U.K. — EXPANDING THE EMPIRE, LONDON CONSIDERS DIRECT RULE OF BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS: British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said a London-ordered inquiry into the islands' governance showed "substantial legislative and constitutional change is required." The British overseas territory in the Caribbean has a new leader this week — Natalio Wheatley — after premier Andrew Fahie was charged in Miami with conspiracy to commit drug trafficking and money laundering. The Caribbean Community, the Caribbean's main regional bloc, cast London's moves as "retrograde." UNITED NATIONS — IMPACT INVESTING GOES WRONG: An April 16 scoop from development news site Devex, by Ilya Gridneff, continues to blow up in United Nations circles. Gridneff wrote about a project that received $63 million from the U.N. Office for Project Services to develop plans to build more than 1 million affordable homes in six countries. Today, no houses have been built, and the project is stalled, with around $25 million U.N. money seemingly down the drain. That funding is now subject to an independent U.N. investigation, but the U.N. hasn't revealed the results of the investigation. What we do know: The top official at UNOPS, Grete Faremo of Norway, announced Sunday that she is stepping down. Her deputy, Vitaly Vanshelboim of Ukraine, is on administrative leave. The New York Times picked up the story and investigated further aspects: reporting over the weekend that $60 million was handed to one businessman and $3 million to his college-aged daughter … after U.N. officials met them at a party . The funding was approved by two senior Guterres appointees. You can read more extraordinary claims and analysis here from Mukesh Kapila, a former U.N. official determined to blog every detail of the saga. The juiciest detail: There are cameo appearances in this saga from the U.N. Ambassador to Dominica Paolo Zampolli (who founded ID Model Management and introduced Donald Trump to his future wife Melania), and the singer Joss Stone. TECH CORNER TIME FOR A DIGITAL BRETTON WOODS? The future of the global monetary order is a hot topic in finance circles — fueled by the rise of cryptocurrencies and Russia's excision from global payments systems. Former U.S. Treasury official Michael Greenwald, now with Amazon Web Services, called for a "Digital Bretton Woods"— a global foundation for a world with digital money — in 2020, and is still pushing for it. Greenwald told my colleague Ben Schreckinger that he now counts over a hundred central banks with digital currency pilots, which means a weaker role for the U.S. dollar in the global financial system. Takeaway: "Central banks have realized they're not the only game in town," Greenwald said, adding "the U.S. needs to be less complacent, more proactive. I would recommend pivoting from an era of "dollar dominance" to an era of "dollar innovation," Greenwald said. One of the key unavoidable questions at any summit working towards a digital Bretton Woods would be how to manage China's rise. One goal of China's digital yuan is for it to function outside of the SWIFT payment system. So what, in essence, would a post-SWIFT environment look like? By the numbers: The market cap of Bitcoin now surpasses both Facebook and Tesla . By some measures it's also the 13th most circulated currency in the world. COAL TO CRYPTO IS NOW A THING: "The surging investment in virtual currency is inflicting real world impacts — perhaps nowhere more acutely than Pennsylvania," according to Sightline Institute's Eric de Place. Bitcoin miners search everywhere for cheap electricity, and sometimes that means tapping government subsidies to revive dirty power plants. More here. CHINA'S 3-D PRINTED DAM: "The 590 feet high Yangqu hydropower plant will be built slice by slice — using unmanned excavators, trucks, bulldozers, pavers and rollers, all controlled by AI — in the same additive manufacturing process used in 3D printing," South China Morning Post reported. Hoover Dam is 726 feet high. SUPREME COURT TRUST CLIFF: Supreme Court leak shakes trust in one more American pillar. POLITICO Executive Editor Dafna Linzer spoke to CNN on the back story and next steps around POLITICO's Supreme Court scoop. What actually happens when you ban abortion: The U.S. can look forward to even worse maternal mortality rates and larger families, especially among those who can least afford to support them.
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