SWEDEN - A microchip embedded under the skin will replace credit cards and keys according to Stephen Ray, who has already overseen a program for Sweden’s largest state owned train operator that allows customers to scan their chips instead of using tickets. BBC News showcased the system in which Swedes are able to have their embedded chip scanned by a conductor who uses an app to match up their chip membership number with a purchased ticket.
CHINA - Beijing has announced plans to start a crude oil futures contract priced in yuan and convertible into gold. The step might lead to the emergence of a new Asia-based crude oil benchmark to compete with Brent or West Texas Intermediate futures. RT talked to investing guru and financial commentator Jim Rogers to understand how much of a game changer this could be for an industry dominated by the dollar.
VENEZUELA - Caracas has ordered oil traders to convert crude oil contracts into euro and not to pay or be paid in US dollars anymore, according to sources close to the matter as quoted by WSJ. The measure is aimed at bypassing US sanctions against the country. Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA reportedly asked joint venture partners to open euro accounts and to convert existing holdings into the European currency, the sources said. Last month, the White House sanctioned Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and other senior Venezuelan officials after the election of a new legislative body to rewrite the country’s constitution. The measure bans both US businesses and citizens from buying Venezuelan debt as well as from making any deals with PDVSA. Caracas claimed the step as an attempt to embargo Venezuela, which is currently in the middle of an economic crisis.
GERMANY - German politicians voiced outrage Friday after a leader of the rightwing populist AfD party said Germany should be proud of its soldiers who fought in two world wars. Alexander Gauland, 76, a top candidate of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany in September 24 elections, also said the country had sufficiently atoned for its crimes and should "reclaim its past". The Social Democrats' Thomas Oppermann said such comments "expose Gauland as an ultra-right militarist", while Greens lawmaker Volker Beck labelled his statements "ever more disgusting". Gauland called for an end to German guilt over the Nazi era, saying that in Europe, "no other nation has so clearly dealt with its wrongful past as Germany". "We have the right to reclaim not just our country, but also our past," he said.
VENEZUELA - Nicolas Maduro has revealed a plan to combat Venezuela's food crisis by encouraging people to breed rabbits for meat, but acknowledged a "setback" when participants in a pilot project adopted the bunnies as pets.
MIDDLE EAST - Al-Aqsa preacher promises to take revenge on 'heretics,' crush all those who oppose Islam. An imam at the Al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount attacked the Muslim world's silence regarding the atrocities committed by Myanmar (Burmese) authorities against the country's Muslim minority.
NORTH KOREA - North Korea has fired another test missile over Japan, leading to global condemnation amid already high tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear warhead tests. The missile flew over the northern island of Hokkaido, where thousands were awoken by air-raid sirens for the second time in just three weeks, and landed some 1,240 miles off the cape of Erimo just before 7am local time (10pm Thursday GMT). The rocket, believed to be a intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), flew for about 19 minutes over a distance of about 2,300 miles, according to South Korea's military - far enough to reach the US Pacific territory of Guam, which is 2,100 miles from North Korea.
USA - A black rapper has sparked outrage after his latest video showed him lynching a white child. Hip hop artist XXXTentacion released the video for his latest track "Look At Me!" yesterday and has already been blasted on social media for the "outrageous" video. In shocking scenes the rapper can be seen leading a black child and white child up to a swinging noose in a blacked out room. The Florida rapper, born Jahseh Dwayne Onfroy, can then be seen slipping the noose over the white boy's head. He then pulls a rope and the boy is raised into the air as his legs can be seen twitching as he is lynched. The video has sparked outrage on Twitter with users branding the clip "hateful"...and calling for his YouTube account to be demonetised.
USA - Amazon Web Services has a new market for its cloud computing, analytics, and storage services. This week, the Defense Department granted the cloud computing giant a provisional authorization to host Impact Level 5 workloads, which are the military and Pentagon’s most sensitive, unclassified information. “This further bolsters AWS as an industry leader in helping support the DoD’s critical mission in protecting our security,” the company said in a statement. “The AWS services support a variety of DoD workloads, including workloads containing sensitive controlled unclassified information and National Security Systems information.”
USA - Even though he was once an executive at Facebook, Chamath Palihapitiya, CEO of Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings, favors investing in Amazon instead, he told CNBC's "Fast Money: Halftime Report" on Thursday.
EUROPE - After listening to more than an hour of Jean-Claude Juncker's self-agrandising State of the Union speech, Farage’s laser-guided attack took just seconds to dismantle almost every plan, proposal and pontification made by the former Luxembourg politician turned European Commission President.
USA - A Senate panel may be stealthily trying to give federal law enforcement a new tool to go after the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks and its US collaborators. A one-sentence “Sense of Congress” clause was tacked onto the end of a massive 11,700-word bill that was approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee and is likely to come before the full Senate later this month.
ISRAEL - Clearly the war in Syria and the international push for regime change against Assad has created strange alliances in the Middle East over the past few years. Among the strangest bedfellows are the Israelis and Saudis. It's no secret that the common cause in Syria of late has led the historic bitter enemies down a pragmatic path of unspoken cooperation as both seem to have placed the break up of the so-called "Shia crescent" as their primary policy goal in the region.
USA - Leftists now pursuing “Reign of Terror” tactic to blacklist all non-liberal websites, corporations and individuals. One after another, fanatical anti-Trump extremists are diving head first off the deep end into the pool of psychosis. In one of their most recent displays of lunatic behavior, an extremist group known as “Color of Change” has decided to blacklist all conservative-leaning news and information websites, claiming that they all represent “white supremacy,” and thus must be barred from the stream of conscious thought.
USA - A program that supplies university police with surplus military equipment is enjoying a renaissance under Trump and Sessions. Most of the military gear is going to campuses in states with the highest poverty rates, where the weapons will be used not only to repress student protests but also to perpetuate racial and class divides between campuses and their surrounding communities.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this section are not our own, unless specifically stated, but are provided to highlight what may prove to be prophetically relevant material appearing in the media.
“Just what is an APOSTLE?”
Today we find the Church of God in a “wilderness of religious confusion!”
The confusion is not merely around the Church – within the religions of the world outside – but WITHIN the very heart of The True Church itself!
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