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newstfionline · 7 years

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Headlines

SDF Advances Against Islamic State in Southern Raqqa (Reuters) The U.S-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are on the verge of seizing full control of the southern neighborhoods of Islamic State-held Raqqa, a Kurdish official said on Tuesday.

Indian Police Kill Militant Commander in Kashmir; Protests Erupt (Reuters) The top commander of an Islamist group was killed in Indian-ruled Kashmir on Tuesday, a police official said, triggering protests and prompting the authorities to suspend internet and train services.

Immigrant Population Hits New High in Germany (Reuters) The number of people with an immigrant background in Germany rose 8.5 percent to a record 18.6 million in 2016, largely due to an increase in refugees, the Federal Statistics Office said on Tuesday.

China Formally Opens First Overseas Military Base in Djibouti (Reuters) China formally opened its first overseas military base on Tuesday with a flag raising ceremony in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, the same day as the People’s Liberation Army marks its 90th birthday, state media said.

Maduro Says He Will Radically Overhaul Venezuela’s System (AP) President Nicolas Maduro brushed off new U.S. sanctions on him and condemnation at home and abroad of the newly chosen constitutional assembly, saying the vote has given him a popular mandate to radically overhaul Venezuela’s political system.

Venezuela Security Agents Seize Opposition Leaders From Homes (Reuters) Venezuelan security officials seized two opposition leaders from their homes in overnight raids, their families said on Tuesday, after they urged protests against a new legislative superbody widely denounced as anti-democratic.

Under Trump, More Churches Offer Sanctuary but Few Seek Refuge (Reuters) The number of American churches declaring themselves sanctuaries for illegal immigrants has more than doubled since President Donald Trump was elected, but only a dozen people are known to be taking refuge there to avoid deportation.

Afghan Forces Lose 2,531 Killed From Jan 1-May 8 Says Report (Reuters) A total of 2,531 Afghan security forces were killed and 4,238 wounded in the first four months of the year, according to figures released in a report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan, a U.S. Congressional watchdog.

President Xi Says China Loves Peace but Won’t Compromise on Sovereignty (Reuters) China loves peace but will never compromise on defending its sovereignty, President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday while marking 90 years since the founding of the People’s Liberation Army.

Clooneys to Help 3,000 Syrian Refugees Go to School in Lebanon (Reuters) George and Amal Clooney said on Monday they would help 3,000 Syrian refugee children go to school this year in Lebanon, where the United Nations says 200,000 children are not receiving an education after fleeing the war in neighboring Syria.

Peruvian Ex-President Asks Appeals Court to Free Him From Jail (Reuters) Peru’s former left-leaning president Ollanta Humala and his wife asked an appeals court on Monday to free them from jail where they have been ordered to spend up to 18 months before a trial over allegations they took illegal funds from Brazilian builder Odebrecht.

Migrants Scale Spanish Border Fence, 14 Injured (AP) The Spanish Red Cross says 14 migrants were treated for injuries suffered when they and some 50 others stormed border fences separating Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco.

Former Thai PM Says She’s Innocent, Asks for ‘Kindness’ (AP) Former Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra declared her innocence and asked for “kindness” from a court Tuesday during her final statement in a criminal negligence trial that could land her in prison for 10 years if she is convicted.

Powerful Pacific Typhoon Could Threaten Japan by Weekend (AP) A powerful Pacific typhoon that intensified into the Northern Hemisphere’s strongest storm of the year but has since lost some of its punch could still threaten Japan by this weekend.

#headlines

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coin-news-blog · 5 years

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VERDAD is the Most Dangerous Crypto Bill to Face Congress Yet

New Post has been published on https://coinmakers.tech/news/verdad-is-the-most-dangerous-crypto-bill-to-face-congress-yet

VERDAD is the Most Dangerous Crypto Bill to Face Congress Yet

The U.S. Congress is considering more than 20 bills on cryptocurrency. One deserves special attention: S.1025, the Venezuela Emergency Relief, Democracy Assistance and Development Act (VERDAD). “Verdad” is Spanish for “truth.” If VERDAD passes, it will be the first time a specific crypto has been deemed illegal for Americans at home or abroad to use.

The Truth About Verdad

The Venezuela Emergency Relief, Democracy Assistance and Development Act seeks to ban U.S. nationals and organizations from holding, trading, buying, and spending the state-issued Venezuelan crypto the Petro, which is backed by reserves of oil, gasoline, and diamonds—at least, in theory. The Petro was created in 2018 by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s regime as a way to circumvent U.S. sanctions and to access international financing.

If VERDAD passes, it will be the first time a specific type of crypto has been outlawed by the U.S. Jason Brett, founder of Value Technology Foundation, a research company devoted to blockchain law, explains: “The implications for this are huge because it could be bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency inserted into this language, we’re talking about a road map for how to ban a particular cryptocurrency.” The Act would set a precedent for the banning of any other crypto in the future.

A Bad Bill Dressed as a Good Deed

The potential impact on crypto usage receives little attention compared to VERDAD’s other goals, which are expressed in lofty philanthropic terms. The act expands humanitarian aid to Venezuela by $400 million, for example, and calls for the restoration of human rights and democracy. Most articles on VERDAD do not even mention the Petro.

The closest they come: the Secretary of State will recover assets stolen from the people of Venezuela and its institutions by means of special financial investigations to track the assets taken through money laundering, theft, corruption, and other “illicit” means. The Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury are to consult with the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in order “to develop a methodology to assess how any digital currency, digital coin, or digital token, that was issued by, for, or on behalf of the Maduro regime is being utilized to circumvent or undermine United States sanctions.”

Title VII of VERDAD: “Cryptocurrency sanctions and ensuring the effectiveness of United States sanctions.” Note: the wording of S.1025 presented is as of June 3, 2019. If passed, the wording may vary somewhat.

Since the Petro has scant value as a currency, the construction of a monetary tracking system and authority could be one of the real goals of VERDAD. Once established, however, who would monitor the monitors and ensure they stay within the vague and sometimes unstated boundaries of VERDAD?

From Whence Did VERDAD Come?

On March 19, 2018, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 13827: Executive Order on Taking Additional Steps to Address the Situation in Venezuela. It was signed one month after the Petro’s pre-sale launch and on the same day the pre-sale ended. A week later, the Petro was officially inaugurated.

VERDAD seeks to enact the order into law. What is the difference between the two? An executive order is a directive issued by a sitting President which determines the operations of the federal government; within this constraint, the directive has the power of law. But for it to apply outside of the federal government, it must be enacted into law.

Order 13827 states, in part:

I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America,… in light of recent actions taken by the Maduro regime to attempt to circumvent U.S. sanctions by issuing a digital currency in a process that Venezuela’s democratically elected National Assembly has denounced as unlawful, hereby order as follows…[A]ny digital currency, digital coin, or digital token, that was issued by, for, or on behalf of the Government of Venezuela on or after January 9, 2018, are prohibited…

Executive Orders are never the starting point of a political story, however; they are the result of one. Arguably, the starting point was the election of the socialist Hugo Chávez as President in 1999, which caused America to losE much of its influence in the region. The Venezuela-U.S. relationship became so tense that Chávez accused President George W. Bush of supporting a failed coup attempt against him in 2002. The accusation is unproven.

Fast forward to January 2019. The American-backed Juan Guaidó swears himself in as interim president of Venezuela even though Maduro—Chávez’s chosen successor—retains actual power. Trump immediately recognizes Guaidó and declares Maduro to be an illegitimate leader. Other nations follow Trump’s lead, but the attempted coup is badly bungled. Maduro retains power, although the situation is unstable.

A History of Sanctions and Bullying

The U.S. has a long history of imposing financial sanctions upon objectionable regimes in order to cut them off from foreign investment and reserves; money is used as a tool of foreign policy and vice versa. Sometimes the strategy aims at extracting concessions, as with the current tariff war with China. Sometimes it aims at regime change, as with Venezuela. When the economy of a targeted regime crumbles, the U.S. blames the disaster on the leaders and so lays the groundwork for a coup, police action, or an economic takeover, often phrased in humanitarian terms.

Trump wants a U.S.-friendly regime in Venezuela, not only to access the nation’s vast oil resources but also because the current situation allows China and Russia to become entrenched in South America. Both nations are financial crutches for Maduro, without whom he could not retain power. In turn, China and Russia receive inexpensive access to Venezuelan resources, and they maintain their spheres of influence. Again, monetary policy is intimately connected with foreign policy goals. Analysis by the D.C.-based Atlantic Council illustrates this connection between Russia and Venezuela:

The success of Moscow’s policy in Venezuela rests on its military, economic, and financial clout…As of July 2019, Venezuela currently owes $10 billion for the purchase of 36 Russian Su-30MK2s fighter jets, $1.1 billion for Rosneft investment into Venezuelan oilfield development, and has received more than $4 billion of investment from Russia, according to Russian Economic Development Ministry.

An added wrinkle: China wants its fiat, the yuan, to replace the U.S. dollar as the world’s default currency. This makes the competition for control of money and its movement more urgent. China is not alone in waging monetary war, and Venezuela uses the conflict to advantage. In September 2017, Reuters reported: “’Venezuela is going to implement a new system of international payments and will create a basket of currencies to free us from the dollar’, Maduro said in an hours-long address to a new legislative superbody. ‘If they pursue us with the dollar, we’ll use the Russian ruble, the yuan, yen, the Indian rupee, the euro’.”

A March 26, 2018 article in Venezuela Analysis announced the official release of the Petro, which could be bought and spent anywhere in the world. The article declared: “The cryptocurrency can be purchased in Chinese yuan, Turkish lira, euros, Russian roubles, as well as in other cryptocurrencies, including bitcoins, ethereums, or litecoins. Money exchanges are to be opened in Venezuela and internationally.” It also reported Maduro’s final word on the U.S. dollar: “We won’t dollarize our economy, we are going to defend our Bolivar.”

Power politics underlies VERDAD. The May 22 Press Release by which the act moved from Senate Foreign Relations Committee to the full Senate states: “The legislation was amended to include three bills approved by the House of Representatives to expand U.S. humanitarian assistance in Venezuela (H.R. 854), prohibit U.S. exports of arm sales to the Maduro regime (H.R. 920), and counter Russia’s presence and influence in Venezuela (H.R.1477).” Nothing is more powerful in power politics than the control of money.

Whither VERDAD?

If VERDAD is an isolated attack on the Maduro regime, then it may have minimal consequences for cryptocurrency in general. But there are reasons to worry.

It would be the first ban on the use of a specific cryptocurrency by American individuals and organizations; currently, as long as taxes are paid and some regulations met, crypto transactions are legal.

Expanding the ban to other forms of crypto might be as easy as filling in a blank.

It would establish a new monetary-tracking authority and system to monitor the Petro. The system could be used to monitor the movement of other financial vehicles.

Within 180 days of establishing the system, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury must brief relevant congressional committees, thus raising Congressional oversight of crypto.

VERDAD would be a leap toward federalizing and centralizing policy on crypto.

The Act could be the leading edge to open the way for the approximately 20 other bills in Congress.

There are reasons to believe VERDAD will pass. Trump is not a fan of crypto, especially the unregulated type, and will do nothing but applaud a bill that embeds his executive order into law. Added to this, Congress has become more aggressive toward crypto. In the second week of September alone, Congress hosted three hearings related to cryptocurrency, largely due to concern over Facebook’s intentions to release Libra. So far, VERDAD appears to have bipartisan support; certainly, its prohibitions on the Petro are not likely to elicit debate.

But there are also reasons to believe VERDAD may not pass. For one thing, some observers expected it to be enacted already, but the bill is dragging. Moreover, the general bill may have overreached by including foreign policy goals that are too ambitious. The summary write up at Congress.gov states, for example:

The bill imposes sanctions on foreign persons responsible for or complicit in corruption or activity undermining Venezuela’s democratic institutions. Sanctions include barring entry into the United States and various financial restrictions. The bill also imposes various sanctions targeting the Maduro regime’s ability to finance debt, trade gold, and use cryptocurrencies to evade U.S. sanctions. The bill directs the President to prevent Russia’s government-controlled oil company Rosneft from acquiring control of critical U.S. energy infrastructure, including assets belonging to Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A.

Perhaps this overreach is why Skopos Labs—the Automated Predictive Intelligence service used by the govtrack.us site—gives VERDAD a poor chance of passing. Even if defeated, however, Brett’s warning about Congress should be heeded: “there are 20 active bills” by which crypto “could be impacted and could change in some way shape or form along the way. It’s very important that we watch them, almost like the weather map.”

Source: news.bitcoin

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specs-tacularmen · 10 months

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Thank you.

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men-of-colors · 6 months

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Give the people what they want. Plain and simple.

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chloe-jayde · 7 years

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Venezuela's Maduro says will shun U.S. dollar in favor of yuan, others

New Post has been published on https://worldwide-finance.net/news/commodities-futures-news/venezuelas-maduro-says-will-shun-u-s-dollar-in-favor-of-yuan-others

Venezuela's Maduro says will shun U.S. dollar in favor of yuan, others

2/2 © Reuters. Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro gestures as he speaks during a session of the National Constituent Assembly at Palacio Federal Legislativo in Caracas, 2/2

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Thursday his cash-strapped country would seek to “free” itself from the U.S. dollar next week, using the weakest of two official foreign exchange regimes and a basket of currencies.

Maduro was refering to Venezuela’s “DICOM” official exchange rate in which the dollar buys 3,345 bolivars, according to the central bank.

At the strongest official rate, one dollar buys just 10 bolivars, but on the black market the dollar fetches 20,193 bolivars, a spread versus the official rate that economists say has fostered corruption.

A thousand dollars of local currency bought when Maduro came to power in 2013 would now be worth $1.20.

“Venezuela is going to implement a new system of international payments and will create a basket of currencies to free us from the dollar,” Maduro said in an hours-long address to a new legislative superbody, without providing details of the new mechanism.

“If they pursue us with the dollar, we’ll use the Russian ruble, the yuan, yen, the Indian rupee, the euro,” Maduro said.

The oil-rich nation is undergoing a major economic and social crisis, with millions suffering food and medicine shortages and what is believed to be the world’s highest inflation.

Monthly inflation quickened to 34 percent, according to the opposition-controlled National Assembly.

Critics say that instead of overhauling Venezuela’s failing currency controls or enacting reforms to shake the economy out of a fourth straight year of recession, Maduro has dug in and increased controls.

On Thursday night, he increased the country’s minimum wage by 40 percent, taking it to just over $7 per month at the black market exchange rate. He also announced that around 50 “essential” products and services would have their prices frozen at new levels, auguring higher inflation and more shortages.

“Hurricane Maduro. He destroys everything wherever he goes,” opposition leader Henrique Capriles said on Twitter.

Maduro’s government has been condemned as a dictatorship by a string of regional and European countries, isolating the leftist leader elected four years ago to replace Hugo Chavez.

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month that prohibits Americans from dealing in new debt issued by the Venezuelan government or its state oil company in an effort to halt financing.

Maduro says this is part of an “economic war” waged by the opposition and Washington, with the aim of ousting his unpopular government.

“This is the fight against the economic blockade of the imperial sanctions of (U.S. President Donald) Trump,” said Maduro.

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Read More https://worldwide-finance.net/news/commodities-futures-news/venezuelas-maduro-says-will-shun-u-s-dollar-in-favor-of-yuan-others

#dollar #favor #Maduro #shun #Venezuela039s #Yuan

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phallic-thighs · 2 years

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If they’re going to call it “men’s fitness”, then what the hell is wrong with emphasizing the “male” part…?

Enough of those crotch-covering “surf pants”!!

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jettadarkwynd · 7 years