levels to 5,418. There are a range of ways foreigners can qualify for residency in Mexico, including by meeting income requirements, having an employer who sponsors their visa and having family ties.

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BRAZIL FALLS TO THE COMMUNISTS – The most contentious election in recent Brazilian history has ended with a narrow victory for the leftist challenger and former convicted felon and political grifter Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

He has vowed through his narrow, possibly fraudulent victory, to “reconstruct the very soul of this nation,” something the DNC platform has long promised to do to America.  The phrase is a dog whistle for leftist authoritarianism, aimed at destroying any institution that honors the sacredness of the individual, an ideal leftists are violently opposed to, be they Brazilian or “American.”

NEWSWATCH BLURB:

Corrupt Socialist Lula Beats Bolsonaro in Brazil’s Closest Presidential Election in Decades – www.breitbart.com
Excerpt:

The top electoral authority in Brazil announced on Sunday evening that 77-year-old hardline socialist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, once convicted and sentenced to over two decades in prison for alleged corruption, had won this year’s presidential election against incumbent conservative Jair Bolsonaro.

In his first words as president-elect for a third term, Lula vowed to “reconstruct the very soul of this nation” away from the small government, pro-freedom ideals of the Bolsonaro administration.

Little more than a percentage point separated Lula, who served as president previously from 2003 to 2011, from Bolsonaro, as of 10 p.m. ET, representing about 2 million votes in a nation of 214 million people. National newspaper of record O Globo described the results as the closest election since 1989, when Lula narrowly lost to Fernando Collor de Mello, who was impeached and ousted from office over corruption allegations in 1992. Collor later supported the impeachment ouster of…

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SEOUL HALLOWEEN CELEBRATIONS LEAD TO 153 DEAD –  A Halloween celebration in the streets of Seoul went terribly wrong when a crowd surge led to a stampede.  153 people, mostly young students, are dead, including 2 Americans and 17 other foreign nationals.  More than 100,000 people were participating in the event. No cause for the crowd surge was given.

NEWSWATCH BLURB:

Seoul Halloween crowd crush updates: At least 153 dead in crowd surge, officials say – abcnews.go.com
Excerpt:

At least 153 people are dead and 82 are injured after being crushed in a crowd during Halloween festivities in Seoul, officials in South Korea said, as the death toll in the tragedy continues to rise.

The victims are largely in their 20s, according to the National Fire Agency. Two Americans were among the 19 foreign nationals who died, ABC News confirmed.

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ISRAEL ELECTION A QUESTION OF NETANYAHU’S COALITION WINS – The coming Israel election might produce another unstable government, if it forms one at all.  The leading candidate to be able to potentially form a majority coalition, Benjamin Netanyahu, might come within one seat of claiming a majority coalition.

NEWSWATCH BLURB:

Israel election polls predict Netanyahu just shy of victory – timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Excerpt:

Polls on Friday predicted Israel’s former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would come within a single seat of an outright majority in his quest to return to power in next week’s election, the fifth in less than four years.
Netanyahu, on trial for corruption charges he denies, has been vying for a comeback, aided by an alliance between his Likud party and far-right party Religious Zionism – a pact that could test Israel’s foreign relations if it wins the ballot.
Two polls – one released late Thursday by Israel’s Kan public broadcaster and another published on Friday by the Maariv newspaper – both showed the Netanyahu bloc of four parties winning 60 of parliament’s 120 seats in Tuesday’s vote.

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PUTIN SPEECH USES AMERICAN DIVIDE TO SEARCH FOR U.S. SUPPORT – “There are at least two Wests, One is a West of “traditional, mainly Christian values” for which Russians feel kinship. But, there’s another West — aggressive, cosmopolitan, neocolonial, acting as the weapon of the neoliberal elite,”  said Vladimir Putin in a speech aimed at exploiting the real divide in America between the “left” and the “right”.

NEWSWATCH BLURB:

Putin seizes on divisions in West – Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Excerpt:

President Vladimir Putin declared Thursday that Russia’s battle was with “Western elites,” not with the West itself, in a speech seemingly aimed more at winning over political conservatives abroad than his own citizens….

Putin, as he often does, portrayed Russia as threatened by the possible expansion of NATO — and the values of its liberal democracies — to countries like Ukraine that were once part of the Soviet Union.

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FOREIGN INVESTORS FLEE CHINA AFTER XI’S NEW POLITBURO SELECTED – After Chairman Xi was awarded de facto chairmanship for life in the manner of Chairman Mao, he selected a new politburo.  Afterwards, foreign investors immediately started to pull out of China, as seen in Chinese brands on foreign exchanges tanking, including Alibaba on Nasdaq, which fell by 20 percent.

NEWSWATCH BLURB:

Xi Jinping provokes a spectacular sell-off in China’s markets – www.economist.com
Excerpt:

On october 23rd China’s ruler, Xi Jinping, asked the Central Committee of the Communist Party to endorse him and his team of loyalists to run the country for the next five years. He had no trouble securing their support. But the next day, he had a lot more difficulty with the highly decentralised committee that is the global financial market.

Foreign investors dumped China’s shares and its currency in spectacular fashion. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng stockmarket index, dominated by mainland firms, fell by over 6%. The sell-off was even worse in New York. The Golden Dragon index of Chinese companies listed on the tech-heavy Nasdaq, which includes giants like Alibaba and Baidu, fell at one point by 20%, reaching levels last seen before Mr Xi took power ten years ago. The offshore yuan, which fluctuates more freely than its onshore counterpart, weakened to its lowest value against the dollar since the market began in 2010 (see chart).

 

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