U.S. Nervous About China’s Growing Footprint Across Africa

China’s “no strings attached” financial assistance to developing countries in Africa and Asia has come under scrutiny during the recent high-level talks between Chinese and US leaders.

In this week’s (last week) Strategic and Economic Dialogue held in Washington, China has attempted to highlight its growing economic clout in a bid to push the United States on a range of thorny issues, such as the US budget deficit and trade barriers.

Few official media outlets reported that the United States delegates pressed Beijing on articulating clear guidelines for its growing aid to the developing world. China Business News only reported that the issue was raised between the two sides, but failed to furnish any other details.

Every Dog Has Its Day But For How Long???????????

Zhang Lei and her parents stop at a small clearing in the woods, an hour’s drive from the city.

Clutching a bunch of roses and a white plastic bag, they stop in front of a 4-sq-m tomb, surrounded by a small green patch and four poplar trees.

“Today is your birthday. We have brought you your favorite food,” Zhang says in front of the tombstone.

She carefully wipes the dust off it and touches it tenderly.

Fatal Attraction? Rihanna Plays Russian Roulette

The ‘Umbrella’ singer was partying in the Hamptons – an exclusive New York seaside resort – with friends last weekend when she spotted the handsome stranger working as a doorman at the AXE Lounge.

When Rihanna left the club, she was seen laughing and joking with the mystery hunk before asking for his phone number.

E! online reports: “By the end of the evening Rihanna was smitten with the doorman. But he wasn’t just any doorman. The dude is also a model. He is really hot. Rihanna asked for his number on the way out.”

Guyana Government Complicity With Drug Ring Aired In New York

This small English-speaking nation, home to the Caribbean trade bloc (CARICOM), has been in the news recently due to revelations in a New York court that the government here willingly and knowingly gave surveillance equipment to a private death squad so that it could hunt down and execute more than 200 criminal suspects and opposition activists it wanted off the scene – as far back as 2002.

The revelations have not caught many of the 730,000 people in the former British colony by surprise because most know that Guyana President Bharrat Jagdeo’s administration has for some time been much too close to a violent gang of cocaine dealers and gangsters. In fact it has often used this gang to frighten or kill off rival gangs and opposition supporters – as was the case with opposition talk show host Ronald Waddell.

Waddell, a fierce critic, was gunned down outside his seaside home as he went for a stroll in early 2006 by four well known-ex cops who today openly roam the streets and consort with government officials in full public view. Evidence from the New York case has implicated this same gang which was gifted with the equipment in his unsolved murder.