Editor’s Note: This is the web version of our subscriber-only Weekly Wrap-Up newsletter, which gives a rundown of the week’s top stories on WPR. Subscribe to receive it by email every Saturday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your email inbox. This week, Frances Haugen, a former Facebook data scientist, went public as the whistleblower behind the leaked cache of internal company documents known as the “Facebook Files.” Initially published in The Wall Street Journal, the documents allegedly prove that the company’s internal research had demonstrated the negative effects of Facebook and Instagram on [...]
Today, nine of every 10 people in the world who have been internally displaced by conflict have been living in a state of limbo for over a decade. For many of the millions of people who were displaced last year alone, fleeing to escape violent conflict and natural disasters while remaining in their home countries, the end of displacement may not come soon, if at all. When short-term humanitarian aid and media attention dry up, they will be largely forgotten. In a highly anticipated report launched in late September, the United Nations’ High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement called for concrete measures [...]
While the Biden administration tries to navigate the domestic political obstacles to implementing the president’s so-called Build Back Better plan, it has quietly started laying the groundwork for a parallel program with major geopolitical implications. Just getting off the ground, Build Back Better World, or B3W, is a plan to improve global infrastructure, widely defined, with an eye to not only raise living standards but, just as importantly, to counter China’s growing influence. The idea was formally announced by the Group of Seven leaders during the G-7 summit last June. It aims to take on China’s high-profile Belt and Road Initiative, or [...]
