Redlines: May 12, 2025

Daily Dispatches from the Frontlines of Global Class and Anti-Imperialist Struggle

By Weaponized Information | May 12, 2025

Africa

White Power Gets a Visa: Trump Resettles Apartheid’s Orphans

Source: CBS News

While the U.S. slams its gates on Black and Brown refugees fleeing wars and coups made in Washington, Trump 2.0 rolls out the red carpet for white South Africans—descendants of settlers who built apartheid with NATO guns and Dutch theology.Under the guise of “protecting Afrikaners from racial persecution,” the empire is importing colonists, not victims. These aren’t refugees—they’re reinforcements. They’re being resettled not to escape violence, but to preserve the legacy of settler rule as the Global South rises. This is racialized refugee policy—colonial triage dressed in bureaucratic mercy.

Green Capitalism Digs Another Grave: The Mining Boom No One Asked For

Source: Mining.com

Western investors are back in Africa, this time with solar panels and EV batteries instead of missionaries and muskets. The headlines talk about “opportunity,” but for whom? Lithium, cobalt, and graphite aren’t being mined to power African schools or clinics—they’re powering iPhones in Paris, Teslas in Texas, and smart bombs in Gaza. It’s the same colonial logic in a green disguise. Unless mining is placed under public ownership, controlled by African workers and communities, and used to build sovereign development—not tech empires—this boom will end like every other: in dispossession, displacement, and dirt graves lined with critical minerals.

Africa’s Debt Crisis Isn’t a Crisis. It’s a Robbery.

Source: Black Star News

African leaders just wrapped up debt crisis talks in Togo, but let’s be clear: this isn’t a financial crisis—it’s a colonial crime scene. Africa is expected to cough up $89 billion this year in debt payments, much of it for “loans” that financed IMF structural adjustment, military bases, and foreign contractor scams. Ghana and Zambia are defaulting not because they’re mismanaged—but because they’ve been managed too well by Wall Street. What Africa needs isn’t another summit—it needs debt cancellation, capital controls, and a clean break from the neocolonial chokehold of the IMF and World Bank. Otherwise, these meetings are just polite rituals of economic surrender.

Asia

North Korea’s Nuclear Rehearsal: A Deterrent, Not a Threat

Source: Military Watch Magazine

North Korea just flexed its nuclear muscles in a simulated counterstrike exercise—and the West is clutching its pearls again. But there’s nothing “unprovoked” about it. After decades of sanctions, regime-change threats, and U.S. nuclear submarines parked off its coast, the DPRK is making clear it won’t go down like Iraq or Libya. These drills are not war-mongering—they’re deterrence with historical memory. What frightens Washington isn’t the weapons; it’s the idea of an independent state that won’t bow.

India’s Five-Year Clock: Banga’s Development or Digital Colonization?

Source: The Economic Times

World Bank president Ajay Banga says India has five years to cash in on the global “China+1” supply chain shuffle. But whose supply chain is it, really? The IMF-WB complex wants to reposition India as a subcontractor for Western tech giants—cheap labor, deregulated land, and low environmental standards. This isn’t industrial sovereignty. It’s recolonization with circuit boards. If India doesn’t assert control over its own productive forces, Banga’s “opportunity” will end in familiar fashion: foreign capital in, public wealth out.

Solar Sovereignty in Guizhou: While the West Drowns in Oil, China Builds the Sun

Source: Yahoo News

A viral drone video shows mountains in China’s Guizhou province blanketed in solar panels—an awe-inspiring sight turned into a clickbait oddity by Western media. But behind the drone footage is something far more serious: real infrastructure, built at scale, in service of a national plan. While the U.S. subsidizes fossil fuels and sells climate policy as consumer virtue, China lays down terawatts of concrete and silicon. Guizhou—once dismissed as too remote for agriculture—is now a solar fortress. This is what planned development looks like when it isn’t hijacked by hedge funds or greenwashed by NGOs. China isn’t perfect—but in the race to control the energy of the future, it’s lapping the empire.

Middle East

Gaza: Starvation Is the Strategy

Source: PBS NewsHour

Three months into Israel’s siege of Gaza, the death toll has surpassed 35,000 and the strip is being starved into submission. Hospitals have shut down. Children are dying from malnutrition. Food convoys are blocked or bombed. This is not collateral damage—it’s colonial policy. The Zionist regime is waging total war not just on Hamas, but on Palestinian existence. The U.S. funds it, Europe shrugs, and international law is trampled under the boots of “civilization.” Gaza is not a humanitarian crisis. It is a crime against humanity.

‘No Other Land’: From Oscar Stage to Military Cages

Source: The Times

Basel Adra and his team won an Oscar for their documentary No Other Land, which exposed the daily ethnic cleansing of Masafer Yatta. And what did they get for it? Beatings, arrests, drone surveillance, home demolitions, and settler terror dressed in army fatigues. In the West Bank, the difference between an Israeli settler and a soldier is now semantic—both carry guns, and both displace Palestinians. Since October 7, settler violence has doubled, caves have become targets, and reserve battalions now recruit convicted settler thugs as “defenders.” Oscar statues don’t stop bulldozers. But art, when it speaks truth, becomes testimony. And testimony under occupation is always a threat to empire.

PKK Disbands, but the Kurdish Struggle Lives On

Source: Middle East Eye

The PKK has formally disbanded after 40 years of guerrilla struggle, following a call from jailed leader Abdullah Öcalan. Western media frames this as a “Turkish victory,” but it’s the Kurdish people who have held the line for decades against NATO’s second-largest army. With armed resistance shelved, the Kurdish movement pivots toward grassroots democratic structures and political struggle. But don’t mistake restraint for surrender. The fight for autonomy isn’t over—it’s just shifting terrain. And the Turkish state knows it.

Central/South America and the Caribbean

Argentina Uncovers Nazi Archives: Shadows of the Past Resurface

Source: CBS News

In a startling revelation, Argentina’s Supreme Court has unearthed 83 boxes of Nazi-era documents, including propaganda materials and personal effects, hidden in its archives since 1941. These artifacts, sent by the German embassy in Tokyo during World War II, were intended to disseminate Hitler’s ideology in South America. The discovery reignites scrutiny of Argentina’s historical role as a haven for Nazi war criminals and underscores the lingering shadows of fascism in the region.

China’s $4.7 Billion Investment in Brazil: A New Chapter in South-South Cooperation

Source: teleSUR English

Brazilian President Lula da Silva has announced a significant $4.7 billion investment from China into Brazil’s technology sectors. This partnership includes funding for sustainable aviation fuels and the establishment of a renewable energy research center. The move signifies a strategic shift towards South-South cooperation, aiming to diversify Brazil’s economy and reduce dependency on traditional Western markets.

Colombia Joins China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Embracing a Multipolar World

Source: Bloomberg

Colombian President Gustavo Petro has announced that Colombia will join China’s Belt and Road Initiative, marking a significant step in strengthening ties with Beijing. The agreement focuses on infrastructure development and technological cooperation, reflecting a broader trend in Latin America towards embracing a multipolar world order and seeking alternatives to traditional Western alliances.

Europe

Russia’s Africa Corps: From Guns-for-Hire to Geopolitical Realignment

Source: Business Insider Africa

With Wagner formally dissolved, the Russian state is stepping in to fill the vacuum—deploying its new Africa Corps to the Central African Republic with plans to establish a permanent base at Berengo. Western pundits cry “neo-imperialism,” but forget their own troops, mercenaries, and mining barons still scattered across the continent. Russia’s presence is not altruistic—but it reflects the shifting balance of power. No longer does France get to dictate the fate of its old colonies unchallenged. In this post-Wagner phase, African states are playing the chessboard too—realigning toward a multipolar world where empire has competition.

Trump Opens Another Front: Trade War With Europe

Source: Axios

Trump 2.0 has declared the EU “worse than China” and launched another tariff salvo. What began as an economic tantrum is fast turning into a full-blown trade war—with the EU threatening $100 billion in retaliatory tariffs. Behind the spectacle is a deeper contradiction: the fracturing of the imperialist triad. As the U.S. retreats into protectionist nationalism, Europe is forced to choose—align with the collapsing dollar empire, or stake out its own economic path. The era of transatlantic unity is over. The knives are out.

Satire Behind Bars: Europe’s Liberal Censorship Creep

Source: Reason

Europe’s mask of liberalism is slipping. In the latest free speech crackdown, a journalist faces jail time for posting a meme critical of a government minister. It’s not just the far-right getting censored—leftists, satirists, and truth-tellers are all fair game. Under the guise of fighting “disinformation,” the EU is building its own technofascist firewall—silencing dissent while claiming to uphold democracy. The new face of European censorship doesn’t wear jackboots—it wears a smug grin and carries a content moderation policy.

North America

China Buys Western Wheat as Climate Crisis Cracks the Imperial Food Chain

Source: Reuters

China just scooped up massive wheat shipments from Canada and Australia, as its own harvests falter under brutal climate shifts. The Western press frames it as a market adjustment—but what it really signals is a breakdown of imperial food security. The Global South is no longer just a dumping ground for GMOs and grain price manipulation. Now Beijing is using its currency, logistics power, and diplomatic leverage to ensure it won’t starve when the West lights the planet on fire. While the U.S. hoards and weaponizes food, China’s playing long ball—and reshaping global supply chains in the process.

Canada’s Billion-Dollar PR Campaign or Real Indigenous Equity?

Source: Windspeaker

The Canada Infrastructure Bank is bragging about hitting the $1 billion mark in Indigenous project funding—but who owns what, and who controls the wealth? From pipelines to clean energy, Indigenous communities are being offered “equity stakes” in the very projects that cut through their stolen land. Some see a path to economic sovereignty. Others see a settler-state trap—folding First Nations into the machinery of colonial capitalism. Until land theft is reversed, treaty rights upheld, and Indigenous people control their own economies on their own terms, this is reconciliation theater with billion-dollar optics.

Sheinbaum to Trump: Keep Your Screwworm Lies and Your Beef Ban

Source: Newsweek

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum isn’t playing. After the Trump regime slapped a ban on Mexican beef over “screwworm concerns,” she fired back—calling the move political, punitive, and insulting. This isn’t about bugs in the beef. It’s about border leverage, agricultural supremacy, and imperial discipline. The U.S. has always used sanitary rules as a weapon to block Global South exports and protect its bloated agribusiness barons. But this time, Mexico’s not backing down. This is sovereignty with backbone.

U.S. Domestic

Made in America? Not If It Costs an Extra Buck

Source: Business Insider

Afina, a startup selling shower heads, tried a little patriotic experiment: offer the same product, one made in China and one “Made in the USA,” and see which Americans buy. The result? Zero buyers chose the U.S.-made version. Not one. The same consumers who preach “support American jobs” at the dinner table clicked “Add to Cart” on the cheaper import. This is capitalism 101—ideology melts in the face of price. And for all the MAGA sloganeering about bringing jobs home, the real story is this: in a system built on exploitation abroad and precarity at home, no one can afford the luxury of nationalism at checkout.

Tariffs, Theater, and Technofascist Trade War Tactics

Source: CNBC

Trump held a press conference to announce what he called a “breakthrough” in U.S.-China trade talks: a 90-day tariff pause and vague promises from Beijing to “open up.” But behind the bombast, the real story is this: the tariff war didn’t produce decoupling—it just bruised working people and jacked up prices. Now the empire’s supply chains are begging for oxygen, so they’re calling a time-out. The U.S. drops tariffs from 145% to 30%; China cuts from 125% to 10%. Fentanyl tariffs and steel duties stay in place as political bait. Trump says “they’ve agreed to open up China,” but offers no proof—just a familiar bluff wrapped in an executive order. This isn’t strategy—it’s shock doctrine fumbling toward a new Cold War industrial policy, dressed up as patriotism.

Drug Prices Drop…Maybe: Technofascist Health Reform or Empty PR?

Source: NPR

Trump just signed an executive order to lower drug prices by tying them to what other countries pay. Sounds great—until you realize this is a bone tossed to voters while Big Pharma keeps writing the rules. The “Most Favored Nation” policy isn’t about justice—it’s about optics. It doesn’t touch patents, profiteering, or the fact that the U.S. is the only rich country without public health care. It’s a price tweak inside a death trap. And in true technofascist fashion, the solution to corporate pillaging isn’t nationalization—it’s an algorithm and an asterisk. Meanwhile, people ration insulin while Pfizer pops champagne.