Excluded Headlines: Filipinos reject planned massive US-led AI hub, + important headlines

The latest Global South news stories the US- and Eurocentric media downplay and overlook, with author and journalist, Tamara Pearson.

Filipinos reject US military presence and its massive AI industrial hub

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

Photo: Philippine Star

Headlines in this week’s Global South news

• Colombia earthquake: Some 250 people killed, destroyed buildings and infrastructure is leading to food scarcity in Pereira - C, EH, LR

• 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

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