The Guardian UK:
"‘Brazen’ political influence of rich laid bare as wealth of billionaires reaches $18.3tn, says Oxfam. Governments opting for oligarchy while brutally repressing protests over austerity and lack of jobs, charity report says
The world saw a record number of billionaires created last year, with a collective wealth of $18.3tn (£13.7tn), while global efforts stalled in the fight against poverty and hunger. Oxfam’s annual survey of global inequality has revealed that the number of billionaires surpassed 3,000 for the first time during 2025. Since 2020, their collective wealth grew by 81%, or $8.2tn, which the charity claims would be enough to eradicate global poverty 26 times over.
But the authors reported that most governments were failing ordinary people by capitulating to the increasingly blatant influence of the rich. The past 12 months have seen youth-led uprisings against inequality across countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. But protests over corruption, austerity, unemployment and high living costs have routinely been ignored and instead harshly put down by governments, said Max Lawson, co-author of the report."
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jan/19/brazen-political-influence-rich-laid-bare-wealth-billionaires-inequality-poverty-instability-oxfam
-->The NYT doesn't pay much attention to billionaires, especially if it is negative. It's clearly the Empire's most important rag.
=====
Common Dreams:
"Trump Isn’t the First to Be Gifted a Nobel Prize He Didn’t Win—Joseph Goebbels Got One Too. In 1943, the Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun gave his Nobel Prize for Literature to the infamous Nazi criminal.
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado’s gifting of her 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to US President Donald Trump raised eyebrows around the world Friday—but it wasn’t the first time that the winner of the prestigious award gave it away.
Last month, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the peace prize to the 58-year-old opposition leader “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
Machado joined a notorious group of Nobel Peace laureates who either waged or advocated for war, as she backed Trump’s aggression against her country. This has included a massive troop deployment, military and CIA airstrikes, bombing of boats allegedly transporting drugs, and the abduction earlier this month of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/machado-nobel-prize-trump
-->Machado's gifting wasn't widely reported on in the US media. It diminishes the Empire's credibility too much.
=====
Peace and Planet News:
"Jeremy Brecher’s newest report, co-published by the Labor Network for Sustainability and ZNetwork.org, argues that the US is facing an increased authoritarian threat under Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, characterized by executive overreach, suppression of dissent, and the use of state and vigilante violence.
In response, Brecher asserts that the country must look beyond conventional means and consider social strikes–large-scale, nonviolent withdrawal of cooperation, a tactic that has brought down authoritarian regimes around the world. He defines social strikes as mass actions that make society ungovernable by disrupting not just workplaces, but all political and social structures that enable tyranny.
By citing international and US examples, the report outlines how such strikes have been organized, what tactics they use, and how they might serve as a last line of defense if democratic institutions are further eroded. While success is never guaranteed, Brecher emphasizes that understanding these methods is essential to resisting a potential MAGA dictatorship."
https://peaceandplanetnews.org/
-->Too radical for the Empire's newspaper.
