Dem Senator calls out GOP's 'aversion to gun control' after university shooting

Robert Davis
December 14, 2025

RAW STORY


Police respond to the shooting on the campus of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, U.S. December 13, 2025. Marc Vasconcellos/USA Today Network via REUTERS

A Democratic Senator called out the GOP's "aversion to gun control" on Sunday following the deadly shooting at Brown University.

On Saturday, a gunman killed two students and critically wounded nine others at Brown University. Police have arrested an individual they've identified as a person of interest.

A vigil is scheduled on Sunday night for the slain students.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) discussed the shooting during an interview on MS NOW's weekend show, "White House: Weekend."

"We're going to have to roll up our sleeves and get back in the fight, literally," Reed said about Democrats working with Republicans on gun control measures. "Are there sympathetic elements? I think there are. But they have to overcome a general aversion in their party to any type of gun control."

Reed laid part of the blame for the lack of support for gun control policies at the feet of the gun lobby, which he described as "well-financed and entrenched."

"There are cultural issues here," he added. "We all remember the western movies where everybody had a gun. And there are many parts of the United States, including even parts of New England, where, having a weapon is something that they feel is a right that they must have, and they vigorously defend it."

"So we're trying to convince people that for their good, for their safety, the safety of their children, without restricting access to firearms, for hunting and for target shooting and everything that is like sport ... but we are going to make sure people are safer," Reed added. "It's a long struggle."

‘We Don’t Have to Live This Way’: Deadly Brown Shooting Spurs Calls for Action on Guns

“Our lawmakers fail us every day that they refuse to take action on gun violence,” said Students Demand Action.



Emergency personnel respond to a fatal mass shooting at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island on December 13, 2025.
(Photo by Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Dec 13, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

With at least two people dead, several others in critical but stable condition at Rhode Island Hospital, and a suspect at large after a Saturday shooting at Brown University in Providence, gun violence prevention advocates and some US lawmakers renewed calls for swift action to take on what the nonprofit Brady called “a uniquely American problem” that “is completely preventable.”

“Our hearts are with the victims, survivors, their families, and the entire community of Brown University and the surrounding Providence area in this horrific time,” said Brady president Kris Brown in a statement. “As students prepare for finals and then head home to loved ones for the holidays, our all-too-American gun violence crisis has shattered their safety.”

“Guns are the leading cause of death for youth in this nation. Only in America do we live in fear of being shot and killed in our schools, places of worship, and grocery stores,” she continued. “Now, as students, faculty, and staff hide and barricade themselves in immense fear, we once again call on lawmakers in Congress and around the country to take action against this uniquely American public health crisis. We cannot continue to allow politics and special interests to take priority over our lives and safety.”

Despite some early misinformation, no suspects are in custody, and authorities are searching for a man in dark clothing. The law enforcement response is ongoing and Brown remains in lockdown, according to a 9:29 pm Eastern update on the university’s website. Everyone is urged to shelter in place, which “means keeping all doors locked and ensuring no movement across campus.”

The Ivy League university’s president, Christina H. Paxson, said in a public message that “this is a deeply tragic day for Brown, our families, and our local community. There are truly no words that can express the deep sorrow we are feeling for the victims of the shooting that took place today at the Barus & Holley engineering and physics building.”



US Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said on social media that he was “praying for the victims and their families,” and thanked the first responders who “put themselves in harm’s way to protect all of us.” He also echoed the city’s mayor, Brett Smiley, “in urging Rhode Islanders to heed only official updates from Brown University and the Providence Police.”

In a statement, US Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) also acknowledged everyone impacted by “this horrific, active, and unfolding tragedy,” and stressed the importance of everyone listening to law enforcement “as they continue working to ensure the entire campus and surrounding community is safe, and the threat is neutralized.”

The state’s two Democratic congressmen, Brown alumnus Seth Magaziner and Gabe Amo, released similar statements. Amo also said that “the scourge of mass shootings is a horrific stain on our nation. We must seek policies to ensure that these tragedies do not strike yet another community and no more lives are needlessly taken from us.”

Elected officials at various levels of government across the country sent their condolences to the Brown community. Some also used the 389th US mass shooting this year and the 230th gun incident on school grounds—according to Brady’s president—to argue that, as US House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.) put it, “it’s past time for us to act and stop senseless gun violence from happening again.”



Both Democratic US senators from Massachusetts also emphasized on Saturday that, in Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s words, “students should be able to learn in peace, not fear gun violence.” Her colleague Sen. Ed Markey said that “we must act now to end this painful epidemic of gun violence. Our children should be safe at school.”

New York City’s democratic socialist mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, noted that this shooting occurred just before the anniversary of the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut:
This senseless violence—once considered unfathomable—has become nauseatingly normal to all of us across our nation. Tonight, on the eve of the anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting, we find ourselves in mourning once again.

The epidemic of gun violence stretches across America. We reckon with it when we step into our houses of worship and out onto our streets, when we drop our children off at kindergarten and when we fear if those children, now grown, will be safe on campus. But unlike so many other epidemics, we possess the cure. We have the power to eradicate this suffering from our lives if we so choose.

I send my deepest condolences to the families of the victims, and to the Brown and Providence communities, who are wrestling with a grief that will feel familiar to far too many others. May we never allow ourselves to grow numb to this pain, and let us rededicate ourselves to the enduring work of ending the scourge of gun violence in our nation.

Fred Guttenberg has been advocating against gun violence since his 14-year-old daughter was among those murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida nearly eight years ago. He said on social media that he knows two current students at Brown and asserted that “IT DOESN’T NEED TO BE THIS WAY!!!”



Students Demand Action similarly declared: “Make no mistake: We DO NOT have to live and die like this. Our lawmakers fail us every day that they refuse to take action on gun violence.”

Gabby Giffords, a former Democratic congresswoman from Arizona who became an activist after surviving a 2011 assassination attempt, said that “my heart breaks for Brown University. Students should only have to worry about studying for finals right now, not hiding from gunfire. Guns are the leading cause of death for young people in America—this is a five-alarm fire and our leaders in Washington have ignored it for too long. Americans are tired of waiting around for Congress to decide that protecting kids matters.”

John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, warned that “we either take action, or we bury more of our kids.”

The Associated Press noted that “Rhode Island has some of the strictest gun laws in the US. Last spring the Democratic-controlled Legislature passed an assault weapon ban that will prohibit the sale and manufacturing of certain high-powered firearms, but not their possession, starting next July.”

Gun violence prevention advocates often argue for federal restrictions, given that, as Everytown’s latest analysis of state-level policies points out, “even the strongest system can’t protect a state from its neighbors’ weak laws.”

These alarming changes show how Trump is wrecking public health

P. Travis Harker,

 New Hampshire Bulletin
December 14, 2025

As a family physician, I work every day to earn the trust of my patients. I see lines being blurred between politics and medicine and, despite the high trust the public has in their own physician, it is becoming harder to separate medical and scientific information from misinformation.

I hear this concern from my patients, particularly when trusted resources, like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), make drastic policy shifts: Is this science based decision-making or politics?

Who do you trust?


With every new patient I see, I share my approach to care by saying, “I work for you. In many ways, you are my boss. My job is the make assessments and recommendations, yours is to make decisions, and I’m here to help you with that. How does that sound to you?”

People universally embrace this approach. It promotes individual autonomy and shifts the power to the patient — where it belongs. National surveys reveal that trust in government agencies such as the CDC is at an all time low, on par with approval ratings for Congress. However, trust in one’s own personal physician remains very high, with nearly eight in 10 people rating their personal doctors as “very good” or “excellent,” according to a recent People’s Voices Survey.


Despite this relatively high trust the public has in their own doctors, the insertion of politics into the exam room has made it harder for people to make the right decisions for themselves by infecting the relationship between people and their doctors with misinformation, causing people to second guess recommendations they are receiving.

Pull back the curtain

The public has good reason to be suspicious of the CDC right now. The changes approved last week by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, are arbitrary, not science-based, and go against decades of safety and efficacy data. Their vote to remove hepatitis B vaccination from the recommended infant and child schedule will lead to a resurgence of hepatitis B.

Prior to recommending newborn vaccination in 1991, 18,000 children were diagnosed annually with hep B, a chronic illness that leads to liver failure and liver cancer.

Half of these children were infected through mother-to-child transmission, and giving the shot at birth prevents the virus from taking hold.

The other half occurred through contact with saliva or blood exposure to someone else who is infected. The virus can stay active for up to a week on surfaces and is known to have been transmitted during sports and in child care settings, through coming in contact with the virus by touching a contaminated surface, or exposure to scrapes or bites. (Up to half of the children in child care are bitten by another child each year.)

Since vaccination was universally recommended, infection rates have dropped by nearly 99 percent, and today we see much less liver failure and cancer resulting from hepatitis B infection. No one wants to see those numbers increase again.

What are physicians saying?

Making ACIP a political committee rather than one based on science means that recommendations are subject to bias and can no longer be trusted. This breach of trust by our government results in lack of confidence in vaccine recommendations across the board, including those by the public’s trusted health care professionals who they continue to see as excellent.

Because politics and politicians are interfering with the patient-doctor relationships and undermining trust in public health measures like vaccines, we will likely see infections rise as we have seen with measles this past year.

While the federal government is spreading misinformation through ACIP and the CDC, the state of New Hampshire is showing that it still trusts doctors over politics with regard to childhood vaccines, directing New Hampshire doctors to adhere to vaccine recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Family Physicians.

As I stated earlier, I work every day to earn the trust of my patients and to share the best medical information and highest-quality patient care available. I keep politics out of the exam room, and we need the politicians to stay out of our exam rooms and our relationships with our patients.

When going to see your doctor, remember that we work for you and our recommendations are based on years of training, a dedication to science, and, most importantly, a commitment to partnering with you to make the best decisions for your health.

P. Travis Harker, MD, MPH is a family physician in Portsmouth and a past president of the New Hampshire Medical Society.

Preparations for an attack on Rojava?

Turkey met with delegations from France, the United States, Britain and Russia to attack North and East Syria, destroy its gains and force the SDF to disarm.

ZEYNEP BORAN

ANF
NEWS CENTER
Saturday, December 13, 2025 

While the Syrian crisis has become the focus of regional and Western powers again; The Turkish state is intensifying its intelligence and diplomatic activities in order to destroy the gains and military power of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. In this process, which marks the first year of Jolani's seizure of power in Damascus and the last three months of the deadline for the implementation of the March 10 agreement, we see that the diplomatic language has hardened.

While jihadist groups within Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) openly threaten the Autonomous Administration, it is known that the talks between the HTS regime and the Autonomous Administration have stopped for a while. On the other hand, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan imposes that every step to be taken within the scope of the March 10 agreement should be taken according to his wishes.

There was heavy traffic, especially in the first weeks of December 2025. Meetings were held with the participation of a security delegation representing the HTS regime, as well as delegations from the UK, Turkey, France, the United States and Russia. This reflects the international understanding that Syria's future cannot be determined militarily and that the Autonomous Administration has become an important actor in the political and security environment. In all its meetings, Turkey describes the political and social activities of the Autonomous Administration as a "direct threat to Turkey's national security" and the support of the Autonomous Administration by Israel, France and the United States as "an attack on the territorial integrity of Syria." It was learned that the Turkish delegation told the French delegation that this support "allows the PKK to create a safe corridor between northern Iraq and Syria, which threatens Turkey's border security."

In the meetings, the details of which we have reached, the views of some international parties, especially the British and French delegations, on the Autonomous Administration draw attention. It is stated that the delegations said that the Kurds in Syria do not demand separation or independence, on the contrary, they want to stay within the borders of a united Syria, but that a decentralized or federal model should be applied for this. At the same time, the delegations clearly emphasized the need to guarantee the political, security, cultural and economic rights of the Kurds and ensure their fair representation in the institutions of power.

This attitude is implicit recognition of the legitimacy of the Autonomous Administration and reflects a general Western tendency to see the Autonomous Administration as an important partner in stability and the fight against ISIS, especially considering the key role of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in defeating ISIS.

It was learned that the Turkish delegation tried to limit the March 10 agreement to the withdrawal of the SDF from Deir al-Zor, Reqa and Tebqa and the disarmament of the SDF. Moreover, it was stated that he asked the French delegation to put direct pressure on the SDF to force it to surrender its weapons and join HTS's institutions, which was rejected by France. It was noted that the Turkish delegation expressed its disappointment with what it described as "Europe's strict stance" and argued that Europe continues to support the Autonomous Administration within the framework of the "fight against terrorism" and that this support reflects Europe's independence from Turkish pressure to some extent.

Despite the new pragmatic relationship established between Turkey and the HTS regime after the fall of the Baath regime, HTS has not fully adopted Ankara's policy. As HTS seeks to rebuild a centralized state, it recognizes that the Autonomous Administration and the SDF are an important military, political, and social force that cannot be ignored or dismantled. However, it was stated that the Damascus delegation insisted on the individual integration of SDF fighters into the Syrian army, security, oil and natural gas, prisons where ISIS members are held, and the transfer of control of border crossings to it.

It was learned that Russia was cautious in managing its relations with all parties. Although it is a key partner for Turkey on many issues, it seems willing to maintain open channels of communication with the Autonomous Administration.

Despite Turkey's forcing HTS to launch an attack on the Autonomous Administration, Moscow has given clear messages that any attack could directly conflict with its interests and weaken its influence, especially in the coastal regions of Syria. Russia's position reflects the understanding that a possible attack would destabilize the country and revive extremist organizations. This does not align with Russia's current interests in Syria.

The sources emphasized that the US delegation firmly and unequivocally rejects any attack against the areas under the control of the Autonomous Administration. Washington believes that a large-scale war would lead to the resurgence of ISIS and threaten the security gains made by the SDF in recent years. It was stated that the US delegation conveyed these concerns directly to Turkey, emphasizing that stability in North and East Syria is a key element of the US strategy in the region and that the SDF is an indispensable partner.

Among these complex dynamics, Russian sources to the Israeli security delegation; An unexpected Israeli role emerged when Turkey announced that it had informed Moscow of its plans to establish permanent bases in southern Syria in order to limit its influence. This development reflects the multiplicity of actors involved in the Syrian crisis and shows that any radical shift in the balance of power in the north of the country will inevitably affect the south, where sensitive regional security interests intersect.

In addition, it was learned that the Turkish delegation claimed that Israel prevented the US from approving Turkey's operation against the Autonomous Administration on the grounds that Iran would be active in Syria again. This reflects Israel's strategy to maintain its influence in Syria and put pressure on Turkey.

All these developments show that the main disagreement between the Autonomous Administration and the HTS regime is not limited to security, border issues and oil, but also lies at the core of the identity of the future Syrian state. While HTS is moving towards once again imposing the centralist system that Syrians have suffered for decades, the Autonomous Administration adheres to a decentralized project based on the distribution of power according to geographical, ethnic and religious criteria, compatible with the complex realities of Syrian society.

In the new power struggle in the region, the chances of the Autonomous Administration and the SDF consolidating their positions in the Syrian geography are higher than ever. In short, it is clear that the Kurds have succeeded in positioning themselves as a key force in the future of Syria over the past decade. With the growing conviction in the regional and international arena that a decentralized model may be the most realistic option for Syria's stability, the Autonomous Administration project demonstrates the will to move forward towards becoming an integral part of Syria's future political structure, despite numerous challenges and pressures.

'Prisons and Human Rights' panel in London

In the panel held in London, the oppressive regime established through prisons, systematic violations of rights and isolation policies against political prisoners were discussed.


ANF
LONDON
Monday, December 15, 2025 at 00:26 AM

A panel titled "Prisons and Human Rights" was held at the Kurdish Community Center in London on December 14 under the leadership of representatives of NADEK (Kurdish Assembly), UPOTUDAK and TSP. In the panel, which was held with intense participation, the oppressive regime built through prisons, systematic violations of rights against political prisoners and isolation policies were discussed in detail.

Aya Costar, one of the first speakers of the panel, emphasized that the essence of the detention is political and stated that the existence of political prisoners cannot be denied even in Europe. Stating that İmralı is one of the places where the isolation system is applied most severely in Turkey, Costar said that isolation directly targets human dignity. Reminding that the Palestinian people have been subjected to torture and collective punishment policies for years, Costar stated that political oppression is not limited to a single geography. He pointed out that the fact that Kurdish activist Mehmet Cebrar is facing the threat of exile is also a part of this policy.

Writer-Journalist İlham Bakır discussed the historical birth and function of prisons in modern society. Stating that prisons are used not only through the relationship between crime and punishment, but also as "laboratories" for the purpose of controlling and disciplining the society, Bakır stated that the system first spreads the methods it tried in prisons to the whole society. Emphasizing that modern society, from apartment-type life to the education system, has been re-established with prison architecture, Bakır said that the only way out against this is to build an organized, communal and solidarity society. He noted that the power of the people is not in weapons or capital, but in organization.

Speaking on behalf of UPOTUDAK, Süleyman Gürem stated that isolation practices are a form of torture in themselves. Underlining that isolation is not only punishment, but also an unlawful practice that deprives people of being subjects and causes psychological and physical destruction, Gürem reminded that this system, which is not limited to the example of Ahmet Garan, has been aggravated on Leader Apo for years. Stating that this situation is clearly contrary to international conventions and human rights law, Gürem emphasized that the aim is to silence social opposition.

The panel also drew attention to the current situation in Turkish prisons. It was stated that the actual detention periods of more than 400 days turned into torture, and women and children were forced to live under harsh conditions. It was stated that hundreds of children were kept in prison with their mothers, and approximately 600 seriously ill prisoners were prevented from their right to treatment and left to die. It was emphasized that isolation was institutionalized with well-type prisons, and the rights of communication and visitation were systematically usurped.

Among the violations of rights listed by UPOTUDAK; book and publication bans, arbitrary disciplinary penalties, practices that prevent release, imposition of strip searches against female prisoners and arbitrary restriction of communication rights. It was stated that all these practices constitute crimes against humanity.

In the last part of the panel, the importance of resistance and solidarity came to the fore. While emphasizing that the struggle is collective, not individual, it called for increasing international solidarity from the Palestinian resistance to anti-fascist movements in Europe. In this process where journalists, human rights defenders and political prisoners are targeted, the necessity of a united struggle was emphasized. The panel ended with a call to build a common line against torture and isolation.

Tech savvy users have most digital concerns

University College London

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Digital concerns around privacy, online misinformation, and work-life boundaries are highest among highly educated, Western European millennials, finds a new study from researchers at UCL and the University of British Columbia.  The research, published in Information, Communication & Society, also found individuals with higher levels of digital literacy are the most affected by these concerns.   For the study, the researchers used from the European Social Survey (ESS) – a project that collects nationally representative data on public attitudes, beliefs and behaviour, from thousands of people across Europe every two years.   They analysed responses from nearly 50,000 people in 30 countries* between 2020 and 2022.  For the ESS, participants were asked how much they thought digital tech infringes on privacy, helps spread misinformation, and causes work-life interruptions. Combining responses to the questions into a single index, the researchers generated a digital concern scale, ranging from 0 to 1, where a higher score indicates greater concern.   To establish their digital literacy and digital exposure, the respondents were asked how often they use the internet and to rate their familiarity with preference settings on a computer, advanced search on the internet, and using PDFs. At the country level, digital exposure was captured through the percentage of the population using the internet in each country.   The researchers looked at the levels of concern across different countries, as well as how the concern varies across social groups.  They also looked at patterns by people’s digital literacy and their exposure to digital tech.   Findings  They found millennials (those aged 25–44 in 2022) reported greater concerns, compared to younger (15–24) and older adults (75+). They found no significant differences in the level of digital concerns between men and women, nor between income groups or between urban and rural residents.    Across the board, people were more concerned about the potential harms of digital technologies than not. Bulgaria was the only country in the study that did not exceed the mid-point (0.5) on the digital concern scale (0–1). Of all the countries studied, digital concern was lowest in Bulgaria (with a score of 0.47) and highest in the Netherlands (0.74), followed by the UK (0.73).   Compared with native-born citizens, migrants reported lower levels of digital concern, and those who were in work had a lower level of digital concerns than those out of work. People with middle/high school education and those with a university degree reported greater levels of worry compared to their peers with no education or only primary school education.   The researchers found that those with greater tech know-how are more concerned about the negative impacts of digitalisation, but this association is only observed among people who use digital technology on most days or on a daily basis.   The findings suggest that individuals may perceive the potential harms of digitalisation as something that is beyond their control. So, the more they know about and are exposed to the issues, the more powerless and concerned they may feel.   Lead author Dr Yang Hu (UCL Social Research Institute) said: “Our findings call into question the assumption that greater exposure to the digital world reduces our concern about its potential harm.   “Rather than becoming desensitised, greater use of digital technology seems to heighten our concerns about it, particularly among people who have a high level of digital literacy.   “Anxieties about digitalisation have become a defining feature of today’s world. As our use and understanding of technology grows, concern about its potential harm can impact individuals’ mental health and quality of life, as well as wider societal well-being.    “As businesses, governments, and societies embrace new technologies, tech has become ubiquitous and digital literacy is essential for most people. The rapid development of AI is undoubtedly accelerating this process, so digital concern is not an issue that can be ignored.”   Co-author Dr Yue Qian (University of British Columbia, Canada) said: “Our results reveal dual paradoxes: those who are supposedly most vulnerable to digital harms – young people, older adults, and those with a low level of digital literacy – appear least concerned about the harms, while those with advanced digital skills report the most concern.    “While mainstream efforts at improving digital literacy have focused on bolstering practical skills, authorities should not ignore people’s concerns about what rapid digitalisation means for the subjective well-being of individuals and societies.”     Notes to Editors    *29 European countries and Israel.  For more information or to speak to the researchers involved, please contact Sophie Hunter, UCL Media Relations E: sophie.hunter@ucl.ac.uk, T: +44 7502505610  The paper will be published in on Monday 15th December, 00:01 UK time and are under a strict embargo until this time.     Hu, Y., Qian, Y., (2025). Who is concerned about digitalization? The role of digital literacy and exposure across 30 countries. Information, Communication & Society. DOI 10.1080/1369118X.2025.2592771        About UCL (University College London)   UCL is a diverse global community of world-class academics, students, industry links, external partners, and alumni. Our powerful collective of individuals and institutions work together to explore new possibilities.   Since 1826, we have championed independent thought by attracting and nurturing the world's best minds. Our community of more than 50,000 students from 150 countries and over 16,000 staff pursues academic excellence, breaks boundaries and makes a positive impact on real world problems.   We are consistently ranked among the top 10 universities in the world and are one of only a handful of institutions rated as having the strongest academic reputation and the broadest research impact.   We have a progressive and integrated approach to our teaching and research – championing innovation, creativity and cross-disciplinary working. We teach our students how to think, not what to think, and see them as partners, collaborators and contributors.    For almost 200 years, we are proud to have opened higher education to students from a wide range of backgrounds and to change the way we create and share knowledge.   We were the first in England to welcome women to university education and that courageous attitude and disruptive spirit is still alive today. We are UCL.   www.ucl.ac.uk | Read news at www.ucl.ac.uk/news/ | Follow UCL News on Bluesky and LinkedIn  ​ ​

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Journal

Information Communication & Society

DOI

10.1080/1369118X.2025.2592771 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Article Title

Who is concerned about digitalization? The role of digital literacy and exposure across 30 countries

Article Publication Date

15-Dec-2025

Does the ‘Military-Digital Complex’ Control Everything?

By Dario Guarascio

12.12.2025

TRIBUNE

Once regarded as a utopian project, digitalisation is now letting Big Tech and superpower governments regulate the world in ominous new ways. Is rejecting the devices and technologies they control the only effective way to fight back?

National Guard soldiers look at their phones as they sit in the cargo doors of the busses being used to transport them to and from the U.S. Capitol building on January 15, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Credit: Samuel Corum via Getty Images.)

Consider four events that vividly capture the spirit of our times. In late August 2025, in the port city of Tianjin in northern China, Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi, and Vladimir Putin — surrounded by the heads of state of twenty-three other non-Western nations (among them Iran, Pakistan, and the Central Asian republics) — sealed an economic and strategic alliance representing roughly 36 percent of global GDP, and 40 percent of the world’s population.

The following day, in Beijing, during the celebrations marking the 80th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II, China displayed to the world its formidable military might. Alongside ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States and annihilating its Pacific bases, the parade unveiled a new generation of digital weaponry — drones, autonomous vessels, robotic dogs, digital air defence systems, and hybrid warfare apparatuses — all crucial to prevailing on contemporary battlefields, in which China appears second to none.

Meanwhile, across the ocean at the White House, the Trumps dined with the chief executives of the great digital corporations — the Big Tech (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft) — joined by representatives from firms like Cisco, Nvidia, Oracle, and Palantir, completing the US digital ecosystem. The purpose of the dinner: to solidify the alliance between the government and the digital oligopolists, mostly rooted in Silicon Valley, whose mission is to preserve America’s wavering technological supremacy — first and foremost in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

For Big Tech, the invitation could not have been more welcome. Military expenditure has become an increasingly lucrative source of profit. The trillion dollars allocated by Trump for the new anti-missile shield — built on cutting-edge aerospace and digital technologies — marks only the latest step in a process that has seen the digital industry shift sharply away from communication, entertainment, and advertising, toward surveillance, social control, and military applications.

A symbolic counterpart to this militarisation of the digital arrives with the fourth event: on September 5, 2025, Trump renamed the Department of Defense the Department of War (DoW) — restoring the title it held in 1940, a year before the United States entered the Second World War.

Meanwhile, ongoing conflicts show no sign of abating, expanding their destructive reach. Other flashpoints ignite — between India and Pakistan, between Cambodia and Thailand — deepening geopolitical tensions and accelerating the fragmentation of the global economy. The grim toll of casualties carries with it a mounting risk of escalation, even of a nuclear kind.

The Military-Digital Complex and the New World (Dis)order

At the dawn of the internet, digitalisation was heralded as the key to unlocking the emancipatory virtues of the free market — spreading knowledge and economic opportunity, but above all ensuring peace and strengthening democracy. Today, it seems instead to be reviving old contradictions. Digitalisation has not only revolutionised how we communicate, produce, and consume; it has also fostered an unprecedented concentration of economic and technological power. Consider the market capitalisation, revenues, and profits of the US-based Big Tech firms in 2024 and 2025. In March 2025, their combined market capitalisation was three times the GDP of Germany and not far from that of the entire Euro Area ($16 trillion). In 2024, their share of profits over revenues was at 27 percent, a very high value for US companies. R&D expenditure was 13 percent of revenue.

This concentration of techno-economic power breathes new life into the theses of thinkers like Hobson and Lenin, who revealed the imperialist nature of capitalism by linking war to the expansionist strategies of the great industrial monopolies of the early twentieth century. Old contradictions — inequality, instability, and the fractures within political and institutional systems that find in war their ‘natural’ outlet — now wear a new technological mask. The clash is between two military-digital complexes, the United States and China, locked in an increasingly violent struggle for control of markets, technologies, and critical raw materials. The digital sphere has become their privileged battleground: a vast panopticon where the profit-maximising strategies of digital oligopolies (which depend on constant surveillance and the extraction of data from those — ourselves included — who rely on their services) converge with the security, geopolitical, and military objectives of their respective states.

It is a perverse alliance. Private capital monopolises infrastructures (data centres, undersea cables), technologies (cloud and AI), and knowledge — codified in the patents they accumulate or embodied tacitly within organisations, and thus inaccessible to outsiders — now indispensable for conducting virtually any social or economic activity.

The state facilitates this process and seldom resists it (though tensions and contradictions abound), caught as it is in a relationship of mutual dependency. It cannot do without the technological and infrastructural capacities of Big Tech; without them, many of its objectives — both civilian and military — would be unattainable. Nor is it eager to curb the economic power of those who control the (social) platforms where public opinion and political consensus are shaped.

Through their respective Big Tech firms, the US and Chinese governments can maintain other nations within their spheres of digital subordination — possessing ‘eyes and ears’ that deliver a constant and invaluable stream of information.

Yet, dependence runs in the opposite direction as well. For Big Tech, cultivating a stable alliance with the state is not optional — it is a matter of survival. Their profits depend on their ability to monopolise network infrastructures and the data flowing through them. Hostile regulation or moves to bring these infrastructures under state control could severely limit, or even destroy, their capacity for accumulation. The same would be true of any serious increase in taxation.

And if the global economy slows — crippled by commercial, technological, and military wars, and by pervasive uncertainty — then the state, and particularly military spending, becomes an essential lifeline for preserving profit margins.

War, moreover, offers technological opportunity. It channels massive funding into military research in fields where Big Tech already holds dominance — automated command and control systems, artificial intelligence, and autonomous weapons. Active participation in conflicts also provides an unparalleled testing ground, where new applications can be refined under extreme conditions, free from oversight or ethical constraint.

Economy, Technology, and War

What is the relationship between economy, technology, and war? What can history and economic theory teach us about that recurring pendulum that drives technological evolution — at times toward the betterment of human life through advances in health or the environment, and at others toward the multiplication and refinement of instruments of death?

And what are the consequences of the militarisation of the dominant technological paradigm — the digital one, in our case? What explains the unprecedented power of Big Tech? Why, despite decades of evidence and political denunciation of the destructive effects of digital monopolies, has that power never been seriously challenged?

We will attempt to answer these questions by tracing the mechanisms that make contemporary society dependent on digital oligopolies.

The power of Big Tech has grown in parallel with the digitalisation of war. What, then, is the role of digital technologies in past and present conflicts? How has their partial redirection toward military goals altered the very nature of the great digital corporations? First, autonomous weapons and AI-based decision-support systems: the growing centrality of these tools carries enormous implications. It increases the leverage of Big Tech within the military-digital complex; it accelerates decision-making while narrowing the space for human intervention, heightening the risk of escalation; and it undermines the mechanisms of deterrence that, until now, have prevented nuclear confrontation.

Looking at the United States, the fusion of Big Tech and the military apparatus manifests itself not only in the vast number of contracts — most of them concerning critical infrastructures and technologies — that feed the profits of digital oligopolists, but also in the transformation of the government’s industrial and technological policy.

Private actors play an ever-growing role, and new institutions (for example, the Defence Innovation Unit, a DoD agency based in Silicon Valley to promote technology transfer from the civilian to the military domain) emerge to facilitate Big Tech’s participation in shaping research and innovation strategies. What the military establishment demands from them is speed: to accelerate the transfer of new applications from the civilian to the military domain. In exchange, Big Tech appropriates immense public resources and shields its monopolistic power.

A Chinese Military-Digital Complex?

While the United States appeared to dominate the global economy unchallenged — thanks in part to the meteoric rise of Big Tech — something equally momentous was taking place on the other side of the Pacific. China was achieving its own rapid economic and technological ascent by combining openness to international trade, strong public intervention, and long-term industrial planning. This strategy enabled Beijing to close the gap with Washington and to gain control over key production chains, including in the digital sector.

As the United States and Europe steadily eroded their own manufacturing capacity, China became the indispensable producer of most goods and components. It also became the only nation capable of building a digital ecosystem — anchored around its own Big Tech giants (Alibaba, Baidu, Huawei, and Tencent) — able to compete with its American counterpart. This ecosystem, while in some ways similar — given the systemic nature of China’s Big Tech firms and their central role in developing digital infrastructures and technologies — is also profoundly different, shaped by the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ability to exert direct influence over the behaviour and strategies of major corporations.

A Chinese-style military-digital complex, then? The tendencies are indeed symmetrical. As the confrontation with the United States intensifies, the bond between the CCP and firms like Alibaba and Tencent grows ever tighter. Military applications dominate China’s technological and research strategy as well, enabling it to impress its rival in crucial fields such as generative AI, quantum computing, and autonomous weaponry.

The Clash between Military-Digital Complexes

The clash between the two military-digital complexes is now open. Since the first Trump administration, the United States has implemented measures designed to hinder China’s digital rise: restrictions on the export of cutting-edge microchips (and the machinery needed to produce them), intended to slow Chinese progress; pressure on U.S. allies — including Europe — to limit the market access of Chinese tech firms; and outright confrontational acts, such as the arrest in Canada (at Washington’s request) of Huawei’s founder’s daughter. Huawei was not just any company, but the colossus that, having begun by producing elementary components for China’s telecom networks, rose in less than two decades to dominate the global networking industry — all while cultivating close ties with the security services and the People’s Liberation Army.

Trump’s return to the White House further sharpened the confrontation, though amid a general climate of uncertainty and unpredictability surrounding US strategy. The tit-for-tat that followed ‘Liberation Day’ — April 2, 2025, as Trump dubbed the day he imposed tariffs on all imports from countries with which the United States ran a trade deficit — gave a clear sense of the forces at play and of the centrality of the digital industry to the conflict. China was among the hardest hit by US tariffs (an initial 34 percent duty on Chinese imports, coupled with the abolition of exemptions that had allowed duty-free shipments under $800 — a vital mechanism for e-commerce platforms like Shein and Temu). Trump threatened to raise the tariffs even higher should Beijing retaliate.

China’s response went well beyond mere reprisal — and it had the power to shatter Washington’s coercive ambitions. With Announcement No. 18, the CCP imposed restrictions on the export of rare earths — chemical elements with unique properties that, while not scarce in the Earth’s crust, are difficult to extract and separate due to their low concentration — and on the permanent magnets that depend on them. China supplies about 90 percent of global magnet production and 60 percent of refining capacity.

These materials are indispensable for manufacturing a vast array of digital devices and are critical components in missile defence systems and next-generation fighter jets. Control over such strategic sectors — and the deep interdependence that binds the U.S. and Chinese economies more tightly than it appears — greatly strengthened China’s negotiating position. Trump, faced with this reality, backtracked: he softened his stance and initiated bilateral talks that minimised the penalties on Chinese imports. A brief exchange of blows, then — one that momentarily (new Chinese restrictions on the export of rare earth and magnets are in sight) eased tensions while highlighting the centrality of the digital industry, and its interconnected supply chains, in shaping the balance and evolution of the confrontation between the two blocs.

Europe: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

What about Europe? Caught in the crossfire between the two military-digital complexes, Europe plays the part of the fragile clay vessel among iron pots. It remains largely dependent on the United States for digital infrastructure and services. American Big Tech dominates European markets, absorbing vast amounts of data and deepening that dependence still further.

In trade negotiations, Trump makes his stance plain: any punitive measures against Big Tech will trigger retaliations against Europe. Technological dependence thus intertwines with military subordination — a condition the United States exploits coercively to keep Europe as distant from China as possible, while pushing for a European rearmament policy whose main effect is to funnel resources into, and thereby strengthen, the US military-digital complex.

Trapped within a self-defeating economic policy framework that leaves little room for industrial strategy — except when it serves the purchase of weapons — Europe contents itself with regulation. Carefully crafted measures such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Digital Markets Act (DMA), and the Digital Services Act (DSA) seek to contain the power of the major digital corporations: limiting their unrestricted access to personal data, fostering competition among digital service providers, and imposing sanctions in cases of abuse of dominance.

Yet, even with such an advanced legal framework, it is difficult to imagine these measures truly shifting the balance of power. Europe lacks the technological and productive autonomy to do so. Developing capabilities comparable to those of the United States and China would require years — perhaps decades — and a level of international cooperation (especially in raw materials, components, and knowledge exchange) that is implausible in today’s climate of growing geopolitical tension. The militarisation of the digital industry diverts resources and expertise away from uses that could improve the human condition and foster global cooperation. The fusion of digital monopolies with the imperial ambitions of states deepens inequality, hollows out democracy, and increases the risk of a global conflict.

A New Faustian Pact and the Role of Social Conflicts

We are witnessing a new Faustian pact — one that is driving the planet toward a perilous precipice. The arms race serves to consolidate the monopolistic profits of Big Tech (and of other corporations, particularly the traditional arms manufacturers, eager to claim their share of the swelling tide of military spending). To preserve those profits, the great digital corporations support belligerent strategies and do not hesitate to participate directly in military and intelligence operations.

The state, in turn, cannot do without its financial, infrastructural, and technological capacities. For that reason, it refrains from challenging their monopolies and tolerates the deepening dependence on tools controlled by Big Tech.

How can we counter this Faustian pact? How can we ensure that digital technologies are used for purposes other than social control and the destruction of people and things, as is happening in Ukraine and Palestine? A glimmer of hope emerges from the gradual convergence of fights against war and the militarisation of society with struggles aimed at improving living and working conditions against the concentration of capitalist power. There are engineers at Alphabet and Amazon who oppose the development of military applications. There are activists attempting to occupy Microsoft data centres where data and algorithms used by the Israeli army are stored. Chris Smalls, head of the Amazon Labour Union, participated in the Freedom Flotilla mission to Gaza, aiming to break the military blockade and deliver humanitarian aid to the exhausted population. These episodes are far from disrupting the workings of the military–digital complex. However, they do at least testify to a growing awareness of the close link between the concentration of economic power, the struggle between oligopolists to acquire raw materials, technologies and markets, and the increasing militarisation of society.

At an individual level, tackling the military–digital complex requires us to adopt a critical approach to the technologies and devices we use. Rejecting the total surveillance imposed by Big Tech by critically engaging with (or rejecting, where appropriate) tools such as social media, which often contribute directly to the spread of social pathologies and the commodification of public spaces, is essential to safeguarding social justice and democratic viability. It is also a way to prevent the race towards new and more devastating conflicts from becoming inevitable.

This essay is part of Alameda Institute’s After Order project, examining the transformations of sovereignty during our catastrophic times.

Contributors

Dario Guarascio is an associate professor of economic policy at the Sapienza University of Rome.

The $2 Billion Question: Is World Bank’s IFC Enabling Environmental Damage?

The troubling question isn’t whether IFC has environmental policies. It does; the question is whether these policies mean anything when clients consistently fail to comply and the public can’t verify whether promised improvements ever materialize.

A masked worker checks the pigs in a hog pen in Suining in southwest China’s Sichuan province on Friday, Feb. 21, 2020.
(Photo by Feature China/Barcroft Media via Getty Images)

Divya Narain
Dec 14, 2025

Common Dreams


When the International Finance Corporation, or IFC—the World Bank’s private-sector lending arm—invests in developing countries, it promises to uphold rigorous environmental safeguards. But our new analysis of $2 billion in livestock investments reveals an alarming gap between policy and practice that should concern anyone who cares about climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental accountability.

Between 2020 and 2025, the IFC pumped nearly $2 billion into 38 industrial meat, dairy, and feed projects across developing countries. These investments expanded factory farming operations at a time when scientific consensus highlights the urgency of transitioning away from industrial livestock production to protect both people and planet.

The troubling question isn’t whether IFC has environmental policies. It does—robust ones, in fact, that 56 other development banks and 130 financial institutions use as benchmarks. The question is whether these policies mean anything when clients consistently fail to comply and the public can’t verify whether promised improvements ever materialize.
The Compliance Crisis

Our latest report, Unsustainable Investment Part 2, analyzed publicly disclosed environmental risk assessment summaries for all 38 projects, evaluating whether IFC clients adhered to the bank’s own requirements for managing biodiversity loss, pollution, and resource use. The findings are sobering.

On biodiversity, most projects offered superficial habitat assessments without the detailed analysis needed to identify critical or natural habitats. Not a single project demonstrated deliberate avoidance of high-value ecosystems—the most important step in preventing irreversible damage. Out of 10 projects facing supply-chain risks from habitat conversion, only 2 reported plans to establish traceability and transition away from destructive suppliers. This matters because industrial livestock threatens over 21,000 species and is the primary driver of deforestation globally.

Without transparent, ongoing disclosure, environmental safeguards become little more than paperwork exercises.

For pollution, the gaps were equally stark. Only one project assessed both ambient conditions and cumulative impacts as required. A few projects also reported exceeding national and international standards for air emissions and wastewater discharge at the time of approval. While many promised future improvements, there’s no public evidence these promises were kept. Meanwhile, 29 projects provided no reporting whatsoever on solid waste management compliance—a glaring gap in transparency.

On resource use, the patterns continued. Only one project applied the full water use reduction hierarchy, with most reporting no evidence of even attempting to avoid unnecessary water consumption. This inefficiency is staggering: Industrial livestock uses 33-40% of agriculture’s water to produce just 18% of the world’s calories.

These findings build on our first Unsustainable Investment report examining client adherence to climate change related requirements. The gaps in adherence to disclosure and mitigation requirements were significant—despite IFC’s commitment to align 100% of new investments with the Paris Agreement starting June 2026. For disclosure, while 68% of clients disclosed emissions, the reporting was highly inconsistent. Some reported only Scope 1 or Scope 2; others aggregated both scopes when they should have been separated. For mitigation, over 60% of projects failed to reduce emissions intensity below national averages. And zero projects—out of all 38—managed physical climate risks in their supply chains, despite industrial livestock’s extreme vulnerability to climate change.
The Transparency Problem

Perhaps the most concerning discovery is what we couldn’t find: evidence of what happens after approval.

IFC’s Environmental and Social Action Plans outline corrective measures that clients legally commit to implement over time. Many projects included plans to install pollution controls, improve resource efficiency, or enhance biodiversity management. But IFC doesn’t systematically report whether these measures were actually implemented or whether they proved effective.

This absence of verification creates a dangerous accountability vacuum. Without transparent, ongoing disclosure, environmental safeguards become little more than paperwork exercises—compliance theater that manages reputational risk rather than environmental impact.
The Systemic Stakes

This matters far beyond IFC’s portfolio. As the world’s largest development finance institution focused on emerging economies, IFC functions as a standard setter. When IFC finances industrial livestock expansion despite weak compliance with environmental requirements, it sends a signal to global markets that such investments are “sustainable”—even when evidence suggests otherwise.

Consider the context: Industrial livestock contributes up to 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions, occupies 70% of agricultural land, and drives the planetary boundary transgressions that scientists warn threaten Earth’s capacity to support human civilization. The World Bank’s own 2024 report, Recipe for a Livable Planet, acknowledges that “to protect our planet, we need to transform the way we produce and consume food.”

Yet IFC continues to invest billions in expanding the very systems the World Bank identifies as unsustainable. Civil society organizations have repeatedly documented environmental and social harms from IFC-financed factory farms in Ecuador, Brazil, China, and Mongolia—harm that occurs despite IFC’s safeguards being applied.
A Path Forward

This isn’t an argument against development finance. It’s a call for development finance that actually delivers sustainable development.

IFC must fundamentally reassess whether industrial livestock expansion is compatible with its mission. The institution should redirect financing toward food production systems that are demonstrably sustainable—agroecological approaches, diversified farming systems, and plant-based proteins that can deliver food security without exacerbating environmental crises.

Equally urgent: IFC must mandate full, transparent disclosure of environmental compliance throughout project lifecycles—not just at approval. Independent verification and meaningful consequences for non-compliance must replace the current honor system. Without enforcement, the world’s most influential environmental safeguards are effectively optional.

Billions in public development finance continue flowing to industrial operations that drive climate change, biodiversity collapse, pollution, and resource depletion.

The stakes extend beyond any single institution. With IFC’s president announcing plans to double annual agribusiness investments to $9 billion by 2030, and the Paris Agreement alignment deadline now extended to June 2026, the window for course correction is rapidly closing.

As 130 financial institutions benchmark their own environmental standards against IFC’s Performance Standards, the compliance failures we’ve documented likely exist throughout the development finance sector. Systemic problems require systemic solutions.
The Bottom Line

The evidence is clear: IFC’s environmental safeguards are robust on paper but weakened by inconsistent client adherence, limited transparency, and absent enforcement. The current approach manages compliance risk rather than environmental impact—a fundamental misalignment with both IFC’s stated mission and the urgent imperatives of our environmental moment.

Seven of nine planetary boundaries have already been breached. The Earth system is under unprecedented stress. Yet billions in public development finance continue flowing to industrial operations that drive climate change, biodiversity collapse, pollution, and resource depletion.

The question isn’t whether IFC can afford to change course. It’s whether we can afford for it not to.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Divya Narain
Divya Narain is a food systems finance researcher and author of "Unsustainable Investment: International Finance Corporation's Gaps in Addressing Biodiversity Loss, Pollution, and Resource Use in Industrial Livestock Investments.”
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Biodiversity funds are billions of dollars short

A new report by the UN Environment Assembly has revealed that billions of dollars are missing the international funds required for the 30×30 target, which envisages the protection of at least 30 percent of the world's land and oceans by 2030.



ANF
Thursday, December 11, 2025

A new study published as part of the 7th session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) held in Nairobi showed that funding to protect biodiversity worldwide is far from meeting global targets. The 30×30 target set under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which aims to protect at least 30 percent of the world's land and ocean areas by 2030, is at risk due to a serious deficit in international funds.

The report, prepared by Indufor and funded by the Campaign for Nature, Pew Charitable Trusts and the Rainforest Foundation Norway, provides the first comprehensive analysis of international funding flows since the framework adopted by world leaders in 2022. According to the report, international funds aimed at supporting nature conservation activities in developing countries have increased by 150 percent over the past decade to just over $1 billion in 2024, although this increase is still far behind the amount needed to meet the 30×30 target.

Michael Owen, one of the authors of the report, drew attention to the lack of publicly available data on fund flows to protected areas and said, "Transparency among donors is not equal. The data needed to understand how the 30×30 target is doing is scattered and low resolution. The 30×30 Funding Panel we have developed is designed to centralize this data and make the current situation visible."

FUND DEFICIT 4 BILLION DOLLARS

The report states that developed countries are less than $4 billion in annual funding needed for the management and protection of protected areas alone. However, an annual fund of $4 billion is required until 2025 and $6 billion by 2030 just to establish new protected areas, support rangers working in existing areas, and carry out efforts to protect indigenous peoples and local communities.

Brian O'Donnell, Director of the Campaign for Nature, emphasized that especially small island states and ocean ecosystems are severely underfunded, and said, "Marine conservation funding must be urgently increased. Otherwise, it will not be possible to stop extinctions, achieve climate goals and maintain vital services such as clean air, water and storm protection provided by nature."

Anders Haug Larsen from Rainforest Foundation Norway said, "We have a long way to go in both resource mobilization and nature protection. Governments, donors, and local actors — especially Indigenous Peoples and local communities — need to work together. Time is running out," he warned.

AFRICA IS THE REGION THAT RECEIVES THE MOST FUNDING, OCEAN ECOSYSTEMS ARE IMPOVERISHED

According to the data, although international funds have increased since 2014, the distribution is uneven. Africa received 48 percent of all international conservation funds as of 2024, while Small Island States only had access to 4.5 percent of total funds with $48 million annually. This contradicts the SDS's commitment to prioritization underlined in its 19th objective.

In addition, 82 percent of the funds go to strengthening existing protected areas, while the establishment of new areas receives very limited support. Marine ecosystems, on the other hand, make up 71 percent of the planet, but only receive 14 percent of international funding.

FUNDS NEED TO BE RAISED 33 TIMES FASTER

The report states that international protection funds should be increased by at least 33 percent annually in order to achieve the targets set by 2030. However, in the 2020-2024 period, this increase remained at only 11 percent. If the current trajectory continues, international funding will be about $4 billion short of the required funding level in 2030.

On the other hand, financing protected areas accounts for only 20 percent of all biodiversity financing. Despite this, these areas play a decisive role in climate balance, food security, protection of water resources and increasing social resilience against disasters.

URGENT GLOBAL CALL TO ACTION

UNEA delegates stated that the new finance panel is an important tool for strategic planning and made a strong call to governments, multilateral institutions, the private sector and global donors "to turn the commitments made into concrete action".

The report emphasizes that the success of the 30×30 target depends on transferring funds to the right regions, strengthening transparency mechanisms, and supporting Indigenous Peoples and local communities with a rights-based approach.