Developing countries spent $443 billion in 2022 to service their public debt, which could have otherwise been spent on social welfare, infrastructure, or climate change mitigation. This is 5% higher from a year earlier and could increase by 10% in 2023-2024. For the world’s 75 poorest countries, their debt service payments are predicted to rise 40% over 2023-2024.

Germany and Norway’s Equinor have signed a €50 billion deal, its biggest long-term gas contract in nearly 40 years, supplying Germany with 129 billion cubic meters of gas up to 2039, or a third of the country’s industrial demand. Norway supplies half of the EU’s piped gas. Meanwhile, German business sentiment continues to fall, particularly in the construction industry, which is at its lowest since September 2005.

Iraq has held its first provincial elections in a decade, with a turnout of 67%.

In Kazakhstan, the Chinese company Shipbuilding Industry Corp., is exp– wait, what? Shipbuilding Industry Corp.? Shipbuilding Industry Corp?! Oh yeah, let me call my fucking agricultural company “Food Growing Inc.” We should have named Hexbear “Online Communist Forum” instead. …anyway, they wanna build container facilities in the port cities of Aktau and Kuryk, and other Chinese companies also want to modernize and improve railway lines and their throughput in Kazakhstan and in Kyrgyzstan. There’s also increasing air connectivity to China in the region.

Sisi in Egypt has won the presidential election with 89.6% of the vote, with a turnout of 66.8%, the highest in Egyptian history.

US Steel has been sold to Japan’s Nippon Steel in a $14.9 billion deal, with several US politicians vowing to block it in a very non-free market move.

Chileans have rejected the new constitution drafted by the far-right. A year ago, they also rejected a left-wing constitution. So now we’re just back where we started, with the Pinochet-era constitution. What a tremendous waste of time.

Colombia’s drug war is flaring up again after the FARC, the largest armed revolutionary group in the country, entered peace negotiations in 2016. With this, the drug vacuum was filled by organized crime, due to a lack of alternative ways of generating money for many Colombians. The ELN, a Marxist revolutionary group, is training to take on narcotraffickers, as it was designed by the CIA and the Pentagon.

Several global maritime agencies, as well as fossil fuel giant BP, have paused all transit through the Red Sea until further notice due to missile and drone threats. This is a capital strike against the West to force them to address Yemen by targeting Ansarallah - and they are, through “Operation Prosperity Guardian”.