WORLD NEWS
Vietnam President Phuc resigns amid ministers’ corruption scandal
Vietnam’s President Nguyen Xuan Phuc has submitted his resignation after the ruling Communist Party found him responsible for violations and wrongdoing of numerous officials under him, the country’s official news agency has said.
Phuc, 68, has held the largely ceremonial position for less than two years. It was not immediately clear who would replace him.
About 900 million Chinese are estimated to be infected with COVID-19 in China’s latest outbreak, with nearly 80 percent of them facing severe symptoms, according to a study by Peking University. Meanwhile, Chinese health officials are acknowledging that about 60,000 COVID-related deaths have occurred in hospitals across the country in the past month, following international pressure for transparency and data.
As of Jan. 11, 64 percent of China’s 1.4 billion population—about 900 million people— had been infected with COVID-19, mainland Chinese media outlet Economic Observer reported on Jan. 13, citing a recent study from a research group led by professor Ma Jingjing at the National School of Development of Peking University.
The report states that the highest infection rates for the current round of the outbreak are in three provinces in western China. Gansu province was highest ranked with about 91 percent of people being infected, followed by Yunnan province with an 84 percent infection rate and Qinghai province at 80 percent.
The model estimates of infection rates in the study were calculated based on search volumes on online platforms for symptoms related to COVID-19 infection, according to Ma. Given the lack of official data, the authors used the number of online searches for symptoms such as “fever” and “cough” as an indication of local infection rates, she said.
World Economic Forum Declares 2023 the ‘Year of the Polycrisis’
Davos summit doubles down on ESG policies amid shortages, inflation, and rising dissent
World Economic Forum (WEF) chairman Klaus Schwab announced the kick-off of the 53rd annual meeting of political leaders, corporate executives, and activists in Davos, Switzerland, declaring that the summit will focus on rededicating its members to a progressive climate and social-justice agenda in the midst of what he described as “unprecedented multiple crises.”
“The theme of our meeting in Davos is cooperation in a fragmented world,” Klaus stated. In what the WEF calls the “Year of the Polycrisis,” Klaus declared that “economic, environmental, social, and geopolitical crises are converging and conflating, creating an extremely versatile and uncertain future.”
“We are all stuck in a crisis mindset,” he warned, but reassured attendees that “the annual meeting at Davos shall try to make sure that leaders do not remain trapped in this crisis mindset but develop a longer-term, constructive perspective to shape the future in more sustainable, more inclusive, and more resilient way.”
This WEF summit features a record turnout from many of the most powerful government and corporate officials. There will be 379 public officials attending, including 30 heads of state, 56 finance ministers, 19 central bank governors, 39 heads of global organizations, including the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization. There will also be 1,500 executives from 700 companies, including 600 CEOs from the world’s largest corporations.
“We have the key players globally,” said Borge Brende, one of several WEF managing directors, “to create collaboration even in this fractured world.” He also noted that the WEF is expecting “a high-level Chinese delegation.”
This year’s agenda includes doubling down on the transition to renewable energy, the codification of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards to make compliance more measurable, “social and green jobs for building inclusive and sustainable economies,” and “diversity equity and inclusion [DEI] lighthouses,” and a global risks report.
“How do we build the inclusive, sustainable, and resilient growth?” asked Saadia Zahidi, managing director of the WEF. “A group of leaders from the public and private sector will be coming together to address exactly that question, designing a framework, and starting to align around that new agenda.”
Zahidi said attendees will also be setting policy regarding the “human capital agenda. Without adequate investments in skilling and in education, none of these opportunities can really play out, nor will we have the kind of societal resilience that is needed to be prepared for future inevitable shocks,” she said. “So we’ll have a meeting of the reskilling revolution champions.”
Regarding the “polycrisis,” the WEF assembled an extensive matrix of threats facing the world. The top five short-term risks were the “cost-of-living crisis, natural disasters and extreme weather, geo-economic confrontation, failure to mitigate climate change, and erosion of social cohesion and societal polarization.” The report noted that, looking farther ahead, “the top four most severe risks over the next 10 years are all environmental.”
Regarding DEI, the report stated that despite $7.5 billion being spent on DEI reeducation programs, which will increase to $15.4 billion by 2026, “the pandemic has caused a generational loss in gender equality, increasing the projected time to reach global parity from 100 to 132 years.”
The World Economic Forum Embraces The Metaverse to Create Global Collaboration Village
In the name of “harnessing technology to transform the future of public-private cooperation”, the WEF will employ the Metaverse to create the Global Collaboration Village. The WEF claims that it is the first “global, purpose-driven metaverse platform to enhance sustained multistakeholder cooperation and action at scale.”
According to the WEF website,
The World Economic Forum has partnered with Microsoft and Accenture to lay the foundations of the Global Collaboration Village, a new metaverse platform aimed at fostering virtual multistakeholder cooperation
The Global Collaboration Village as developed with 80 Founding Village Partners who are actively developing the space to allow various stakeholders to engage in peer-to-peer exchanges what will drive structural change. This includes efforts to enable broad participation and foster individual and collective action.
Designed to be inclusive, transparent and secure, the platform will be a collaborative space for businesses, international organizations, governments, civil society and public figures to work together to address some of the world’s most critical challenges.
The Global Collaboration Village will not replace the current in-person activities of the Forum, but it will serve as a virtual collaboration space to meaningfully compliment real-world interactions. Powered by the technological capabilities of the fourth Industrial Revolution, the Global Collaboration Village can be a model for the future of engaged multistakeholder collaboration.
What better place to “reimagine the future” than in the already failed fantasy world known as the Metaverse. It reminds me a bit of the old and hilarious bug extermination ad known as the Roach Motel: “The roaches check in but they don’t check out.”
“In the last three years, the common people’s exclusion from what is still sold as a democratic process has reached a pinnacle.” — Peter Koenig
As former senior economist for the World Bank and the World Health Organization, Peter Koenig has inside information. He shares it with us here.
First, ask yourself how Klaus Schwab’s organization, WEF, and Rockefeller, Bill Gates, and Big Pharma’s organization, WHO, got the word “world” in their name. The only organization on a world level is the United Nations. As it name implies, it is an organization of independent nations. The nations speak, not the world, much less a private organization like the WEF and a privately funded organization like WHO.
Globalists who speak in the name of the world have already pulled a fast one on us by appropriating a name that suggests that two private organizations speak for the world. Both of these organizations are in the process of acquiring this private authority over humanity. The WEF has been at it for 53 years, and the WHO since 1948 when it was founded by Rockefeller. In this current year, WHO has a big push underway to acquire authority over the health policies of every country. If WHO succeeds, this privately funded organization will be independent of governments and have no political accountability to people. The same organization who lied and deceived with its assurance that the Covid jab was “safe and effective” is grasping for the power to impose worldwide whatever diktat it wishes. Are you happy with this?
You Will Pay For Your Personal “Excessive Carbon” Emissions
An individual carbon dioxide limit should be applied to every person in order to establish a “planetary guardrail” in the effort to combat allegedly man-made climate change, a leading German scientist has argued.
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) said this week that every person should have a limit of three tonnes of C02 emissions per year and those who exceed their limit should be forced to pay for the pleasure.
In comments reported by Taagesschau, Schellnhuber said that there were are two competing property rights issues at hand, namely the right to spend one’s money on high emissions activities and the rights of the rest of the population to “have an environment worth living [in]”.
In a carbon credit style scheme, those who emit over the three-tonne limit by the middle of the century would need to privately purchase credits from those who are under the limit, he suggested: “Every person gets three tons of CO2 per year, but if you need more, you just have to buy it.”
At present, according to the news outlet, the average German is far above Schellnhuber’s proposed limit, as ten tonnes of C02 emissions are produced by the average citizen. Citing the Paris World Inequality lab, there are some millionaires within the country that produce over 100 tonnes of CO2 per year, and some thousands of elites worldwide emit over 2,000 tonnes per year.
Aside from not spelling out how he expects people to drastically reduce their carbon emissions, the German scientist did not elaborate on how exactly this will be tracked and monitored.
U.S. NEWS, POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
TEXIT Is Now On Trial In TNM’s Lawsuit Against Facebook Censorship
The TNM is about to make history again. This time we are poised to relitigate and destroy one of the worst Supreme Court decisions ever rendered related to the right of self-government – Texas v White.
The Texas Nationalist Movement (TNM) is currently in a legal battle with Meta, the parent company of Facebook, over censorship of TNM’s content about TEXIT. This lawsuit to fight for your freedom of speech has brought to the forefront the issue of Texas’ right to self-determination and the preservation of a republican form of government.
The TNM is fighting for Texans’ right to vote on their political future and reclaiming our right to self-government and self-determination. This is a fundamental right guaranteed to us by the Texas Constitution, specifically Article 1 Section 1 and 2.
In its initial filing, Meta’s attorneys stated that they intended to argue that TEXIT is unconstitutional. The TNM responded with the following statement:
“Meta assumes, without citing any authority, that the Court could somehow dismiss this case on the grounds that the democratic process of holding a referendum vote on Texas independence is unlawful. Of course, even if holding such a vote was unlawful, which it is not, there is no provision of HB 20 that would provide a means to dismiss a cause of action… on such grounds.” In other words, the TNM is arguing that the censorship provisions of HB 20 apply regardless of Facebook’s opinion on the matter of secession.
Meta then filed a Motion to Dismiss the suit, in which they argued that TNM’s complaint failed to allege that Meta lacked the authority to restrict the dissemination of TNM’s content on Facebook. The following excerpt from Meta’s motion highlights their argument:
“Plaintiffs also make clear that the disputed link promotes Texas’ secession from the Union—an end that the Supreme Court has said would violate the Constitution.”
This argument is flawed and an attempt by Meta to invalidate Article 1, Section 2 of the Texas Constitution and the rights it guarantees to Texans. The TNM looks forward to responding to Meta’s arguments and finally putting to bed the myth that states cannot leave the Union.
No Visitor Logs Exist for Biden’s House Where Classified Documents Were Found: White House
There are no logs of who has visited President Joe Biden’s house in Delaware where classified documents were found, according to the White House.
“Like every President in decades of modern history, his personal residence is personal,” White House spokesman Ian Sams said in a statement to media outlets.
The U.S. Secret Service, which provides security for the president, doesn’t keep logs for any facility—including private residences—according to Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the agency.
The service screens visitors but doesn’t keep records of who is vetted, Guglielmi told The Epoch Times. There are no plans to change that because each person would still need to be vetted each time they visit, he noted.
The Secret Service, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request for records on visitors to Biden’s residences in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, told The Epoch Times that no records were located.
Classified documents were found on three separate occasions at the Wilmington residence, according to Biden lawyer Richard Sauber. The first discovery came in 2022, after classified materials were located in an office in Washington that Biden used from 2017 to 2019, according to the Department of Justice. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, a Biden appointee, has tapped a special counsel to investigate the findings.
Special counsel Robert Hur will “investigate whether any person or entity violated the law in connection with this matter,” Garland said in his appointment announcement.
The total number of documents that have been found is unclear.
A “small number” of documents with classified markings were found at the Penn Biden Center office in the nation’s capital, according to the White House. Six documents with the markings were found at the Wilmington house, according to Sauber, including five that were discovered on Jan. 12.
The Department of Justice has taken possession of at least some of the materials.
Biden Classified Documents Bungle ‘A Huge Gift to Trump’: Senior Obama Adviser
Former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod sees President Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents as “a huge gift to Trump.”
The classified documents bungle occurred before Biden’s widely anticipated re-election bid announcement, possibly in early February after the State of the Union address. Former President Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential race last year.
Axelrod in comments to Reuters said that the latest developments were an “embarrassment” because Biden criticized Trump after the FBI raided his predecessor’s Florida residence for classified government documents last August.
“How that could possibly happen. How one—anyone could be that irresponsible,” Biden said in a “60 Minutes” interview in September.
Two months later and a few days before the midterms, his aids discovered classified documents dating to Biden’s time as vice president in the Obama administration at a Washington think tank he was associated with. Then, in late December, classified materials from his vice presidency were also found at his Delaware residence.
On Jan. 12, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Robert Hur, a former U.S. attorney, as special counsel to investigate Biden’s mishandling of classified documents after five additional pages were found in the garage of his Delaware residence.
On Saturday, Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University and Fox News contributor, questioned the second discovery in a tweet: “The account shows that, over two months after the first discovery, the Biden team still did not complete a thorough search. It is chilling to think how the President would have proceeded if he didn’t ‘take classified documents seriously.’”
Reuters also reported that an unnamed Democratic communications adviser said the issue would pose questions about Biden’s competence for voters.
Biden’s mishandling of classified documents was not fundamentally different from Trump’s, Paul Kamenar, an attorney for the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), formerly told NTD News. “They both involve mishandling classified information. And sure, there are more documents at Mar-a-Lago. But that’s not a legal distinction,” he said.
Pennsylvania County Completes Hand Recount of 2020 Presidential Election
A hand recount of 2020 election ballots in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania this week yielded only slight variations in the final numbers.
In Lycoming, former President Donald Trump still beats President Joe Biden, with the new totals: Trump at 41,455 with seven voters fewer than the 2020 count, and Biden at 16,956 with 15 voters fewer than the original count.
“The results confirm that the electronic voting system produces consistently accurate results; they confirm that the outcome of the presidential election in Lycoming County was correct; and they confirm that the vote totals were not inaccurate by thousands of votes as was claimed,” a press release from the Lycoming County Board of Elections said.
Of the nearly 60,000 paper ballots recounted across seven candidates, the county was off by 35 votes, compared to the 2020 results. This is what Lycoming County Director of Elections Forrest Lehman predicted before the recount.
“We don’t expect that any recount of that many ballots is going to match one-to-one with the voting system,” Lehman told The Epoch Times in December. “We expect that there will be human errors committed during that hand count.”
The county dedicated 31 total staff to the task, with 28 counting. While they thought the counting could go on for the rest of the month, it only took three days from Jan. 9–11.
Punishing Novak: US Extends Senseless Vax Travel Requirement
In an apparent senseless move, U.S. authorities extended a ban into the country for a select few who arrive by air, but not on ships or overland. The shot doesn’t prevent infection or transmission but not taking it will stop Novak Djokovic, 21-time Grand Slam tennis champion, from playing in two key U.S. tournaments
Djokovic has natural immunity after completely recovering from a SARS-CoV-2 infection, which in turn increases his risk of adverse events from the shot, but the Biden administration insists noncitizens and nonimmigrants receive the shot to enter the country
The rules allow unvaccinated immigrants who arrive by land, sea or air, unvaccinated citizens who travel outside the country to return home and unvaccinated diplomats to name a few; yet, if protecting public health were the intent, the ban would include everyone
Djokovic belongs to a unique population of individuals whose bodies are highly-tuned machines, capable of performing at levels most of us only dream about and who are dying at unprecedented rates since 2021, an increase measured at 1,696% higher than athletes from 1966 to 2004
These decisions have not made sense on many levels. The sheer number of athletes who have died is just one indication of the danger involved
C.J. Harris, a singer who competed in the U.S. television series “American Idol” nearly a decade ago, died over the weekend, according to his family. He was 31.
The family member, who was not identified, told TMZ on Monday that the singer, whose full name is Curtis “C.J.” Harris, was rushed to a local hospital by ambulance on Jan. 15 after suffering an apparent heart attack at a home in Jasper, Alabama.
According to the report, all life-saving efforts failed and Harris was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at the medical center.
Harris’s sudden death was also confirmed by a spokesperson for the Walker County Coroner’s Office, who told celebrity news agency PEOPLE that the singer was pronounced dead at the Walker Baptist Medical Center in Jasper after CPR efforts were unsuccessful.
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) have the potential to radically transform the American financial system‐ultimately usurping the private sector and endangering Americans’ core freedoms. Although CBDCs have gained the attention of politicians, central bankers, and the tech industry, this experiment should be left on the drawing board. This paper provides a summary of why Congress should explicitly prohibit the Federal Reserve and the Department of the Treasury from issuing a CBDC.
A CBDC poses substantial risks to financial privacy, financial freedom, free markets, and cybersecurity. Yet the purported benefits fail to stand up to scrutiny. There is no reason for the U.S. government to issue a CBDC when the costs are so high and the benefits so low.
Southwest Pilots Ramp Up Strike-Vote Talk, Push for Contract ‘Guardrails’ Against Future Meltdowns
In the wake of the embarrassing, costly Southwest Airlines’ operational meltdown, its pilots are moving closer to a strike-authorization vote.
Union president Casey Murray said the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA) has been fighting for three years to get a contract that would lock in safeguards to keep the airline’s operations on an even keel and prevent pilot fatigue.
“The way we see our contract is to provide some guardrails, to protect them from themselves,” Murray said in a Jan. 9 video update posted on the SWAPA website.
Representing 10,000 pilots, the union has pushed for contract language addressing scheduling issues. Those were cited among the weak points that caused Southwest’s operations to collapse in late 2022.
Since then, leaders said that lack of progress at the negotiating table and lack of communication with SWAPA–during and after the meltdown–may force the union’s hand.
A strike authorization would be the first step in a months-long process that federal law requires before any work stoppage. Unions often use strike-authorization votes to force momentum in contract talks.
It’s possible that no such vote would be taken.
“That’s our hope,” Murray said, “[but] I do foresee it happening.” He did not say when. That would depend mainly on the company’s next moves, he added.
Morgan Stanley: Technocrats In Charge Of Investment Policies?
What do you get when 45 global research analysts gather in a room for two days to debate secular market trends? A plan. Amid rapid change, Morgan Stanley Research views concentrating on multiyear secular trends as an opportunity. In markets where short-term focus has become the norm (i.e., the average equity holding period has declined from eight years in the 1960s to six months today), it stands to reason that there’s less competition and more potential alpha to be found from analyzing the market impacts of longer-term trends. A collaborative, cross-asset culture has long been core to our mission, and in the spirit of debate and collaboration, we gathered analysts from around the globe to identify the key secular themes that Morgan Stanley Research should focus on this year.
Our dialogue made it clear that collaboration can eliminate blind spots for investors who are grappling with complex global themes. The agenda for our meeting included over 30 topics, none of them unfamiliar to market participants. But the discussion raised questions of broader concern, suggesting their answers could impact markets beyond what analysts could plausibly perceive or analyze individually. Many of these questions centered on knock-on impacts to inflation, interest rates, and the structure of markets themselves as the world undergoes major geopolitical and technological transformations.
This year, we’re taking our collaborative, in-depth work a step further, focusing on three key global transitions. We think these shifts will have a profound impact on markets for many years, but that a collaborative, cross-asset approach is required to master their complexity and produce meaningful insights for investors. The three transitions are: 1) Rewiring global commerce for a multipolar world; 2) Decarbonization; and 3) Accelerated technology diffusion. We plan to address them this year in collaborative in-depth reports, briefs, and podcasts.
Former President Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., told Breitbart News exclusively that a podcast venture he is launching later this month with Rumble is part of a broader initiative he is undertaking to try to build up what he calls a “parallel economy” of companies and platforms that do not silence conservatives.
“I’ve been a big believer in that. I’ve been a big proponent of that. I’m probably the second real big verified user on Rumble for over two years. We’re just taking that to the next level, because I believe in these companies,” Trump Jr. said. “A big focus of what I’ve been doing sort of outside of my daily duties is finding those same companies who are starting in front of the parallel economy where conservatives are saying, ‘well, you’re there, you’re canceling my insurance, or you’re canceling my banking or you’re canceling my phones, or whatever it may be, because I’m a conservative. And just because I’m a concerned parent doesn’t make me a domestic terrorist, despite what the FBI has been saying.’ So there’s an entire emerging economy that’s developing around conservatives being set up around the left taking things too far around, woke corporate pushing crap that has nothing to do with the business, with what we’re consuming. People have had enough.”
Pay per Mile: States Move Toward User-Based Road Tax
Hybrid drivers pay twice
With each gallon of gas pumped in the United States since 1932, drivers have been paying taxes. The revenue is used for road repairs and public transportation such as train and bus systems.
Currently, the Fed takes 18.4 cents per gallon for gas or 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel. State gas taxes range from a national high of 61 cents for gas in Pennsylvania, to a low of 8.95 cents in Alaska.
But environmentally motivated improvements in fuel efficiency and the move to electric vehicles (EVs) translate to less gas sold, resulting less tax revenue collected.
State and federal governments are looking for a new way to fund transportation. Through numerous studies by transportation organizations, they have landed on mileage-based user fees (MBUF); vehicle miles traveled fees (VMT); road user charges (RUCs), or highway use fees (HUF). The acronyms all mean the same thing: Drivers pay a tax for each mile traveled.
“All vehicles are going farther on less gas, and that is great for our wallets, especially with the gas prices going up. But it’s not so good when our transportation system is dependent on that fuel tax,” Trish Hendren, executive director of the Eastern Transportation Coalition, told The Epoch Times. “The link between usage and payment is broken.”
The coalition describes itself as a partnership of 17 states and Washington, D.C., focused on connecting public agencies across modes of travel to increase safety and efficiency. Member states in the coalition include Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia.
But the move to user-based fees is a nationwide effort being discussed in every state. Oregon, Utah, and Virginia have already implemented pilot programs.
At least 31 states have laws requiring a special registration fee for plug-in electric vehicles. Of those, 18 states also assess a fee on plug-in hybrid vehicles, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Is crypto about to go extinct?
It will likely survive, but only after more firms and currencies crash and burn. Here’s why.
As the Los Angeles Rams beat the Cincinnati Bengals in the championship game of the National Football League last February, an unlikely set of players made a splash off the field, in living rooms across the United States.
On one of American television’s biggest nights, with 99 million viewers, the Super Bowl broadcast was punctuated by a series of cryptocurrency advertisements. Social media buzzed with talk of how digital tokens had come of age as they grabbed primetime slots previously dominated by mainstream giants like Coca-Cola and General Motors.
One of the advertisements that night had comedian Larry David playing a Luddite dismissing humankind’s biggest inventions – from the wheel to Edison’s lightbulb to, the commercial suggests, the FTX cryptocurrency exchange. Told that the platform is a “safe and easy way to get into crypto”, David’s character says: “Ehhh, I don’t think so – and I’m never wrong about this stuff.”
That advertisement hasn’t aged well.
With multiple big crypto firms collapsing in recent months, the sector that promised an alternative to the traditional global financial model now faces existential questions. In May last year, the TerraUSD and Luna coins crashed, losing almost all of their value overnight and wiping out $45bn from the crypto market in a day. Singapore-based crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital abruptly shut down. Crypto lenders Voyager Digital and Celsius Network – which had both loaned money to Three Arrows Capital – soon filed for bankruptcy.
And in November, FTX – the popular crypto trading platform in the Super Bowl advertisement – imploded. Its founder Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas in December and has been charged with fraud. Bitcoin, the world’s best-known cryptocurrency, is today worth only a third of what it was at its peak in October 2021.
The FTX commercial with David ends with the tagline, “Don’t be like Larry.” Today, many of the 420 million people estimated to have invested in crypto might well be wishing they had been more like Larry.
So is crypto about to go extinct?
The short answer: As a concept, cryptocurrencies will probably survive, experts told Al Jazeera. But the sector will likely face increased regulation and an extended period of uncertainty. Many firms and currencies will perish. To stay alive, companies will face one challenge above all else: winning back customer trust.
Crypto ‘ice age’
Cryptocurrency trading platforms have traditionally drawn in customers with the promise of quick returns on investment. The offer: Park money in so-called crypto wallets – which are meant to function in a manner similar to savings bank accounts – and earn high interest rates, sometimes in double digits. For those who are distrustful of traditional finance, the opportunity to carry out transactions without worrying about a regulator as an intermediary is an added attraction.
But this allure dimmed once the US Federal Reserve and other major central banks around the world sharply raised interest rates through 2022, making more traditional investment options more lucrative than before. The US rate, for instance, shot up by more than 4 percentage points over the course of 2022.
Once TerraUSD and Luna went into freefall, a combination of safer alternatives and reduced trust in crypto led to a crisis that, according to experts, is far from over.
“I think we’ll see a lot more bad news before things start looking better for the sector,” Tim Leung, director of the computational finance and risk management programme at the University of Washington in Seattle told Al Jazeera.
With many potential customers now sceptical, crypto platforms will likely witness low trading volumes for a while, Leung said. The crypto sector likes to pride itself on its independence, but it depends on financing from traditional markets. How much of that funding will continue in the current climate is unclear, Leung suggested. With reduced trading and less funding, many smaller firms might go belly up, he warned.
Crypto mining companies, which generate virtual money – or coins – using energy-guzzling supercomputers, will suffer too, Leung said. Reduced demand for coins because of low trading volumes and high energy prices will squeeze the viability of their business model. “I see this phase lasting through 2023,” he said. “It’s more likely to be a crypto ice age rather than a crypto winter.”
The downturn isn’t surprising, suggested experts.
“This is a start-up industry with hundreds of firms and lots of innovation,” said David Yermack, professor of finance at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He told Al Jazeera he expects a chaotic period for cryptocurrencies in the foreseeable future but thinks that “ultimately best practices will emerge through competition”.
Governments around the world have signalled plans to step in to shield customers from that chaos. But regulators and analysts appear divided on how best to intervene.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Silicon Valley Slump: 1,600 Tech Workers Laid Off Per Day in 2023
On average, 1,600 tech workers have been laid off every single day in 2023 according to a recent report. The ongoing Silicon Valley slump has caused the Masters of the Universe including Facebook, Amazon, and Salesforce to lead the way in cutting high-paid tech employees.
Business Insider reports that according to the tracking website Layoffs.fyi, the tech industry has experienced a sharp rise in layoffs at the start of 2023, with an average of 1,600 workers being let go every day. Just 15 days into 2023, 91 tech companies worldwide have already let go of 24,151 employees, which amounts to about 15 percent of the 154,256 employees who were let go by over a thousand tech companies in 2022.
Elon Wins in Court: Laid Off Twitter Workers’ Class Action Lawsuit Is Dismissed
Five former Twitter employees have been forced to drop a class-action lawsuit against Elon Musk’s company due to previously signing arbitration agreements. The claims of several employees who did not sign the agreement will continue, and the lawyer representing employees vows a wave of arbitration cases against Musk’s company, explaining, “Mass arbitrations are incredibly costly for companies to defend and many employers have found themselves sorry about what they wished for when they insisted that employees would have to pursue their claims one by one.”
Business Insider reports that five former Twitter employees who were laid off after Elon Musk took control of the company have had their class-action lawsuit against the company dismissed. The ex-employees signed arbitration agreements as part of their employment contracts with Twitter, which stated that they would file legal complaints against the company in arbitration rather than in court. The contracts also included a class-action waiver. US District Judge James Donato upheld this decision in favor of the social media behemoth.
HEALTH
12 ways energized water improves your health
Here are 12 specific reasons energized water not only improves your health, but also gives you a deeper sense of appreciation for life.
13 Ways To Use Your Precious Prills
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ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
Greta Thunberg Hauled Away from Climate Protest by German Police
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg was reportedly hauled away from a climate protest on Sunday by German police.
Police in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia are said to have forcibly removed Swedish activist Greta Thunberg from a green agenda protest in the village of Lützerath on Sunday, local reports have claimed.
The village, which is earmarked for destruction so that a local coal mine can be expanded, has been the site of increasing violence between radical climate protesters and law enforcement officials, with over 70 officers reportedly being injured as a result of clashes.
Having already previously attended the protest, Thunberg reportedly returned to Lützerath again on Sunday to join the protest along with around 70 other activists, who had stationed themselves in the village in the hopes of preventing the coal mine’s expansion.
However, according to a report by Bild, the Swede was eventually forcibly carried away by two German police officers after she refused to comply with a request to leave the area.
While law enforcement officials did not appear to have much difficulty in removing Thunberg from the site, other climate activists did not easily surrender their positions in the condemned village, with there having been frequent clashes between radical climate activists and police.
Although many protesters at the site reportedly remained peaceful, some reportedly opted to throw stones, fireworks, and allegedly even “Molotov cocktails” at police, with officials saying that a group of up to 1,000 mostly masked protesters at one point tried to break through a police cordon on the outskirts of the village on Sunday.
Legislators Introduce State Bill to Ban Electric Vehicles
We can only hope that someday soon electric vehicles (EVs) will be less expensive, more eco-friendly, and safer. In the meantime, numerous issues have been identified with them including:
- Battery fires that are difficult to extinguish
- Batteries that are difficult and expensive to recycle
- Charging them threatens power grids and medical implants
- Cold weather reduces EV battery performance
- They emit high levels of biologically and environmentally harmful electromagnetic and wireless radiation
- Mining for battery ingredients IS NOT eco-friendly
- Oversized models create increased road safety risks
Regardless of these issues, EVs still have many proponents including the Biden Administration which continues to fund their manufacturing, maintenance, and operation. Some Wyoming legislators, however, want to get them out of their state and keep it that way.
From Ars Technica:
Wyoming Republicans take a stand, want to ban electric cars
As childish legislative stunts go, this one is certainly pathetic.
Legislators of the nation’s least-populous state are taking a brave stand against modernity and climate action. They’re sponsoring SJ0004, “Phasing out new electric vehicle sales by 2035,” an uncomplicated bill that expresses the state’s goal to phase out sales of new EVs by 2035 and asks Wyoming’s industries and citizens to do their civic duty in resisting the EV. Copies of the resolution would be sent to the White House, leaders in Congress, and the governor of California.
The motivation, according to the bill’s preamble, is that the oil and gas industry is important to the state, a state with fewer than 600,000 residents. Wyoming is proud of its oil and gas industry, and that gas—here presumably meaning “gasoline” and not the natural gas referred to in the bill’s early sentences—powers vehicles that drive on the state’s vast stretches of highway.
The bill’s authors think Wyoming’s interstate network is too desolate for electric vehicles, particularly since there is no existing EV charging infrastructure, they claim.
The authors also decry the fact that EVs require certain critical minerals—not currently supplied by the state of Wyoming—and that these could end up polluting landfills in Wyoming, in obvious ignorance of the enormous recycling potential for EV batteries.
Therefore, in order to protect the incomes of people who earn money extracting hydrocarbons from the ground or moving them around the state, sales of new EVs must be banned in Wyoming by 2035, the bill argues.
The date is no coincidence; 2035 is the year by which California wants to phase out sales of new internal combustion engine-powered vehicles. And that same year is when US President Joe Biden wants at least 50 percent of all new vehicles sold in the US to be EVs.
Sounds like projection to me
The politics of resentment come through loud and clear from the bill’s primary sponsor, State Senator Jim Anderson. Anderson told the Cowboy State Daily that if successful, Wyoming’s legislature would inform the rest of the world that “if you don’t like our petroleum cars, well, we don’t like your electric cars.”
GARDENING, FARMING & HOMESTEADING
Life is a war. Sometimes we win our battles, sometimes we don’t. We fight against the world to keep the faith, to hold families together, to pay bills, and to keep vehicles running. Often it seems that the war of a man’s life is simply an unending fight against entropy, Chaos, and decay. Especially if one drives an older vehicle.
Trying to start a homestead is another battle against entropy. God commanded Noah to take dominion over the Earth and commanded Adam in a similar fashion. Taking dominion means imposing order on the chaos, putting things into their proper place. The first acts of the Creation were acts of imposing order. Light was created, then separated from darkness. Sky, Earth, and Water were then separated from each other.
Homesteading is about order, and it’s also about creation. Turning wild grass into gardens, turning hillsides into terraces, turning trees into houses. It’s common to think of nature as being full of life, and it is, but it’s chaotic and unproductive life. It’s the job of the homesteader to rule that land, to impose order, and set boundaries so that life can flourish in a good way.
In ancient times, the word “symbolon”, from which we get “symbol”, referred to a practice by which an agreement was written on pottery and then broken. This was done so that each party had a piece of the “symbol” and the pieces could be rejoined to show that the agreement existed. “Symbols” bring things together to show an agreement and a relationship.
In Orthodoxy, we use ikons as symbols. The ikon represents a saint or event and thus helps to link us to our history, the saints, and to God. We don’t venerate painted wood any more than a soldier saluting his flag is paying respect to colored cloth. An ikon may be imbued by God with His Grace and do something miraculous, such as stream myrrh, but it’s never the wood itself that does it.
The opposing word to “symbolon” is “diabolos”. It means to separate things. It’s where we get the word “devil”, by the way. It’s also pretty much the devil’s MO: He separates us from God, from each other, and from the natural order of things. Adam was evicted from the Garden of Eden and forced to live on cursed earth. Mankind slowly disintegrated from one couple living in harmony with each other, nature, and God to billions of people who ignore each other on the street and occasionally throw fission bombs around.
Of course, the only real antidote to Chaos is to draw close to Christ, and to be of one mind with each other, as Christ and the Father are of one mind. In a monastic setting, the monks choose to be strictly obedient to their Abbot, while married laity are supposed to be strictly obedient to each other. A marriage counselor will speak endlessly about the necessity of good communication, but that’s only a means to the end of one being fully in step with the other.
How To Stop Chickens From Pecking Each Other: 6 Ways
Flocks have a social hierarchy that is referred to as their “pecking order.” Chickens are always going to mildly peck each other to determine this order, but the problem comes when they start injuring each other to establish this. To get a handle on this pecking order, let’s look at the different types of pecking and why they occur.
How to Determine Your Chicken Flock Size and Space Needs
If you’re planning to keep chickens, it’s best to start with a small flock — start with at least three. Chickens like to be active, and they require space for foraging in your garden or yard. They prefer space to roam, rather than confinement, although sometimes they need to be confined.
If you have more space, perhaps you want a larger flock. Having chickens is addicting — it’s common for people to increase their flocks over time with new breeds, adoption, and the tempting visit to the feed store.
Another consideration for chicken flock size is personal egg consumption. Are you a family of eight, all of whom love eggs? Are you not an egg eater at all, but love the idea of chickens in your garden? Are you a bachelor who loves gourmet omelets? Generally speaking, allow two laying hens per person eating eggs. But first pay attention to the space reserved for a chicken coop, an outside pen, and your garden size.
The space you can devote to a chicken coop will tell you how many chickens you can have in your flock. Most people don’t think about space requirements and usually err on the side of having too large a flock for their needs and space. In addition to a chicken coop, you need to determine the square footage you can devote to foraging space.
COVID RELATED NEWS
Omicron Subvariant XBB.1.5 Could Be More Likely to Infect Vaccinated: NYC Health Officials
The Omicron XBB.1.5 variant of COVID-19 is more likely to infect individuals who have been vaccinated, according to New York City health officials.
“Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 now accounts for 73 percent of all sequenced COVID-19 cases in NYC. XBB.1.5 is the most transmissible form of COVID-19 that we know of to date and may be more likely to infect people who have been vaccinated or already had COVID-19,” the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene wrote on Twitter on Jan. 13.
Despite this, the department urged New Yorkers to get vaccinated and receive the updated COVID-19 booster shot, stating that doing so “is still the best way to protect yourself from hospitalization and death from COVID-19, including from these new variants.”
The XBB.1.5 variant is quickly becoming the dominant subvariant in the United States. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that XBB.1.5 accounted for an estimated 43 percent of COVID-19 cases in the country for the week ending Jan. 14.
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said earlier this month that the subvariant is on the rise in the United States and Europe and has now been identified in more than 25 countries.
The subvariant has now overtaken the BQ.1.1 subvariant, which was first identified in September, and which now accounts for an estimated 28.8 percent of cases in the country, according to CDC data.
Bioweapon Labs Must Be Shut Down and Scientists Prosecuted
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently stated that SARS-CoV-2 originated in a biosafety level 4 lab in Wuhan, China
According to Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law, who drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, BSL 3 and 4 labs must be banned to prevent a catastrophe
Serious safety breaches have been identified at laboratories working with the most lethal and dangerous pathogens in the world
In October 2014, a U.S. moratorium on experiments on coronaviruses that might make the viruses more pathogenic and/or easy to spread among humans took effect. The moratorium was lifted at the end of December 2017
Despite the U.S. moratorium, Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the NIAID, allowed coronavirus gain-of-function experiments to continue because they had begun before the moratorium was put in place. The Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 calls for fines and/or up to life in prison for anyone involved in the creation of a bioweapon
>>Video: Engineered Viruses Are the New Biological Weapons, Here’s What You Need to Know
CANCEL CULTURE
Every Facet of Government Is in the Censorship Business
Between the documentation obtained through a recent lawsuit against the White House and the Twitter files released by Elon Musk, it’s become quite clear that every facet of the U.S. government, including its intelligence agencies, are involved in illegal and unconstitutional censorship
We now have proof that the FBI has been acting as the key instigator and implementer of the government’s illegal censorship of Americans. The FBI has also actively interfered in multiple elections — all while inventing the narrative that foreign nations were interfering
Twitter has worked hand in hand with the U.S. Department of Defense to aid U.S. intelligence agencies in their efforts to influence foreign governments using fake news, computerized deepfake videos and bots
The Twitter files also reveal members of Congress have a direct line to Twitter and have had accounts suspended on their behalf and content removed at their whim
Discovery documents from a lawsuit against the White House filed by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana show at least 67 federal employees across more than a dozen agencies are also engaged in illegal censorship activities. This includes aides to President Biden, who pressured social media companies to change their policies to fit White House demands for censorship
>> Video: Twitter files publisher: ‘Every conceivable wing’ of federal enforcement sent censorship requests
PET NEWS
No one is talking about selling kittens and puppies at the meat counter, but for the group of bunny-loving pet owners protesting near the Whole Foods in Union Square, they might as well be. Fifty or so women and men of all ages carry signs, pass out flyers and pamphlets, and try to spread their message to passing Manhattanites. “Boycott Whole Foods,” they say, “because they’re killing rabbits.”
Earlier this year, after developing its own welfare standards, Whole Foods launched a rabbit-meat pilot program across several North American regions that involves selling whole rabbit carcasses. In response, rabbit-protection activists organized a day of action this past weekend outside of more than 40 stores across the country.
GOOD NEWS
NY Healthcare Workers Fired for Declining COVID Shot Win in Court!
Judge Gerard J. Neri ruled the covid vaccine mandate for New York healthcare workers implemented by Governor Kathy Hochul is arbitrary, capricious, null & void, and cannot be enforced.
This means the Healthcare workers should be reinstated to their jobs!
However we can be pretty sure that Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Tish James will be appealing this decision which may pause the ruling from taking effect until the appeal was decided.
Judge Neri repeatedly states that the covid vaccine does not prevent transmission and therefore does not serve the purpose put forth by the state. Attorney Sujata Gibson is also my attorney, and the lead attorney in Kane v. de Blasio as well as New Yorkers for Religious Liberty (NYFRL) v. NYC. All of these cases are backed by Children’s Health Defense.
This victory is a very good sign for teachers and educators who have been fired for declining covid vaccination, as it is also a good sign for all fired frontline workers as well.
Ireland’s Largest Library Is a 300-Year-Old Treasure Trove With 200,000 Rare Books: PHOTOS
A 300-year-old library chamber in the educational epicenter of Dublin, Ireland, has become world-famous for its stunning interior and treasure trove of rare titles, some of them over a century old. For book lovers of all ages, both the collection and the setting are the stuff of fairy tales.
The Long Room at the Old Library at Trinity College in Dublin—Ireland’s largest library—is a grand, 213-foot-long wood-paneled chamber with barrel-vaulted ceilings and uniform floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. On these shelves sit some 200,000 rare books, accessible by sliding ladders and cordoned off to all but those with express permission to handle them.
ICYMI
Did J. Edgar Hoover Order the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr?
Biden’s MLK Speech: ‘Ban the Number of Bullets That Go in a Magazine’
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