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DARIEN GAP, Panama—The grind of heavy machinery breaks the silence of the Darién jungle, where the Pan American Highway ends at Yaviza in Panama. Construction workers have cleared towering trees to make way for a steel and concrete bridge mighty enough to withstand flooding from the Chucunaque River. An onsite worker for the construction company Cusa told The Epoch Times the construction project will cut 4 miles into the Darién jungle at a cost of $42 million and includes a second bridge crossing the Tuira River. That would leave some 55 miles to finish the Pan American Highway, also known...

Bungling World Bank bureaucrats lost track of at least $24 billion bankrolling the battle against climate change, according to a bombshell report by a left-leaning charity group. An investigation by Oxfam revealed “poor record-keeping practices” by the DC-based international lender that resulted in anywhere between $24 billion and $41 billion in misplaced funds. The agency’s audit showed “a lack of traceable spending” over the past seven years — partly because of an oddball accounting practice in which the bank accounts for its climate financing at the time of a project’s approval rather than at the time of project completion ......

Russia's economy has defied sanctions in the two years since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022 — so much so that the World Bank is now classifying Russia as a "high-income country." On Monday, the World Bank announced it has upgraded Russia from an upper-middle-income country to a high-income country, according to a report from the financial institution's economists. "Economic activity in Russia was influenced by a large increase in military-related activity in 2023," World Bank economists wrote in their report. Russia's trade jumped by nearly 7% last year, while activities in the financial sector and construction grew by 6.6%...

As Columbia University President Dr. Nemat "Minouche" Shafik faces scrutiny from ongoing campus protests over Israel’s war with Hamas, a more than 20-year-old video is getting renewed attention for remarks on the causes of terrorism. The video, filmed just two months after 9/11, shows Shafik – who was then vice president at the World Bank – discussing the economic roots of terrorism with UC Berkeley’s Harry Kreisler on the program, "Conversations with History." Shafik argued that although terrorism has sprung up in "fairly rich and open societies," its most fertile ground is in countries beset by "economic stagnation and political...

In a major push to seize control of the public’s financial freedom, Canada is radicalizing its banking system by linking citizens’ bank accounts to a tyrannical social credit score.The Canadian banking system will soon be transformed by a so-called “open banking” framework.Proponents are framing this as a more “inclusive” way for banks to easily share information and access user data.However, the move will merge social standings with banking to provide governments and unelected bureaucrats with complete control over our finances.The organization Open Banking Excellence (OBE), a World Bank partner that originated in the UK, boasts that it will incorporate social...

As finance and development ministers and legislators gather in Morocco for the annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), from Oct. 9 to 15, the pressing issue of runaway global inequality will loom large on their agenda. Governments can use various tools to address inequality, including fair taxes, quality public services and just labor conditions. And an important tool they should consider now is universal social security, a set of policies and programs designed to ensure financial security across a person’s lifetime. The World Bank and IMF wield substantial influence by funding and shaping social...

President Yoweri Museveni has criticised the World Bank’s decision to suspend new funding to Uganda in response to a harsh anti-LGBTQ law and has promised to find alternative sources of credit.

KAMPALA (Reuters) -Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni on Thursday denounced the World Bank's decision to suspend new funding in response to a harsh anti-LGBTQ law and vowed to find alternative sources of credit. The country would have to revise its budget to absorb the move's potential impact, a junior finance minister said. The World Bank said on Tuesday that the law, which imposes the death penalty for certain same-sex acts, contradicted its values and that it would pause new funding until it could test measures to prevent discrimination in projects it finances. ...

The New Development Bank (NDB) established by the five-member BRICS group is offering loans in local currencies, part of its efforts to ditch the use of the U.S. dollar for world trade. NDB President Dilma Rousseff confirmed the move, adding that the financial institution plans to give 30 percent of loans in the local currencies of member nations. The NDB was established in 2014 by the BRICS group – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – to challenge the U.S.-dominated World Bank. Rousseff, who served as Brazil’s president from 2011 until her impeachment in 2016, took over the NDB’s...

President Biden's nominee to lead the World Bank says the twin global challenges of climate change and inequality need to be addressed simultaneously and cannot be separated. Ajay Banga, the former CEO of Mastercard, tells Morning Edition's Michel Martin that it will take the combined action of all stakeholders, from countries to the multilateral development banking system to the private sector to make a difference, particularly when it comes to climate change. "We don't have the time to play in silos," he says. Banga, who is 63, says the World Bank, which oversees billions of dollars in funding for developing...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is nominating former Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga to lead the World Bank, President Joe Biden announced on Thursday, crediting him with critical experience on global challenges including climate change. The news comes days after Trump appointee David Malpass announced plans to step down in June from his role leading the 189-nation poverty reduction agency. His five-year term was due to expire in April 2024. Addressing the impacts of climate change at the multilateral bank is a priority for the U.S. And leading climate figures have urged the Biden administration to use Malpass’ early departure...

World Bank president David Malpass, former Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs and a Trump appointee, announced Wednesday he would step down. Malpass began a five-year term on April 9, 2019, according to his bio, but is cutting his run short after Axios reported last fall the Biden administration was seeking to oust him for failing to agree with the administration on climate change. He’ll step down at the end of the fiscal year on June 30 after seeing the multilateral development organization through a global pandemic and a war in Europe that has contributed to food and...

he Federal Reserve’s aggressive tightening policy has led the US dollar to appreciate to multi-decade highs, squashing currencies around the world. Now, a United Nations agency is warning that its actions, along with those of other central banks, risk pushing the global economy into recession. What’s happening: In a new report, the United Nations Conference on Trade Development (UNCTAD) said that tightening monetary policy, meant to fight inflation, could inflict worse damage globally than the financial crisis in 2008 and the Covid-19 shock in 2020.

With their partnership with google, UN Secretary for Global Communication says they "own the science" on "climate change," and other viewpoints have now been pushed down in search results.

Twenty-seven House Democrats have joined a growing chorus of voices calling for the resignation of World Bank chief David Malpass after he made comments that critics say smacked of climate denial. In a letter sent Thursday to President Biden, representatives Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), Sean Casten (D-Ill.) and 25 other Democrats said Malpass’s recent comments were both “troubling” and “unacceptable” and that the World Bank should have a “leader who listens to the science and is a global leader in combating climate change.” “We urge you to advocate for the removal or forced resignation of David Malpass as World Bank Group...

Editor’s Commentary: I have long contended that those in the know among the “elites” have done whatever they can to avoid taking the actual Covid vaccines. I’ve suspected that the higher-ups like Barack Obama and Anthony Fauci are taking their “jabs” but they’re not really the so-called vaccines. Others are trying to buy their way out of getting the jabs by getting fake vax passports. In the article below by Matt Agorist from Free Thought Project, we see the latter in action. This took place in Spain, but we can assume it’s taking place in every western nation. Some people...

The World Bank's executive board approved $1.49 billion of additional financing for Ukraine on Tuesday to help pay wages for government and social workers, expanding the bank's total pledged support to over $4 billion. The World Bank said in a statement that the latest funding is supported by financing guarantees from Britain, the Netherlands, Lithuania and Latvia. The project is also being supported by parallel financing from Italy and contributions from a new Multi-Donor Trust Fund. Ukraine has said that it needs at least $5 billion per month in the near term to keep its government operating in the face...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shared on Thursday, addressing the World Bank Forum, that the country will need around $7 billion monthly, to be able to recover from the losses the Russian side caused during its special military operation. The head of Ukraine urged the international community to ban Russia from international financial institutions as soon as possible, as well as cut any other interactions with the latter.

Traditional Fascism was defined as an authoritarian government working hand-in-glove with corporations to achieve totalitarian objectives. A centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, using severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.That governmental system didn’t work in the long-term because the underlying principles driving free people rejected government authoritarianism. Fascist governments collapsed and the corporate beneficiaries were nulled and scorned. Then along came a new approach to achieve the same objective.The World Economic Forum (WEF) was created to use the same fundamental associations of government and corporations. Only this time the corporations organized to tell the...

The World Bank Group today released the findings of its probe into data irregularities discovered in 2018 and 2020 reports; and along with those findings, it confirmed that it will be discontinuing 'Doing Business' reports.Specifically, Bloomberg reports that International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva was cited by the World Bank in the probe....“The changes to China’s data in Doing Business 2018 appear to be the product of two distinct types of pressure applied by bank leadership on the Doing Business team,” the World Bank said in a report Thursday.The bank cited “pressure applied by CEO Georgieva and her advisor,...