bannork

Move over USA. Chinese officials have already informed Nepal’s government — a strategically significant country for Beijing, located on the southern slopes of the Himalayas between India and China — that China is ready to replace USAID programs with its own development projects. Meanwhile, a delegation from the Cook Islands, a Pacific archipelago, led by Prime Minister Mark Brown, will visit China this week to sign an agreement on deepening trade and economic cooperation, including increased Chinese investment in the nation’s infrastructure. In Colombia, non-governmental organizations report that China is showing interest in stepping in to replace USAID programs that were frozen. Last year, Colombia received approximately $385 million from USAID. These moves indicate China’s intent to capitalize on the situation and quickly expand its influence in regions crucial to its global ambitions, potentially displacing the United States from key strategic areas. .

Here's a loony, and a baby one at that. Donald Trump has banned reporters who do not use the term 'Gulf of America' from entering the White House. The White House blocked an Associated Press reporter from an event in the Oval Office on Tuesday after demanding the news agency alter its style on the Gulf of Mexico, which President Trump has bizarrely renamed the Gulf of America. The reporter tried to enter the White House event as usual Tuesday afternoon and was turned away. A second reporter from the agency was also barred from an event in the White House Diplomatic Room later that evening. Julie Pace, senior vice president and executive editor at the Associated Press, described the move as "alarming", adding in a statement: "Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP's speech not only severely impedes the public's access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment."

Good advice. Lie down Donald and never wake up.

An interesting video regarding aluminium and steel exports and imports.

Meanwhile, disquieting news for Americans regarding medical care. President Donald Trump’s broad 10 percent tariff on China could drive up the cost, or cause shortages, of popular generic medicines such as antibiotics or cancer treatment drugs for consumers in the United States, experts have warned. Ordinary painkillers, psychoactive medications, blood thinners, heart medications, antihistamines, antibiotics and diuretics are just some of the essential medications that the U.S. relies on China to manufacture. In 2023, the U.S. spent more than $2.02 billion on these kinds of imports from China alone, according to the U.S. Trade Commission. Trump’s additional 10 percent tax on Chinese imports, without an exemption for this, could disrupt the pharmaceutical and medical supply chain, which could lead to shortages or force companies to increase the cost of generic drugs to consumers. In a letter to Trump, the American Hospital Association pleaded with the president to exempt medical equipment and pharmaceuticals from his tariffs, saying the possibility of shortages could put patients “at significant risk of harm, including death.” “Tariffs, as well as any reaction of the countries on whom such tariffs are imposed, could reduce the availability of these life-saving medications and supplies in the U.S,” the group wrote. “For example, U.S. providers import many cancer and cardiovascular medications, immunosuppressives, antibiotics and combination antibiotics from China.” China supplies the U.S. with approximately 30 percent of its active pharmaceutical ingredients, the raw ingredients found in medicines that make them function, according to the American Hospital Association. China also is one of the U.S.’s main source of medical equipment and devices such as single-use blood pressure cuffs, stethoscope covers, anesthesia instruments and more. Nearly one-third of disposable face masks and almost all plastic gloves come from China. “For many patients, even a temporary disruption in their access to these needed medications could put them at significant risk of harm, including death. Carefully planned chemotherapy treatments and antibiotic schedules are essential to giving patients the best chance of overcoming their disease. Similarly, the provision of necessary cardiovascular medications must be continuous to preserve their cardiovascular health,” the American Hospital Association said. For the last 10 years, the U.S. has become increasingly reliant on foreign countries for pharmaceuticals or medical equipment because it is less expensive to manufacture overseas. /

Donald certainly can't, being a teetotaller. I don't trust a man who never drinks. Presumably he never drinks because he knows it would increase his obnoxious behaviour 100%, if that's at all possible.

But Biden didn't whine.

Trump spent 4 years whining when he lost in 2020. He sure takes the record as sore loser.

He backed down on tariffs for Canada and Mexico, uniting both nations against the USA. He failed to end the war in Ukraine in one day. He's uniting Europe against his imperialist ambitions and his side kick's rude interference in European politics. He's given a massive boost to China's attempts to boost its investment and soft power in Africa with his abrupt cessation of USAID. He's angered the world's Arabs with his stupid Gaza plan.

The Russians love Trump as he tries to wreck American institutions, weakening his own country. At the same time they recognise his imperialist ambitions.

That's your boy in two years time.

Including himself.

Better get used to the bad news Frank. Your hero and his side kick are a pair of loonies.

Didn't stop the Ukraine War in one day Didn't inflict tariffs on Canada and Mexico Didn't ban TikTok as promised

Thank God for sanity "Judge blocks Musk team access to Treasury Department records - BBC News" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjw4g2q62xqo

Russia, China and Iran must be laughing MAGA Republicans and allies of the Trump Administration are demanding access to sensitive data — including data systems at the U.S. Treasury Department, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and other agencies. Warzel and Bogost, reporters for 'The Atlantic', explained: "we spoke with four federal-government IT professionals — all experienced contractors and civil servants who have built, modified, or maintained the kind of technological infrastructure that Musk's inexperienced employees at his newly created Department of Government Efficiency are attempting to access. In our conversations, each expert was unequivocal: They are terrified and struggling to articulate the scale of the crisis." A contractor who has worked on "classified information-security systems at numerous government agencies, told The Atlantic, "This is the largest data breach and the largest IT security breach in our country's history — at least that's publicly known. You can't un-ring this bell. Once these DOGE guys have access to these data systems, they can ostensibly do with it what they want." Most of the IT professionals The Atlantic interviewed requested anonymity, including a federal agency administrator who warned, "I don’t think the public quite understands the level of danger." Scott Cory, former chief information officer for the Administration for Community Living with the HHS, told The Atlantic, "The longer this goes on, the greater the risk of potential fatal compromise increases."

Car buyers sick of Musk. Tesla posted lower sales across five European countries in January, including the UK, as competitors with newer models gained on the electric vehicle maker and polls show public opinion souring on the controversial CEO. China's BYD for the first time on record sold more EVs in Britain than Tesla over a month. In January it recorded 1,614 registrations compared to Tesla's 1,458 units. And a new poll of drivers found that three in five now say that Musk puts them off buying a Tesla. Both current EV and potential EV buyers are turning away from the Musk megalomania, and are instead considering Chinese options, the study by EV website Electrifying.com found.

FILE PHOTO: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk speaks during a rally on the inauguration day of U.S. President Donald Trump's second P

Rubio accused of talking garbage. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was heavily criticised by Dr Craig Spencer today over his disparaging claims that employees at the U.S. Agency for International Development have a "rank insubordination" problem. "I’ve spoken to MANY folks in USAID over the last week. And many just today," wrote Dr Craig Spencer on X, who has spent his career on humanitarian health causes overseas and survived Ebola while fighting to contain the outbreak of that disease in Africa. "There is no rank insubordination. There is rank chaos, crying, and confusion." "People who’ve spent DECADES of their life responding to health and humanitarian crises all over the world so we could be safe here don’t know whether they’ll be fired for good tomorrow … or asked to remain with a skeleton crew to try and respond to the numerous crises spinning out of control," Spencer continued. "People with kids who’ve been in schools for years abroad on behalf of the U.S. government are now being yanked out and pulled home. This is profoundly disruptive to so many people’s lives, and to pretend it isn’t only means he doesn’t care and isn’t listening." Already, he warned, the paralysis of USAID is having devastating consequences. "The clinics don’t run. The medications don’t get distributed. Today, children were likely born with HIV who otherwise wouldn’t have been, all because of how this administration unnecessarily yanked support so rapidly. We are demonizing some of the most amazing and selfless Americans who’ve committed themselves to a profession that often pays them less and works them more. They do it because they care. And by doing it they make us all safer." "So these statements by Rubio are not only embarrassing and pure garbage, they defile the commitment of so many incredibly committed people who’ve done more for this country than so many of us," Spencer wrote. "Countries have been calling the White House to inform them of disease outbreaks and ask for support…and no one is there to answer the phone. Maybe focus on that first? Disgusting."

Consequences over President Donald Trump’s plot to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development are emerging as the agency’s stop-work order has left thousands of people with experimental drugs and medical devices inside of their bodies – and nowhere to turn. Dozens of unfinished clinical trials around the world that relied on USAID funds have suddenly shut down, leaving patients abandoned and in a state of limbo as their access to researchers is abruptly withdrawn by Trump’s executive order freezing foreign aid grants for three months.

Authoritarian regimes around the world cheer on dismantling of US Aid Donald Trump’s shutdown of US Aid has already had disastrous effects on humanitarian aid and development programmes around the world, but it has also ceded ground to the US’s chief rival, China, analysts have said. “[The US is handing] on a silver platter to China the perfect opportunity to expand its influence, at a time when China’s economy is not doing very well,” said professor Huang Yanzhong, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations. “What Trump is doing is basically providing China a perfect opportunity to rethink, to renew soft power projects, and get back on track to transglobal leadership.” More than one analyst described the shuttering of US Aid as a “self-inflicted wound”. Global dynamics have been dominated by the ongoing US-China competition and a key battlefront is in the development sector as Washington and its allies vie against Beijing for influence in the global south. In 2018, the Chinese government created the standalone China International Development Cooperation Agency, or China Aid, to streamline China’s spending, including its foreign investment programme, the belt and road initiative (BRI). Beijing doesn’t disclose foreign aid budgets but a study by William & Mary’s Global Research Institute found China lent $1.34tn to developing nations between 2000 and 2021, mostly through the BRI. The new agency would “further the effectiveness of aid as a key foreign policy instrument”, according to a government press release at the time. While China Aid operates differently to US Aid, by focusing more on loans and highly visible infrastructure projects rather than partnering with local organisations, both agencies have similar objectives – spreading their respective government’s soft power and influence. It’s particularly focused on the Pacific, where the US, Australia and other allies have been trying to counter China’s efforts to make security deals with the small but strategically located countries. China, like Russia, is trying to advance an authoritarian world. The total opposite of the interests of the West. There was now also likely to be greatly reduced bargaining power for recipient nations. With US Aid gone, programmes which previously reaped the benefits of two superpowers competing to fund their projects might just have to take what they can get. They don’t have to significantly increase funding of the foreign aid levels in order to replace the US as leader in this field. Conley Tyler said the impact of the US Aid suspension is far worse than what’s being reported because many programme workers are hoping if they keep quiet, funding might be restored at the end of the 90 days. But even if it is, broadly, the trust is gone. “Who is going to allow themselves to become dependent on US assistance if it’s fickle, if it doesn’t distinguish between allies and adversaries, if it could just be turned off on a political whim?” she said.