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The price of some 67 tokens dropped more than 90% following their issuance, on-chain data shows.


A new class of Shiba Inu-inspired tokens was birthed on BNB Chain and Ethereum this Tuesday following a related tweet by technology billionaire Elon Musk.
Names like “BabyDogeTwitter,” “dogenaldtrump,” “SpaceTwitterDoge,” and “ElonDogeTwit,” populated the two blockchains after Musk tweeted an image of a Shiba Inu dog wearing a Twitter T-shirt in front of a classic Halloween pumpkin with the social media platform’s bird logo etched on the side of it.

Blockchain security firm PeckShield said in a tweet in Asian afternoon hours that over 67 of such tokens fell 90% in the hours following their issuance, with 45 tokens falling 100%. This cumulatively led to losses of thousands of dollars among investors who punted on the newly-issued tokens in hopes of a long-term price appreciation.
Over 42 tokens were marked by PeckShield as honeypots, a term that describes illicit tokens that change permissions on unsuspecting users’ crypto wallets, with the goal of eventually transferring all their crypto tokens out of those wallets into one controlled by a scammer.
Musk’s tweet also sparked off a rally in dogecoin, which jumped over 14 cents to gain more than 23% in the past 24 hours. Floki Inu, another Shiba Inu-themed token, also surged by a similar figure, while Shiba Inu’s SHIB tokens jumped 8%.
Such irrational exuberance came amid a relatively flat crypto market, with bitcoin and ether rising nominally in the past 24 hours.
Musk has been a major supporter of DOGE, which has become a proxy for sentiment about him. The entrepreneur's statements about the token have also consistently influenced its price, as previously reported.
Dogecoin has been on a run ever since Musk confirmed his takeover of Twitter last week, with the token’s futures racking up over $90 in liquidations over the weekend in an unusual move. The DOGE price doubled in October, the best performance among the 150 digital assets in the CoinDesk Market Index.

www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/11/01/elon-musk-tweet-sparks-flurry-of-twitter-themed-dogecoin-tokens/

Mushegian was an important figure in the crypto community, contributing to multiple projects, including MakerDAO, BitShares and Balancer.



Nikolai Mushegian, co-founder of the cryptocurrency lending platform MakerDAO and the decentralized Dai
DAI

tickers down
$1.00

stablecoin, was found dead in Puerto Rico last week.

Mushegian died due to drowning after being dragged by sea currents on the Condado beach in San Juan, the local newspaper El Nuevo Día reported. Mushegian had no vital signs by the time his body was rescued.

The Condado beach is considered one of the world’s most dangerous places for swimmers, reportedly taking the lives of at least eight people in 2021.

The unfortunate event was reported to local authorities on the morning on Oct. 28. According to a police report, Mushegian was a resident of San Juan. The scene was reportedly investigated by the San Juan Homicide Division and a local prosecutor.

Mushegian was an important figure in the cryptocurrency community, contributing to multiple industry projects, with some referring to him as a “Dai architect.” The 29-year-old crypto developer is known for his work with MakerDAO forks Rico and Rai, as well as the proof-of-stake blockchain network BitShares. Mushegian is also a co-founder of the automated market maker Balancer.

MakerDAO founder and CEO Rune Christensen took to Twitter on Oct. 31 to say that Mushegian contributed important inputs to Maker’s development and has done some crucial work since the early days of Ethereum.

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson wrote on Twitter that he knew Mushegian from back in the BitShares days. “He was a very young and extremely bright man who had a very wide array of interests from game theory to Urbit,” Hoskinson said, adding that the coder had a deep understanding of technology.

Tether co-creator Craig Sellars noted that Mushegian’s death came just a few days after the MakerDAO community voted to approve custody of $1.6 billion in USD Coin
USDC

Mushegian was an active community member on social media. His Twitter account, Delete_shitcoin, has about 5,500 followers at the time of writing. His last tweet was published just a few hours before his death, referring to suggestions of alleged blackmail from the United States Central Intelligence Agency and Mossad. Mushegian previously made similar statements on Twitter, hinting at a potential “suicide” by the CIA as one of his possible futures.

cointelegraph.com/news/makerdao-co-founder-nikolai-mushegian-dies-at-29-in-puerto-rico

Crypto exchange Blockchain.com has partnered with Visa to launch a crypto card

Crypto exchange Blockchain.com has partnered with Visa to launch a crypto card, available to only United States residents initially, which allows users to pay using their crypto or cash balance wherever Visa debit cards are accepted.

In an Oct. 26 announcement, Blockchain.com revealed that there would be no sign-up or annual fees, no transaction fees and users would earn 1% of all purchases back in crypto.

In a Yahoo Finance interview, Blockchain.com CEO Peter Smith said the card already had 50,000 signed onto a waiting list, noting:

“There’s still a lot of demand for crypto products, but you’re seeing that demand shift away from trading and more towards folks that are interested in using DeFi, using their balances.”
Following the announcement, Visa’s head of crypto, Cuy Sheffield, pointed out that worldwide acceptance is necessary for crypto adoption to continue to grow.

The card is powered by California-based payments company Marqeta, which helped develop crypto finance firm Swipe’s crypto visa card in September 2020.

The announcement follows news that Visa has partnered with crypto exchange FTX to roll out a debit card to 40 countries on October 7.

Related: Japan’s International Payments System will test plastic cards for CBDC

MasterCard partners with BitOasis
On Oct. 25, Visa’s main competitor Mastercard signed onto a strategic partnership with BitOasis, the leading crypto platform in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), to launch a series of crypto card programs designed to facilitate the adoption of digital assets in the region.

BitOasis customers will be able to link their wallets to the new card and convert crypto into fiat to enable the use of Mastercard’s global merchant network, with the card expected to launch in early 2023.

The co-founder and CEO of BitOasis, Ola Doudin, sees a huge potential for adoption within the area, noting:

“We continue to witness sustained demand amongst our customers for crypto to be integrated into, and relevant, for their daily lives. Research tells us that 47% of the Middle East population now believe crypto is the future of money.”
The partnership follows a $30 million Series B funding round from BitOasis which closed in October 2021. The funding facilitated the expansion of its Dubai-based platform into MENA.

cointelegraph.com/news/blockchain-com-partners-with-visa-to-offer-crypto-debit-card

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried also ruled out a potential acquisition of popular trading app Robinhood

Cryptocurrency exchange FTX is working on creating a stablecoin, CEO Sam Bankman-Fried told The Big Whale in an interview.
Bankman-Fried said in the interview "it is very likely" FTX will create a stablecoin, a crypto token whose value is tied to that of another asset. The exchange knows how to create one and is thinking about the best partner to work with, he said. He also hinted that an announcement will come soon.
FTX currently offers margin trading that allows customers to use a basket of U.S. dollar stablecoins as collateral. The basket includes trueUSD (TUSD), USD coin (USDC), Pax dollar (USDP), HUSD and Binance USD (BUSD). Rival exchange Binance started issuing Binance USD in 2019.

The rise of tether (USDT), which is the largest stablecoin and has a market cap of $68 billion, also provides a use-case of how stablecoins can thrive even under regulatory scrutiny. Tether is owned by iFinex, a Hong Kong holding company that also owns crypto exchange Bitfinex.
FTX has been spending during the current bear market, making several large acquisitions including a deal to buy crypto lending business BlockFi for up to $240 million. While Bankman-Fried bought a 7.6% stake in retail trading app Robinhood (HOOD) in May, FTX is not interested in acquiring the entire company, he said in the interview.
FTX did not immediately respond to CoinDesk's request for comment.

Dogecoin has jumped 10% over the past 24 hours alongside Ethereum. Shiba Inu has also enjoyed a hefty rally

DOGE, the largest and perhaps most well-known meme coin, rose nearly 10% over the past day. The canine crypto is currently trading at a new monthly high of $0.065, according to data from Coingecko.

DOGE, the tenth-largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of just under $9 billion, is now well ahead of Polkadot’s (DOT) market cap of $7.5 billion.

Dogecoin’s trading volumes across different exchanges are upbeat too. The cryptocurrency’s trading volume clocked above $682 million over the past 24 hours, up 178% from the previous trading day.

Today’s heroics has helped DOGE reverse its weekly and monthly losses. On a monthly note, DOGE has gained nearly 7.6%, suggests Coingecko.

Despite today’s double-digit rise, though, DOGE is still down 91% from its all-time high of $0.7315 recorded in May 2021.

DOGE futures positions worth $2.22 million have been liquidated over the past 24 hours, according to data from Coinglass. Most (78.96%) of the liquidations came from blown-out short positions.



Besides the broader market's bullish momentum, reduced miner reserves and steadily increasing long-term holders have also attributed to DOGE’s bullish price action.

The total miner reserve is at 4.39 billion DOGE, down nearly 65% over the past 12 months to levels last seen in December 2013
decrypt.co/112885/dogecoin-joins-ethereum-double-digit-gains-crypto-rallies

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance lost at least $100 million in a hack on Thursday, the company disclosed Thursday.

According to ’Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, hackers exploited a vulnerability in BSC Token Hub, a bridge that facilitates the transfer of assets between two Binance blockchains — BNB Beacon Chain and BNB Smart Chain.

The exploit in BSC Token Hub allowed hackers to mint 2 million Binance digital tokensworth approximately $570 million. In an interview with CNBC, Zhao said that no users lost their money as hackers were trying to siphon off just those extra tokens.

The value of BNB dropped by almost 4% on Friday, to $283 per coin, according to CoinMarketCap.

An exploit on a cross-chain bridge, BSC Token Hub, resulted in extra BNB. We have asked all validators to temporarily suspend BSC. The issue is contained now. Your funds are safe. We apologize for the inconvenience and will provide further updates accordingly.

— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) October 6, 2022


Initially, the hackers tried to withdraw all $570 million from Binance, but the company temporarily shut down the vulnerable network to fix the bug, leaving the cybercriminals with nearly $118 million in stolen funds, which they’ve already moved to other networks.

An estimated $7 million has been frozen, so the actual hack amount is around $100 million to $110 million, according to Binance.

The cross-chain bridge hacks are common in the crypto world, according to Zhao. These blockchain-based open-source smart contracts help users to move between networks, but they have also become an attractive tool for cybercriminals to launder money.

Nearly $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency had been stolen in 13 cross-chain bridge attacks, mostly in 2022, according to the blockchain research company Chainalysis. A cross-chain bridge platform called RenBridge has been used to launder at least $540 million in cryptocurrency over the last three years, while in March, hackers stole $600 million from a bridge behind the crypto-based video game Axie Infinity.

These attacks are a blow to the whole digital assets industry, which suffers from declining crypto prices and a sharp drop in market value — from more than $3 trillion last year to less than $1 trillion now.

Any attempt to hack crypto platforms undermines trust in decentralized finance, which relies on algorithms and lacks regulation. “Software code is never bug-free,” Zhao said.

In response to the attack, Binance suspended transactions and fund transfers on BNB Smart Chain for approximately eight hours, but restarted it Friday morning.

Early on Friday, Binance wrote on Reddit that the issue is contained and users’ funds are safe.

How it happened
Hackers used the bug in the proof verifier of the bridge, meaning that they convinced the system that they had valid claims to the funds, according to cybersecurity firm Hacken.

“Simply telling, he [the hacker] said to the bridge “I transferred 1 million BNB to you on the Beacon Chain, so you must give me 1 million BNB on Binance Smart Chain (BEP20),” Hacken wrote on Twitter.

Other researchers, including from Rekt and Paradigm, came to the same conclusion.

Rather than sending freshly-minted BNB directly into the wallets, hackers deposited 900,000 BNB to the lending platform Venus Protocol, according to Hacken.

Then hackers raced to move stolen funds to other chains, including Fantom, Avalanche, and Arbitrum before Binance suspended the network. The suspension “allowed saving the network and ecosystem from collapse, as the bridge had billions of dollars on the balance,” according to Hacken.

4.

He successfully transferred:

≈ $57M to Fantom

≈ $53M to Ethereum

≈ $4M to Arbitrum

≈ $3M to Avalanche

≈ $1M to Optimism

≈ $400k to Polygon

Making it roughly $118M withdrawn from from Binance Smart Chain

— Hacken🇺🇦 (@hackenclub) October 7, 2022

What’s next
Binance said that its community will hold a vote on what to do with the hacked funds. Participants will also decide on a bounty for catching hackers and identifying future bugs. The company plans to pay $1 million for each significant bug found.

Binance will share the details of the hack and “all lessons on how to implement more advanced security measures” after the investigation. It will also introduce a new on-chain governance mechanism on the BNB Chain to fight and defend against future possible attacks.

“We need to learn how to make code more secure,” Zhao told CNBC. “In a blockchain world, one bug can result in very large losses.”

As of publication time, the company did not respond to an inquiry from The Record.

therecord.media/hackers-steal-at-least-100-million-from-binance-linked-blockchain/#:~:text=The%20world's%20largest%20cryptocurrency%20exchange,Thursday%2C%20the%20company%20disclosed%20Thursday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed laws on Wednesday officially recognizing the annexation of four Ukrainian regions into Russia.

The laws finalize the annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, which each held Russian-backed elections to join their eastern neighboring country. The "referendum" elections were conducted by Russian authorities and Russian-separatists.

The elections were carried out in defiance of international law and Ukraine and the West have rejected them as a sham. They were also conducted amid the ongoing war effort.


Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during the signing ceremony at the Grand Kremlin Palace, on September 30, 2022, in Moscow, Russia. (Contributor/Getty Images)


Earlier this week, both houses of the Russian parliament ratified treaties with the four regions, making the annexation legal in Russia’s eyes
A formal signing ceremony was held with separatist leaders last week at the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Russia.

Putin's decision to annex the Ukrainian regions comes as his army has suffered major losses in the ongoing war in Ukraine, which started when Russian first invaded the country on Feb. 24.

Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are located along Ukraine's east and southeast border with Russia, the Sea of Azov, and Crimea — a Ukrainian territory annexed by Russia in 2014. The Kremlin has not specified the borders of the newly absorbed regions.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded to the annexation by ruling out any further peace talks with Russia. He also announced his country was continuing to seek a fast-track application to join NATO.

Ukraine's military has recently struck a series of successful counterattacks, reclaiming conquered territory and pushing Russian forces back in some areas to their own national border.

Ukrainian Operational Command South is currently recapturing villages in Kherson, as well as the Liubymivka, Khreschenivka, Zolota Balka, Biliaivka, Ukrainka, Velyka and Mala Oleksandrivka villages.

Putin and Russian security forces have vowed to defend the newly Russian-recognized territories using any means necessary

https://www.foxnews.com/world/putin-signs-laws-annexing-ukrainian-regions-donetsk-luhansk-kherson-zaporizhzhia

Kim Kardashian has agreed to pay a $1.26m (£1.12m) fine for advertising EthereumMax on her Instagram page

The US Securities and Exchange Commission said the reality TV star had received $250,000 for advertising the cryptocurrency, without disclosing she had been paid to do so.

She also agreed not to promote crypto asset securities for three years.

Her lawyer told BBC News: "Ms Kardashian is pleased to have resolved this matter with the SEC."

The lawyer said: "Kardashian fully cooperated with the SEC from the very beginning and she remains willing to do whatever she can to assist the SEC in this matter.

"She wanted to get this matter behind her to avoid a protracted dispute.

'Misleadingly promote'
Ms Kardashian, boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr, basketball player Paul Pierce and EthereumMax's creators were sued by investors in January.

The legal action alleged they had collaborated to "misleadingly promote and sell" the cryptocurrency in a "pump and dump" scheme designed to inflate the price before selling to investors.

EthereumMax disputed the allegations at the time.

In spite of its name, EthereumMax has no legal or business connection with the Ethereum cryptocurrency.

Anyone can create a crypto coin.

All you need is a few pounds, a YouTube tutorial and a funky name.

This month alone, dozens of new tokens will be launched, with creators promising their coin will be the next big thing.

With little intrinsic value to the product, marketing is key - and as in many modern industries, celebrities can be the make or break.

EthereumMax put a huge amount of money into snapping up celebrities such as Kim Kardashian - and at first, it seemed to be working out.

But as with many crypto coins, the fall was as dramatic as the rise.

Even if EthereumMax had retained the value it gained after the celebrity pump, regulators both in the US and UK were extremely uncomfortable about the marketing of the coin.

The crypto industry is still largely unregulated - but Kim Kardashian joins a growing list of people and companies being punished for promoting these highly risky products.

'Highly speculative'
Gary Gensler, who chairs the SEC, called the case a "reminder" celebrity endorsement did not necessarily make a product worth investing in.

"Ms Kardashian's case also serves as a reminder to celebrities and others that the law requires them to disclose to the public when and how much they are paid to promote investing in securities," he said.

Later, in a YouTube video about crypto investment, he added: "Celebrity endorsements... don't mean that an investment product is right for you or even, frankly, that it's legitimate.

"Even if a celebrity endorsement is genuine, each investment has its own risk and opportunities.

"When it comes to crypto, remember many of these are highly speculative assets.

"You may be wondering if it's right for you or even if it might be a scam."



www.bbc.com/news/technology-63116235

Amazon on Wednesday unveiled a collection of product updates that tie together its vast suite of services and help ensure it remains at the center of peoples’ lives and homes.

Nearly a year after Amazon (AMZN) was met with criticism over its controversial vision for the future of home security, the company is doubling down on new features for Astro, its dog-like robot, to help it better patrol the household when the owners are away. Amazon (AMZN) also announced a new sleep-tracking device as well as an updated Alexa-powered Fire TV that knows when you’re in the room, among a number of other products.

The new updates, announced at an invite-only press event, come a week after the company introduced four new Fire HD 8 tablet models and appear aimed at drumming up excitement for its products ahead of the all-important holiday shopping season.

Amazon, like other tech companies, must convince customers to upgrade or buy new gadgets at a time when fears are mounting about a possible global recession. At the same time, Amazon must also confront shifting comfort levels with its growing reach into the lives of consumers and how closely its household products may be tracking them.

Last month, Amazon agreed to buy iRobot, the company behind the popular automated Roomba vacuums, in a $1.7 billion deal that quickly raised concerns. The Federal Trade Commission is now probing the deal after more than two dozen groups wrote to the agency alleging the acquisition could help Amazon “entrench their monopoly power in the digital economy.”

Amazon did not mention the Roomba at Wednesday’s event, but Amazon clearly remains committed to investing to make every home a little more of an Amazon home.

Amazon is rolling out its first major software update to Astro, an autonomous 20-pound dog-like robot with large, cartoon-y eyes on its tablet face, and a cup holder. The robot – not unlike an Alexa on wheels – uses voice-recognition software, cameras, artificial intelligence, mapping technology and voice- and face-recognition sensors as it zooms from room to room, capturing live video and learning your habits.

Soon Astro will be able to detect cats and dogs in the home, take short video clips of what they’re up to when owners aren’t around and watch and talk to them in real time. Amazon is also adding the ability to monitor if windows or doors are left open, building on what the company said users have been already doing, such as checking to see if the stove was left on.


Amazon's Astro robot now detects pets' faces

Amazon is also opening Astro up to the developer community by offering tools that enable them to build software or specific commands for the robotic pup. And Astro will now work with a real-time subscription service from Amazon’s smart-doorbell company, Ring, to provide security monitoring to small and medium-sized businesses.

The company emphasized that Astro was conceived with security and privacy as a priority, with data processed on the device itself and the ability to restrict where Astro can go in the home.

Astro is currently available for $999, which includes a six-month free trial of Ring Protect Pro. (Pricing will later jump to $1,499.)

Smarter TVs
Amazon unveiled a new series of Fire TV Omni QLED models – the first Fire TV to ship with Dolby Vision IQ.

Through adaptive technology, the 4K TVs know when you walk into a room and leave, so it can save on power and turn off when needed. It also features a gallery of 1,500 curated pictures that can be displayed when not in use – a concept similar to Samsung’s existing Frame TVs
Its deeper integration with Alexa could be a true standout: with its built-in microphones, users can access widgets such as sticky notes, the calendar, the weather or dim the lights by talking directly to the TV. A 65-inch model costs $799 and 75-inch version costs $1,099.

Amazon is also rolling out a premium remote, called Alexa Voice Remote Pro, that includes a feature to make it easier to find when the remote gets misplaced.

Halo Rise
Amazon is expanding its suite of Halo wellness products beyond wearables into sleep tracking. The new Halo Rise sits on the nightstand and monitors the sleeping and breathing patterns of the person closest. It also tracks humidity and light in the room, and presents a natural light to wake up to as an alternative to an alarm.

The device, which uses sensor tech and machine learning to approach sleep, works even if the person is turned in the other direction, or covered in pillows and blankets, as it can detect micro-movements, according to the company.

Amazon said it developed the product to offer consumers more choices around sleep tracking, noting many people don’t like sleeping with a wearable device and that batteries often turn off mid-sleep cycle.

Halo Rise is $139.99 and includes a six-month Halo membership, which provides workouts, insights and tools for health tracking.

Kindle Scribe
Fifteen years after launching the Kindle, Amazon is introducing a higher-end version that also serves as a writing device.

With a 10.2-inch HD display and its first-ever Kindle pen, the Kindle Scribe allows users to write to-do lists, journal entries and review documents imported from their phone. Amazon said it will partner with Microsoft to support its suite of products on the Kindle Scribe early next year.

The new Kindle supports USB-C charging and has a battery designed to last for months. The device starts at $339 with a pen and 16 GB of storage and costs $369 for a premium pen and 32 GB. (The company did not go into specifics on the premium pen.) In comparison, a basic Kindle starts at $99, while its higher-end Kindle Oasis is $249.

New Echo speakers
Amazon updated its Echo Dot speaker lineup. The new devices feature twice the bass, updated processors and can serve as a Wi-Fi extender for the company’s Eero mesh system. Amazon is also rolling out a software update to its high-end Echo Studio speaker to include new spatial audio processing and improve sound quality. The speaker, which is $199, now comes in white.

The company is also taking another shot at getting Alexa into the car. Its Echo Auto device ($54.99) is now smaller, sleeker and can be more easily mounted in a vehicle. The gadget is intended to let users send hands-free messages, listen to music and podcasts, access navigation and seamlessly sift from the car to another device when you get home.

A smarter Echo Show 15
Amazon also announced a number of software updates coming to its existing Echo Show 15, a device the company said is especially popular in the kitchen.

The upgrade includes free access to Fire TV and a much more personal Alexa. The voice assistant can now rattle off a morning routine for each person in the home, including providing calendar updates, playing specific music and highlighting traffic reports for commuters.

Other new features include receiving alerts for weather forecast changes; the ability to record video messages that can be displayed on the Echo Show screen or via the Alexa app; asking Alexa to dim the lights up to 24 hours in the future; and receiving updates about when a Whole Foods Market curbside pickup order is ready. The updates will roll out in the coming months.

The Echo Show is also getting an interactive storytelling feature that lets kids pick from a handful of themes, such as an undersea or outer space adventure, and characters like an octopus or an astronaut, to create a story that is immediately animated on the gadget’s display and told by Alexa. The story is generated using a number of AI models that determine elements including the script and music, making it different each time.

“Amazon has invested in embedding more intelligence in its Alexa devices for awhile now and the ability to extend that capability into greater system-wide intelligence is significant,” said Jonathan Collins, a research director at market research firm ABI Research. “New functionality, including its Routines feature, could help make Amazon smart home systems more intelligent, responsive and helpful, and more tightly integrated with other Amazon offerings from grocery shopping and beyond.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/28/tech/amazon-hardware-evenspam blocked by adminindle-products/index.html

A Chinese billionaire and a former University of Minnesota student who accused him of rape have reached an undisclosed agreement in the US, bringing an abrupt end to a case closely watched – and now hailed as a minor victory – by women on the other side of the world.

JD.com’s founder and former CEO Richard Liu reached a settlement with former student Liu Jingyao, who accused him of raping her in her Minneapolis apartment after a group dinner in 2018, ending the high-profile case less than two days before a planned civil trial in Minnesota.

Lawyers of the two parties – who are not related, with Liu being a common surname in China – said they had agreed to “set aside their differences” in order to “avoid further pain and suffering.”

“The incident between Ms. Jingyao Liu and Mr. Richard Liu in Minnesota in 2018 resulted in a misunderstanding that has consumed substantial public attention and brought profound suffering to the parties and their families,” the parties said in a joint statement.

Liu is among a handful of well-known Chinese men accused of s*xual assault in recent years, and he’s the first to have faced the prospect of a public lawsuit in the US – outside of China’s opaque legal system.

The decision to settle the case out of court has been embraced by some feminists in China as a small victory for the country’s beleaguered #MeToo movement.

On Weibo, China’s highly restricted Twitter-like platform, a hashtag related to the case drew millions of views.

The reaction was divided. Many comments expressed sympathy for Liu, the tycoon, and accused Liu Jingyao of pursuing legal actions for money. Like other #MeToo accusers in China, Liu Jingyao has faced an onslaught of criticism from the Chinese internet since the case went public.

Liu Jingyao’s supporters, meanwhile, have touted the outcome as a “historic moment.”

“Looking back at China’s #MeToo movement in the past four years, this pre-trial settlement is of great significance – it’s the result of a four-year struggle of Jingyao and feminists,” read a comment from one of her supporters.

Richard Liu, whose Chinese name is Liu Qiangdong, launched e-commerce platform JD.com in 2004. The company has since grown to be one of China’s largest and most successful, transforming Liu into one of the country’s wealthiest online entrepreneurs.

In 2018, he was visiting the University of Minnesota as part of a doctoral business administration program that caters to high-level executives from China when he met Liu Jingyao, then 21, who later accused him of rape.

The billionaire, who was 45 at the time of the alleged incident, was arrested by Minneapolis police in August 2018 on suspicion of s*xual misconduct, but denied any wrongdoing.

Liu was released without charge and without having to post bail the following day and quickly returned to China. Prosecutors at the time cited “profound evidentiary problems” that would have made it hard to build a criminal case.

In April 2019, Liu Jingyao filed a civil lawsuit against the ty

According to the complaint, Liu and the other guests pressured the plaintiff to drink excessive amounts of alcohol during their meal, which was paid for with a JD.com corporate credit card. While the Chinese student requested help securing transportation home via a ride service, she was instead directed to a limo with him, she said.

The suit stated that Liu groped the woman during the car ride and tried to remove her clothes despite her repeatedly asking him to stop. He later assaulted the woman in her apartment, according to the complaint.

By the time the case was filed, Liu had relinquished day-to-day management of JD.com – and this April he stood down as CEO, one of a series of high-profile departures at China’s tech companies amid increased government scrutiny of the technology industry and policy shifts to redistribute wealth more equally in the country.

s*xual assault accusations rarely get to trial in China, and even if they do, the plaintiffs often face a difficult battle as the courts give little credence to testimony and place a heavy emphasis on “smoking gun” evidence, according to legal experts.

Against that backdrop, the Liu court settlement is seen as a mark of some progress amid legal setbacks in China.

In August, a court in China rejected an appeal by Zhou Xiaoxuan, a former state television intern, against the dismissal of her long-running landmark #MeToo case accusing a star presenter of s*xual harassment.

Zhou, better known as Xianzi in China, became the face of the country’s #MeToo movement in 2018 when she publicly accused state television host Zhu Jun of groping and forcibly kissing her in a dressing room four years earlier when she was a 21-year-old intern.

Zhu, who was 50 at the time of the alleged incident, denied the accusation and sued Zhou for defamation. She then countersued, sparking a years-long legal battle that coincided with a wider crackdown by the ruling Chinese Communist Party on feminist activism and online discussion of women’s rights.

In a statement posted to her WeChat account, Zhou praised Liu Jingyao for standing up against powerful figures like Richard Liu in a case she said had “changed the times.”

“In these four years, she fought for feminists to give the biggest (platform) to discuss what is rape culture and what is power s*xual assault,” Zhou said.

“Jingyao’s resistance four years ago was an extremely rare show of courage – it is not uncommon for business bosses to prey on young girls, but she is the first person to stand up, this is the courage beyond human nature,” Zhou said.

“Don’t forget that when all this happened, Jingyao was just a student. To this day, she is still dealing with JD.com’s strong public relations and well-paid lawyers,” she said.

“This was the best she and her lawyers can achieve. Her courage and persistence in the past four years was already a miracle.”

edition.cnn.com/2022/10/03/business/jd-richard-liu-rape-lawsuit-intl-hnk/index.html

Chelsea FC head coach Thomas Tuchel has been sacked.

It comes less than a day after the Blues lost 1-0 to Dinamo Zagreb in the Champions League group stage.

They have had an indifferent start to the league season, losing two of their opening six Premier League fixtures.

In a statement, the club said Tuchel "will rightly have a place in Chelsea's history after winning the Champions League, the Super Cup and Club World Cup in his time here."

It added: "As the new ownership group reaches 100 days since taking over the club, and as it continues its hard work to take the club forward, the new owners believe it is the right time to make this transition.

"Chelsea's coaching staff will take charge of the team for training and the preparation of our upcoming matches as the club moves swiftly to appoint a new head coach."

It comes after Tuchel criticised Chelsea's "huge underperformance" in the Champions League group match, saying his side lacked "hunger and intensity" in the shock 1-0 loss at Dinamo Zagreb.

"I'm angry on myself," he said. "I'm angry on our performance. It's not aggressive enough on the ball, it's not enough individually or enough as a team.

The latest development comes after new owners Boehly and Eghbali paid a world-record sports franchise £4.25billion to buy Chelsea from Russian billionaire Abramovich at the end of May.


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The ambitious US magnates are in the process of overhauling every aspect of the Blues' operation, and have acted quickly to unseat Tuchel.

The highly regarded German coach has overseen three defeats in seven matches in the new campaign, after the Blues invested a one-window Premier League record £273million to revamp the squad.

Brighton boss Graham Potter and former PSG and Tottenham coach Mauricio Pochettino are thought to be among the early candidates for new Chelsea manager.

news.sky.com/story/chelsea-sacks-head-coach-thomas-tuchel-12691892

An former partner of Stake.com who claims he was excluded from the wildly successful company is suing the Australian creators of the largest bitcoin casino in the world in the US for $US400 million in damages.

However, the creators of Stake.com, Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani, who just bought the most expensive home in Melbourne, have called the lawsuit “utterly frivolous” and “provably false.”

The cryptocurrency casino Stake.com, which was thought to be an overseas operation, was actually formed in Melbourne in 2017 by Craven and Tehrani, according to a late 2021 investigation by The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.

With Canadian pop artist Drake serving as its major brand ambassador, Stake.com, the lead shirt sponsor of English Premier League soccer team Everton, has grown into a company with a potential market value of up to $1 billion.

Craven recently made news in Australia when he paid $80 million for a Toorak home, shattering the city’s previous record. A other Toorak property was purchased for $38 million earlier this year by entities connected to Craven.

Christopher Freeman, who is currently based in Florida, has filed a civil lawsuit in the Southern District of New York, claiming he was misled into not taking part in the creation of Stake.com and is seeking $US400 million ($580 million) in punitive damages as well as payment for his initial investment in a company that served as a precursor to Stake.com.

The case also names Stake.com as a defendant. Lawyers for the company referred to the accusations as “frivolous” and “provably false” in a statement. If the action was not dismissed from court, it stated that it will defend the claim.

The allegation made by Freeman cites Craven’s real estate acquisitions as proof of Stake.com’s enormous success. The casino claims to have processed $US100 billion in bets across its casino and sports betting companies, yet it runs very similarly to a typical casino and only accepts cryptocurrencies as payment.

Freeman claims in his court case that he went to elementary and high school in Connecticut with Tehrani and was friends with the Stake.com founder since they were little children.

In the beginning, according to Freeman, he owned 20% of Primedice while Tehrani and Craven each owned 40%, a situation that reflected their first investment in the company.

Within nine months of Primedice’s founding, Freeman claims that his stock was lowered to 14% in order to compensate other key members of the development team.

Freeman claims that despite the trio’s agreement that Primedice would only grant stock to persons who have invested money in the company, this share transfer nonetheless took place.

As the value of cryptocurrencies increased, Freeman claims that in 2016, he discussed the concept of a cryptocurrency casino with his business partners, but Tehrani and Craven allegedly turned him down because of potential regulatory concerns.

Freeman claims he was discouraged from joining Tehrani and Craven’s claimed new enterprise, Stake.com, in the same year after being informed he could only take part if he relocated to Australia and that the new business would only deal in fiat currencies like the US dollar or the Euro.

According to court documents, “Freeman, who was committed to and at ease with the concepts of online gambling, believed a fiat money casino was the wrong direction to go (online gaming facilitated by fiat is a widespread, big business)”.

“He reasoned it was highly competitive and presented personal risks which he was not prepared to accept, and he did not want to be forced to move to Australia to pursue a fiat-based gambling business”.

Freeman claims that Tehrani and Craven started their bitcoin casino Stake.com despite their prior comments that it would be too expensive to operate one and worries about regulation.

He further claims that after questioning Tehrani and Craven, the two gave him guarantees before taking away his system access.

“Later, when Stake.com launched as a virtual casino which included a competing online dice game and many other features Freeman had proposed and helped design, Tehrani and Craven affirmatively tried to assuage Freeman’s dismay at having been misled by affirming that he still retained his stake in Primedice.”

“Eventually, Freeman’s access to the Primedice account was blocked and never returned.”

Stake.com said in a statement:

“The complaint filed by Chris Freeman contains allegations that are internally inconsistent, intentionally misleading, and provably false.” The company described the claim as a “desperate attempt to spread false information”, adding Freeman had no claim to the money he said he was owed.

bitcoinist.com/crypto-casino-stake-com-sued-for-400-million/

Washington, D.C., is suing billionaire tech executive Michael Saylor and his former company MicroStrategy for alleged tax fraud.

D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine announced the lawsuit Wednesday, alleging that Saylor has lived in the district for more than a decade but has never paid any Washington, D.C., income taxes.

Racine said his office was suing Saylor's former company, MicroStrategy, for "conspiring to help (Saylor) evade taxes he legally owes on hundreds of millions of dollars he’s earned while living in DC."

Racine said it was the first lawsuit brought under Washington D.C.’s False Claims Act, encouraging whistleblowers to report residents who evade Washington's tax laws by misrepresenting their residence.

"With this lawsuit, we’re putting the residents and employers on notice that if you enjoy all the benefits of living in our great city while refusing to pay your fair share in taxes, we will hold you accountable," Racine said.


Michael Saylor, chairman and chief executive officer at MicroStrategy, speaks during the DC Blockchain Summit in Washington, D.C. (Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Saylor, who oversaw MicroStrategy’s push into bitcoin, stepped down as CEO earlier this month, following a reported $1 billion second-quarter loss amid a plunge in cryptocurrencies.

www.foxbusiness.com/technology/washing-dc-attorney-general-suing-ex-microstrategy-ceo-michael-saylor-alleged-tax-fraud?intcmp=tw_fnc

An Emirates airline's Airbus A380, displayed at the Dubai Airshow on November 9, 2015.

Nigeria's aviation ministry says it is "working hard" to release trapped funds to the Emirates airline after the carrier suspended flights to Nigeria beginning from next month.

Emirates announced in a statement Thursday that it has put a hold on flight operations in and out of Nigeria due to its inability to repatriate funds from the West African country.
The airline said there has been "no progress" in reaching Nigerian authorities for a solution.
"Emirates has tried every avenue to address our ongoing challenges in repatriating funds from Nigeria and have made considerable efforts to initiate dialogue with the relevant authorities for their urgent intervention to help find a viable solution. Regrettable there has been no progress," Emirates said in a statement.

The decision comes after Emirates announced last month of flights it would reduce flights to Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos, the carrier said it could not access its funds amounting to $85 million withheld in the country. The stuck funds had been rising by over $10 million every month, the airline said in a letter addressed to Nigeria's Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika.
Currency in freefall
Sirika told CNN the trapped funds will be released as this was not the first time Nigeria was holding onto huge amounts of revenue belonging to foreign air carriers.

"In the past, Nigeria has demonstrated the capacity and the willingness and fairness to resolve this type of issue. It happened when we took over power in 2015: There were lots of blocked funds, about $600 million at that time. It was at a time when the country was in a recession and there were dwindling revenues coming to the country, yet we honored our obligation to pay out all those blocked funds," Sirika told CNN Thursday.
"Unfortunately, due to many factors and reasons, the monies piled back up. Government is working hard to ensure that these monies are released, not only for Emirates but all airlines affected," Sirika added.
Sirika added that "mechanisms will be put in place to ensure that this does not occur in the future."

The minister did not elaborate on what the factors were although Nigeria is grappling with shortages in foreign exchange which has restricted access to foreign currency for imports.
Earlier in June, the International Air Transport Association said Nigeria was holding onto $450 million revenue belonging to foreign carriers operating in the country.
The local currency has been in freefall against the dollar with most of the country's foreign exchange derived from crude oil sale, which has dwindled due to oil theft in producing communities. The government is also burdened with the high cost of subsidizing fuel for local consumption.
Nigeria is one of Africa's biggest markets for international carriers.

edition.cnn.com/2022/08/18/africa/emirates-suspends-flights-nigeria-intl/index.html

President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced historic new steps to address student loan debt, which includes forgiving up to $20,000 for millions of borrowers and extending the payment freeze one final time until the end of the year.

"Education is a ticket to a better life. ... but over time that ticket has become too expensive for too many Americans," Biden said during a speech from the White House. "All this means that an entire generation is now saddled with unsustainable debt in exchange for an attempt, at least, at a college degree. The burden is so heavy that even if you graduate you may not have access to the middle-class life that the college degree once provided."

The President's sweeping plan on student loans follows extended, down-to-the-wire negotiations at the White House among stakeholders and lawmakers ahead of when payments were set to resume at the end of this month. The decision is already disappointing many, with those on the left arguing that the President should have provided even more loan forgiveness and those on the right asserting that Biden is punishing Americans who avoided going into debt. But it fulfills one of Biden's campaign promises, issuing major reforms to America's student loan system and providing relief to millions of current and future borrowers.
Borrowers who hold loans with the Department of Education and make less than $125,000 a year are eligible for up to $20,000 in student loan forgiveness if they received Pell Grants, which are given to students from low- and middle-income families. Individuals who make less than $125,000 a year but did not receive Pell Grants are eligible for $10,000 in loan forgiveness.
Biden said that the administration's "targeted actions are for families that need it the most: working and middle class people hit especially hard during the pandemic making under $125,000 a year," emphasizing that "about 90% of the eligible beneficiaries make under $75,000."
"I understand not everything I'm announcing is going to make everybody happy," Biden said. "Some think it's too much -- I find it interesting how some of my Republican friends who voted for those tax cuts think we shouldn't be helping these folks. Some think it's too little, but I believe my plan is responsible and fair. It focuses the benefit of middle-class and working families, it helps both current and future borrowers and it'll fix a badly broken system."
The Department of Education will announce details on how borrowers can claim this relief through an application in the coming weeks. Millions of borrowers will be able to receive relief automatically based on existing income data.

Additionally, the department is proposing a federal rule aimed at making the student loan system more manageable for current and future borrowers.
The proposed rule would change income-based repayment for student loans, cutting in half the amount borrowers would have to pay each month on their undergraduate loans, "while borrowers with both undergraduate and graduate loans will pay a weighted average rate."
The proposal would also "raise the amount of income that is considered non-discretionary income and therefore protected from repayment." And it would forgive loan balances after 10 years of payments rather than 20 years under many income-driven repayment plans for borrowers with original loan balances of $12,000 or less, the department said.
The proposed rule includes other changes, like simplifying borrowers' choices among loan repayment plans.
Unintended consequences
Biden on Wednesday argued that "the whole economy is better off" as a result of his new plan.
"By resuming student loan payments at the same time we provide targeted relief, we're taking an economically responsible course. As a consequence, $50 billion dollars a year will start coming back into the Treasury because of the resumption of debt," he said, later adding, "There is plenty of deficit reduction to pay for the programs ... many times over."
Although student debt cancellation will deliver financial relief to millions of Americans, it would shift the cost to Uncle Sam.
A one-time cancellation of $10,000 for each borrower earning up to $125,000 a year could cost the government nearly $300 billion, according to an estimate from the Penn Wharton Budget Model. Additional forgiveness for Pell grant recipients was not included in the estimate.
Plus, loan cancellation won't address the root of the problem: college affordability. There is currently $1.6 trillion of outstanding federal student loan debt. The amount of outstanding debt would return to that level in just four years after $10,000 per borrower was canceled, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
White House officials on Wednesday could not provide a topline price estimate for the plan, saying too many unknowns exist to calculate how much the plan might eventually cost.
Susan Rice, the White House's domestic policy adviser, said it would depend on how many eligible borrowers sign up through the Department of Education to have their loans relieved.
"If 43 million borrowers take it up, that'll be different than if 50% of those 43 million take it up," Rice said.
Student loan cancellation also could increase inflation -- though many experts say the effect would be modest, because borrowers generally pay back their student loans over time. They wouldn't receive a lump sum of money if some of their debt is canceled. They would instead be required to pay less money each month toward their student loan payments.
"The inflationary impact its certainly positive, but I don't think it would be much. We're talking about a pretty small impact," said Kent Smetters, faculty director of the Penn Wharton Budget Model.
Warnings over inflation
Larry Summers, a former Treasury Secretary who served as the director of the National Economic Council under President Barack Obama, argued ahead of the announced plan that relief would contribute to inflation.
"I hope the Administration does not contribute to inflation macro economically by offering unreasonably generous student loan relief or micro economically by encouraging college tuition increases," Summers tweeted on Tuesday, later adding, "Student loan debt relief is spending that raises demand and increases inflation. It consumes resources that could be better used helping those who did not, for whatever reason, have the chance to attend college. It will also tend to be inflationary by raising tuitions."
Jason Furman, the chairman of former President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, added, "Pouring roughly half trillion dollars of gasoline on the inflationary fire that is already burning is reckless. Doing it while going well beyond one campaign promise ($10K of student loan relief) and breaking another (all proposals paid for) is even worse."
Marc Goldwein, the senior vice president and senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget -- a nonpartisan group that tracks federal spending -- argued against the plan in an interview with CNN's Poppy Harlow on "Newsroom" Tuesday morning.
He believes that canceling $10,000 of debt for each borrower will likely increase inflation, undermine the stated goal of Democrats' Inflation Reduction Act and will not significantly decrease the racial wealth gap.
"The Inflation Reduction Act saves maybe $300 billion dollars in the first 10 years. If we cancel $10,000 of debt and just extend the pause a few months, we're going to be at about that much in terms of new cost," he said. "All the deficit reduction will be wiped out. At the same time, we're probably going to do more to increase inflation from debt cancellation than any inflation reduction from the Inflation Reduction Act."
It's also not easy to target loan forgiveness to those who need it the most and exclude borrowers with higher salaries. An income threshold that cuts off borrowers who earn more than $125,000 a year could help make sure a bigger proportion of the relief goes to low-income borrowers. But some doctors and lawyers, who will eventually be making high incomes, may also reap the benefits.
The Penn Wharton Budget Model also breaks down the share of forgiven debt by income group assuming that $10,000 is canceled for borrowers earning less than $125,000 per year and households earning less than $250,000.

It found that one-third of the canceled dollars would go to households who earn less than $50,795 a year. A little more than half of the debt relief would go to those earning between $50,795 and $141,096.
Roughly 14% of the canceled dollars would go to households earning more than $141,096 a year.
Political pressure
Biden has been facing political pressure from the left to broadly cancel student loan debt since taking office.
Key Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, had called on Biden to cancel $50,000 per borrower. The President spoke with Schumer, Warren and Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia on Tuesday ahead of the expected announcement.
Schumer and Warren said in a joint statement that the decision is "a giant step forward in addressing the student debt crisis."
"The positive impacts of this move will be felt by families across the country, particularly in minority communities, and is the single most effective action that the President can take on his own to help working families and the economy," they added.
Earlier this week amid reports of Biden's plan, NAACP President Derrick Johnson called the reported provisions insufficient and "not how you treat Black voters."
A senior administration official on Wednesday suggested that the relief it will help "narrow the racial wealth gap."
And Biden, in his remarks, acknowledged that the burden of student debt "is especially heavy on Black and Hispanic borrowers, who on average have less family wealth to pay for it. "
Biden has consistently pushed back on canceling that much, suggesting he would support wiping away $10,000 for borrowers below a certain income threshold. On the campaign trail, Biden called for immediately canceling a minimum of $10,000 in student debt per person as a response to the pandemic, as well as forgiving all undergraduate tuition-related federal student debt from two- and four-year public colleges and universities for those borrowers earning up to $125,000 a year. But he had also said he preferred Congress to take action rather than using executive power to do so.
And on the right, Republican lawmakers blasted Biden's new relief plan.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the plan is "yet another way to make inflation even worse" and "reward far-left activists."
"President Biden's student loan socialism is a slap in the face to every family who sacrificed to save for college, every graduate who paid their debt, and every American who chose a certain career path or volunteered to serve in our Armed Forces in order to avoid taking on debt," he continued. "This policy is astonishingly unfair."
Appearing to counter his critics -- particularly Republicans who voted for the Trump tax plan -- the President said on Wednesday he would "never apologize for helping ... working Americans and the middle class -- especially not to the same folks who voted for a $2 trillion tax cut that mainly benefited the wealthiest Americans and the biggest corporations."
Biden said no one complained that the $700 billion in forgiven small business loans as a part of former President Donald Trump's Covid-19 relief would make inflation worse.
Asked if the debt cancellation was fair to those who had already paid their loans or never took them out in the first place, Biden responded: "Is it fair to the people who, in fact, do not own multi-million businesses and see these guys getting all the tax breaks?"
Biden has already canceled billions of dollars in student loan debt
In the meantime, Biden has taken a more targeted approach to student debt relief. Most of his efforts have been meant to expand and streamline existing federal student loan forgiveness programs.
Biden's administration has authorized the cancellation of $32 billion so far -- more than any other administration -- largely for borrowers who were defrauded by their for-profit colleges and for permanently disabled borrowers.
He has also temporarily expanded the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program that forgives the debt of government and nonprofit workers after 10 years of payments, and made changes to the income-driven repayment plans, bringing millions of borrowers closer to forgiveness.
But the programs are complicated and don't always work the way they should. A recent Government Accountability Office report found that few people have qualified for forgiveness under an income-driven repayment plan, for example. The Department of Education had approved forgiveness for a total of 157 loans as of June 1, 2021. Meanwhile about 7,700 loans in repayment may have already been eligible for forgiveness.
On Wednesday, the Department of Education said in its statement that the administration is "proposing long-term changes" to the PSLF program.
"Specifically, the Department proposed allowing more payments to qualify for PSLF including partial, lump sum, and late payments, and allowing certain kinds of deferments and forbearances -- such as those for Peace Corps and AmeriCorps service, National Guard duty, and military service -- to count toward PSLF," the release states.

edition.cnn.com/2022/08/24/politics/student-loans-joe-biden-white-house/index.html

The Ethereum creator has explained that while the Metaverse remains an undefined concept, he thinks corporations like Facebook will struggle to build it.



Vitalik Buterin has said that corporations like Facebook's Meta that are trying to build the Metaverse today will be unsuccessful in their endeavors.
The Ethereum creator said that he thinks the Metaverse "is going to happen," but it's still too early for corporations to know how it will look.
Meta has indicated that it's committed to the Metaverse since rebranding from Facebook, but its latest earnings report shows it has some way to go to succeed.

The Ethereum creator shared his perspective on where the nascent space could be headed on Twitter early Sunday, saying he thinks that companies that are trying to create the Metaverse are unlikely to succeed in their endeavors. While he said that he thinks the Metaverse “is going to happen,” he added that he doesn’t think “any of the existing corporate attempts to intentionally create the metaverse are going anywhere.”

Without a doubt the most notable corporate player to show interest in the Metaverse to date has been Meta, Facebook’s parent company that rebranded as part of a shift to embrace the Metaverse late last year. Buterin namechecked Meta in his critique of the corporates entering the space. “Anything Facebook creates now will misfire,” he wrote in response to a tweet, arguing that Metaverse-focused companies would likely fail because “it’s far too early to know what people actually want.”

Buterin has become known for his outspoken personality as his public profile has grown with Ethereum over the years, though he often uses his Twitter account and blog to discuss Ethereum’s technology and how decentralization could impact the world. Though he’s commented on NFTs at length in the past, noting that he was surprised by the 2021 boom and taking subtle digs at the speculative side of the market, he’s rarely discussed the Metaverse.

The Next-Generation Internet
Though still a vague concept, the Metaverse is widely used to refer to a next-generation Internet in which users will be able to work, play, and connect with others within immersive virtual worlds. It’s believed that the Metaverse will incorporate elements of augmented reality, virtual reality, and blockchain technology. Hit MMPORG releases such as Fortnite and Runescape have been described as early examples of Metaverse worlds, but in recent years crypto-native titles like Decentraland and The Sandbox have found success in embracing the Metaverse space. Both games let players own plots of digital land and explore virtual worlds. They also incorporate their own tokens, something that crypto enthusiasts believe will be key to the Metaverse in the future. NFTs are also frequently discussed in tandem with the space as they can be used to represent online characters, virtual land, or other in-game items, giving players true ownership of their assets.

Several major corporations announced Metaverse plays as the crypto bull run reached a peak in 2021, with the likes of Adidas and Coca-Cola acquiring digital land, dropping NFTs, and hosting their own virtual parties. Metaverse hype peaked in October when Zuckerberg announced Meta and the firm has indicated that it’s ready to double down on the space on several occasions since, including sharing plans to support NFTs on Facebook and Instagram. Zuckerberg said that the company’s Metaverse arm, Reality Labs, would sink $10 billion into the space following the announcement, and it later reported an 11-figure 2021 loss. This year hasn’t gone much better, with Meta revealing its first revenue drop and a $2.8 billion loss on Reality Labs in its second-quarter earnings report Wednesday. In other words, based on the numbers, the company still has a long way to go to prove Buterin wrong.

cryptobriefing.com/facebooks-metaverse-will-misfire-vitalik-buterin/

Crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) is positioned to benefit from the Ethereum Merge as institutional and retail clients get value from staking ether (ETH), JPMorgan analyst Kenneth Worthington told clients in a note.
JPMorgan estimates that Coinbase has a 15% market share in ETH assets, which trumps its 7% share of the overall crypto ecosystem. Worthington says Coinbase’s market share is probably tilted toward institutions, which are more likely to own ETH and bitcoin (BTC), whereas retail customers may “traffic more in the more speculative tokens.”
The bank further estimates that Coinbase can generate an incremental annual staking revenue of $650 million from the Merge, with ETH at $2,000 and a 5% yield. The exchange began offering Ethereum staking for institutional clients earlier this month.
“Coinbase is bigger in [ether] than was intuitive to us, thus leading directly to a bigger revenue opportunity,” the bank wrote. JPMorgan has a neutral rating and $64 price target on Coinbase shares, which closed Tuesday at $90.39.

www.coindesk.com/business/2022/08/17/coinbase-will-be-meaningful-beneficiary-of-ethereum-merge-jpmorgan-says/

Crypto enthusiasts may have once said that “the institutions are coming,” but in 2022, it feels more accurate to say that “the institutions are leaving.”

CDPQ is the latest titan to leave the space altogether after investing $150 million in Celsius Network in an October 2021 raise. The Canadian pension fund revealed it had written off its investment and suggested it was walking away from crypto at its latest results meeting. “For us, it is clear, when we look at all of this, we arrived too soon in a sector which was in transition,” said the firm’s president and CEO Charles Émond.

CDPQ backed Celsius in a $400 million funding round that valued the firm at $3 billion, saying at the time that it highlighted its “conviction” in blockchain. The crypto market peaked when Bitcoin hit $69,000 only a few weeks later, setting the stage for a months-long downturn that washed out Celsius and other crypto lenders.

Until its collapse, Celsius operated by promising customers lucrative returns on their crypto deposits. It captured yield by putting capital to work in DeFi protocols and other products like Grayscale’s GBTC fund, but faced insolvency issues when the market crashed in the fallout from Terra’s blowup in May. Celsius became the first of several major crypto lenders to halt customer withdrawals in June then filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy a few weeks later. It now has a $1.2 billion hole in its balance sheet and its customers are unlikely to see their funds returned since its terms and conditions stipulated that they gave the firm the right to use their funds when they made deposits.

Discussing CDPQ’s bet on Celsius, Émond added that the institution was weighing its legal options. CDPQ is Canada’s second-largest pension fund with a net asset value of around $325 billion. It was one of several major firms to flock to the crypto space in 2021 as the market rallied, but not all of them have stuck around. Ruffer, for example, bought into Bitcoin in late 2020 and sold its holdings after just five months, netting about $1.1 billion in the process. More recently, Tesla sold 75% of its Bitcoin holdings in the second quarter as the top crypto plummeted. Thanks to Celsius, it looks like CDPQ may not have so much conviction in crypto for the long-term either.

cryptobriefing.com/cdpq-loses-hope-on-150m-celsius-bet/

Salma al-Shehab was arrested in January 2021.

Saudi women's rights campaigner Salma al-Shehab was sentenced to 34 years in prison on Monday for her activity on Twitter, according to court documents viewed by CNN.

Al-Shehab, 33, was also banned from traveling outside of Saudi Arabia for another 34 years.
The PhD student at Leeds University in the United Kingdom had been arrested in January 2021 and was subjected to questioning sessions over a period of 265 days before being brought to the Specialized Criminal Court, according to independent human rights organization ALQST.
She was initially given a six-year sentence late last year -- this was increased to 34 years after al-Shehab filed an appeal, according to the documents.
The charges filed against her by the Public Prosecution included "providing succor to those seeking to disrupt public order and undermine the safety of the general public and stability of the state, and publishing false and tendentious rumors on Twitter," ALQST said.
Al Shehab told the court that without prior warning, she was "propelled" into the months-long investigation, during which she was kept under solitary confinement, according to the court documents.
The mother of two also asked the court to take into consideration the need to care for her children and sick mother, the documents said.

ALQST's Head of Monitoring and Communications Lina Al-Hathloul told CNN that al-Shehab had been arrested for supporting her sister Loujain al-Hathloul -- a prominent activist who spent more than 1,000 days in jail following a May 2018 sweep that targeted well-known opponents of the kingdom's since-rescinded law barring women from driving -- and other prisoners of conscience on Twitter.
Lina Al-Hathloul said in the ALQST statement that al-Shehab's sentence "makes a mockery of the Saudi authorities' claims of reform for women and of the legal system," adding that it "shows that they remain hellbent on harshly punishing anyone who expresses their opinions freely."
They urged that the Saudi government release al-Shehab and demanded that the kingdom protect freedom of speech.
Al-Shehab's Twitter account remains online with a pinned tweet that reads: "Freedom for prisoners of conscience and all the oppressed of the world."
The US State Department said it is "studying" the case on Wednesday.
"But I can say this is a general matter and I can say this without any caveat and resolutely: exercising freedom of expression to advocate for the rights of women should not be criminalized," said State Department spokesperson Ned Price at a briefing with reporters.
Asked if Saudi Arabia had been emboldened by recent US engagements with the country, Price responded that "our engagement... has made clear... that human rights is central to our agenda."

edition.cnn.com/2022/08/17/middleeast/salma-al-shehab-saudi-arabia-twitter-sentence-intl/index.html

A cracked riverbed in a section of Yangtze River in Yunyang, Chongqing, on August 16, 2022.

Chinese planes are firing rods into the sky to bring more rainfall to its crucial Yangtze River, which has dried up in parts, as swaths of the nation fall into drought and grapple with the worst heat wave on record.

Several regions on the Yangtze have launched weather modification programs, but with cloud cover too thin, operations in some drought-ravaged parts of the river's basin have remained on standby.
The Ministry of Water Resources said in a notice on Wednesday that drought throughout the Yangtze river basin was "adversely affecting drinking water security of rural people and livestock, and the growth of crops."
On Wednesday, central China's Hubei province became the latest to announce it would seed clouds, using silver iodide rods to induce rainfall.
The silver iodide rods -- which are typically the size of cigarettes -- are shot into existing clouds to help form ice crystals. The crystals then help the cloud produce more rain, making its moisture content heavier and more likely to be released.
Cloud seeding has been in practice since the 1940s and China has the biggest program in the world. It used seeding ahead of the Beijing Olympics in 2008 to ensure dry weather for the event, and the technique can also be used to induce snowfall or to soften hail.

At least 4.2 million people in Hubei have been affected by a severe drought since June, Hubei's Provincial Emergency Management Department said Tuesday. More than 150,000 people there have difficulties accessing drinking water, and nearly 400,000 hectares of crops have been damaged because of high temperatures and drought.

The Yangtze is just one of many rivers and lakes across the northern hemisphere that are drying up and shrinking amid relentless heat and low rainfall, including Lake Mead in the US and the Rhine River in Germany. These extreme weather conditions have been supercharged by the human-induced climate crisis, driven by burning fossil fuels.
Communities often rely on these bodies of water for economic activity and governments are having to intervene with adaptation measures and relief funds, costing huge amounts of money.
China is deploying such funds and developing new supply sources to deal with the impacts on crops and livestock. Some livestock has been temporarily relocated to other regions, the Ministry of Finance said earlier this week, adding it would issue 300 million yuan ($44.30 million) in disaster relief.


A dried up part of the Yangtze River bed on August 17, 2022 in Chongqing, China

To boost downstream supplies, the Three Gorges Dam, China's biggest hydropower project, will also increase water discharges by 500 million cubic meters over the next 10 days, the Ministry of Water Resources said Tuesday.
The heat also forced authorities in the southwestern province of Sichuan -- home to around 84 million people and a key manufacturing hub -- to order the shutdown of all factories for six days this week to ease a power shortage.
'Longest' and 'strongest' heat wave on record
China issued its highest red alert heat warning for at least 138 cities and counties across the country on Wednesday, and another 373 were placed under the second-highest orange alert, the Meteorological Administration said.


Children beat the heat at a gated community in Huzhou City in China's Zhejiang Province on August 12, 2022

As of Monday, China's heat wave had lasted 64 days, making it the longest in more than six decades, since full records began in 1961, the National Climate Center said in a statement. It also said it was the "strongest" on record and warned that it could worsen in the coming days.
"The heat wave this time is prolonged, wide in scope, and strong in extremity," the statement read. "Taken all signs together, the heat wave in China will continue and its intensity will increase."
The heat wave has also registered the largest number of counties and cities exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) since records began, according to the statement. The number of weather stations recording temperatures of 40C and above has reached 262, also the highest. Eight have hit 44C.
Persistently high temperatures are forecast to continue in the Sichuan Basin and large parts of central China until August 26.
A "special case" of high pressure from the West Pacific subtropical high, stretching across much of Asia, is likely to be the cause of the extreme heat, said Cai Wenju, climate researcher with CSIRO, Australia's national scientific research institute.

edition.cnn.com/2022/08/17/asia/china-heat-drought-climate-yangtze-intl/index.html

Anibal Torres pictured in Lima, Peru on June 15, 2021.

Peruvian Prime Minister Anibal Torres Vasquez has abruptly resigned, becoming the fourth premier to leave the job in the past year.

Torres announced his resignation in a letter to President Pedro Castillo on Wednesday, attributing his decision to "personal reasons" and wishing his "friend" Castillo success.
"I retire from this position after having served alongside you, our homeland (and) particularly the put-off and forgotten people," said Torres' letter, which he posted on Twitter.
By Peruvian law, Castillo must accept or reject his resignation.



Torres, whose tenure lasted almost 6 months, announced his resignation almost a week after President Castillo marked one year in power.
He accepted the role in February, after former Prime Minister Hector Valer stepped down amid allegations of domestic violence against him.
Valer, who had been in office just for four days, denied the allegations.

Torres' resignation now comes as Castillo himself is under pressure to resign by the opposition. Castillo is currently the subject of five investigations, four of them for alleged corruption.
During a speech before Congress celebrating Peru's National Day on July 28, Castillo admitted he had made mistakes and said he was willing to cooperate with any investigation
"I present myself to justice in order to clarify the charges that are attributed to me , with respect to the due process and not to media justice," Castillo said.
According to Peru's constitution, a sitting president may only be impeached on four charges: treason; preventing presidential, regional or local elections; dissolving Congress; or blocking the work of the National Election Jury or other electoral bodies.

edition.cnn.com/2022/08/03/americas/anibal-torres-peru-resignation-intl/index.html

Tourists look on as a Chinese military helicopter flies past Pingtan island, one of mainland China's closest point from Taiwan on August 4, 2022.


China fired multiple missiles toward waters near northeastern and southwestern Taiwan on Thursday, the island's Defense Ministry said, as Beijing makes good on its promise that Taipei will pay a price for hosting US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The Chinese military's Eastern Theater Command said in a statement that multiple missiles had been fired into the sea off the eastern part of Taiwan. It said all the missiles hit their target accurately.
"The entire live-fire training mission has been successfully completed and the relevant air and sea area control is now lifted," the statement said.
Earlier, the Eastern Theater Command said it had conducted long-range, live-fire training in the Taiwan Strait, state broadcaster CCTV reported, as part of planned military exercises around the island.
Chinese state media said that exercises to simulate an air and sea "blockade" around Taiwan had started Wednesday, but offered little solid evidence to back up the claim. Later Thursday, images showed military helicopters flying past Pingtan island, one of Taiwan's closest points to mainland China.
The military posturing was a deliberate show of force after Pelosi left the island on Wednesday evening, bound for South Korea, one of the final stops on an Asia tour that ends in Japan this weekend.
Within hours of her departure from Taipei Wednesday, the island's Defense Ministry said China sent more than 20 fighter jets across the median line in the Taiwan Strait, the midway point between the mainland and Taiwan that Beijing says it does not recognize but usually respects.

On Thursday, Taiwan's Defense Ministry said its military was remaining in a "normal" but wary posture, and called the live-fire drills an "irrational act" that attempted to "change the status quo."
"We are closely monitoring enemy activities around the sea of Taiwan and that of outlying islands, and we will act appropriately," the ministry said in a statement.
Exercises exerting pressure
Well in advance of Pelosi's near 24-hour visit to Taiwan, China had warned her presence was not welcome. The ruling Chinese Communist Party claims the self-governed island as its own territory, despite never having controlled it.
China issued a map showing six zones around Taiwan that would be the site of drills in coming days. But on Thursday, Taiwan's Maritime and Port Bureau said in a notice that China had added a seventh military exercise area for ships and aircraft to avoid "in the waters around eastern Taiwan."

Chinese state media on Thursday outlined a broad range of objectives for the exercises, including strikes on land and sea targets.
"The exercises (are) focused on key training sessions including joint blockade, sea target assault, strike on ground targets, and airspace control operation, and the joint combat capabilities of the troops got tested in the military operations," said an announcement from the Xinhua news agency attributed to the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) Eastern Theater Command, which has responsibility for the areas near Taiwan.


Chinese military helicopters fly past Pingtan island in Fujian province on Aug. 4.

Meanwhile, the Global Times tabloid said the drills involved some of China's newest and most sophisticated weaponry, including J-20 stealth fighters and DF-17 hypersonic missiles, and that some missiles may be fired over the island -- a move that would be extremely provocative.
"The exercises are unprecedented as the PLA conventional missiles are expected to fly over the island of Taiwan for the first time," the Global Times said, citing experts.
"The PLA forces will enter areas within 12 nautical miles of the island and the so-called median line will cease to exist."

Accounts from Taiwan of Chinese military movement included the fighter jets crossing the median line and a report from Taiwan's government-run Central News Agency, citing government sources, that two of China's most powerful warships -- Type 55 destroyers -- were sighted Tuesday off the central and southeastern coast of the island, the closest being within 37 miles (60 kilometers) of land.
But there was little corroboration or firm evidence provided by China to back up the sort of claims posted in the Global Times.
China's state-run television offered video of fighter jets taking off, ships at sea and missiles on the move, but the dates of when that video was shot could not be verified.
Some analysts were skeptical Beijing could pull off what they were threatening, such as a blockade of Taiwan.
"The official announcement (of the blockade) refers to just a few days, which would make it hard to qualify it on practical terms to a blockade," said Alessio Patalano, professor of war and strategy at King's College in London.
"Blockades are hard to execute and long to implement. This exercise is not that," he said.
Patalano said the biggest impact of the exercises would be psychological.
"During the period of time in question, ships and aircraft will likely reroute to avoid the area, but this is one primary objective of the chosen locations: create disruption, discomfort, and fear of worse to come," he said.


Chinese military helicopters fly past Pingtan island, one of mainland China's closest point from Taiwan on August 4, 2022.

Rerouting planes and ships
China's retaliatory exercises have already caused disruption to flight and ship schedules in Taiwan, though the island is trying to lessen their impact.
Taiwan's transportation minister said agreements had been reached with Japan and the Philippines to reroute 18 international flight routes departing from the island -- affecting about 300 flights in total -- to avoid the PLA's live-fire drills.
And on Wednesday, Taiwan's Maritime and Port Bureau issued three notices, asking vessels to use alternative routes for seven ports around the island.
China's planned live-fire drills were also causing unease in Japan.
Japan's chief cabinet secretary, Hirokazu Matsuno, said the drills posed a threat to his country's security.

edition.cnn.com/2022/08/04/asia/china-taiwan-military-exercises-intl-hnk-ml/index.html

Residents of the tiny village of Dniprovske near Ukraine’s border with Belarus feel betrayed by their neighbors.

Belarus, a key Russian ally, continues to allow Moscow to launch missile and rocket attacks on Ukraine from its territory.

“We expected such an attack from Putin ... but we did not expect this from the Belarusians,” 40-year-old Svitlana Slyvka told CNN.

“This is treason. We are relatives, we are neighbors. ... It's a stab in the back that no one expected. They are worse than Russia.”

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko remains one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies and has played a significant role in the invasion of Ukraine.

He allowed Russian troops to cross the Belarusian border into Ukraine at the start of the conflict.

Ukrainian border guard Andrii Kazatskiy said the local residents can hear the missiles coming from Belarus. "[They] can hear not only how the missiles were launched, but also how they flew by,” he told CNN.

Russian officials say their air defense systems repelled another attempt by the Ukrainian military to strike the Antonovsky bridge, a key structure that crosses the Dnieper river into the occupied city of Kherson.

“There were no strikes on the bridge. There were attempts, but everything was repelled by the air defense system. Nothing flew on the bridge at all, these are all fakes,” Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the region’s civil military administration, told Russian state news agency TASS.
Ukraine has been conducting strikes on bridges in the area for several weeks now, hoping to cut off supplies to Russian troops in Kherson ahead of an announced counteroffensive.

Traffic across the Antonovsky bridge was stopped altogether on July 27, according to TASS.

Over the past week, Russian state media and social media footage showed Moscow’s forces transporting people across the Dnieper river in makeshift pontoon ferries, circumventing the disabled bridges.

edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-08-04-22/index.html

Crypto industry experts are largely unfazed by Tesla’s decision to sell 75%

Crypto industry experts are largely unfazed by Tesla’s decision to sell 75% of its Bitcoin (BTC) holdings, saying it’s a fairly typical strategy for companies to improve cash flow during economic slowdowns.

On Wednesday, the electric vehicle manufacturer revealed that it had sold 75% of its Bitcoin holdings in Q2, adding $936 million in fiat to its balance sheet.

During a conference call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk noted that the sale “should not be taken as a verdict on Bitcoin,” explaining that the move was due to liquidity concerns given the continued COVID-19 lockdowns in China.

“The reason we sold a bunch of our Bitcoin holdings was that we were uncertain as to when the Covid lockdowns in China would alleviate. So it was important for us to maximize our cash position:”

“We are certainly open to increasing our Bitcoin holdings in the future.”
Asked by investors during the earnings call whether he saw Bitcoin as a long-term asset, Musk said the cryptocurrency was a “sideshow to the sideshow” of Tesla’s main goal, which is “to accelerate the advent of stable energy.”

“Cryptocurrency is not something we think of a lot,” he said.

Markus Thielen, chief investment officer at Singapore-based digital asset manager IDEG, told Cointelegraph that Tesla likely sold off its Bitcoin as it was “seen as a distraction from their core business:”

“I would not be surprised if Tesla keeps nibbling in Bitcoin when Bitcoin stabilizes, otherwise they would have sold 100%.”
Comparison site Finder’s share trading expert Kylie Purcell explained that the electric car manufacturer hasn’t been alone in its decision to “shore up capital in cash currencies.”

“With the world heading into an economic slowdown and possibly a recession, it’s not unusual for investors and companies to move capital away from more volatile assets into fiat currency,” she noted.

She also added that while the price of Bitcoin dipped following the announcement, there are already signs of recovery.

On Wednesday, Bitcoin’s price fell approximately 2.6% following Tesla’s announcement and has returned to $23,299 at the time of writing — tracking close to its one-month high, meaning that the crypto community may not have been too concerned by the announcement.

The muted reaction to the sale played out differently from the announcement in February last year that Telsa had scooped up $1.5 billion in BTC to add to its balance sheet and was planning on accepting Bitcoin as payment for certain products (though this was later scrapped).

The news at the time saw Bitcoin’s price immediately jump by almost $3,000, bringing the cryptocurrency to a new all-time high above $43,000.

Swyftx’s head of strategic partnerships, Tommy Honan, told Cointelegraph that Tesla’s decision to buy Bitcoin last year was “as important a moment as you can imagine for digital assets:”

“It almost gave other businesses permission to put crypto on their balance sheets and we saw a lot of big institutional investors, as well as small and mid-cap companies flood into the market from that point.”
“Musk said the sale wasn’t a verdict on Bitcoin, just a cash play, and it looks like the market has taken him at his word. Bitcoin’s price has stabilized over the last 24 hours and we’d be surprised if other big investors followed suit, especially given the current price of Bitcoin.”

cointelegraph.com/news/experts-reveal-what-tesla-s-936m-sell-off-means-for-bitcoin

Leaders attending a closed-door snap NATO summit heard an impassioned call from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for new Western security assistance, according to a senior US administration official who heard the remarks.

The Ukrainian leader stopped short of issuing his usual calls for a no-fly zone or NATO membership. But Zelensky in a virtual address spoke "very eloquently" to describe his military’s efforts to defend Ukrainian citizens and democratic values, the official said.

The virtual address from Zelensky kicked off the summit, which is taking place in private. US President Joe Biden spoke next, laying out the coordinated Western approach on sanctions, reiterating strong support for Ukraine and reinforcing US commitment to NATO.

Biden "laid out a number of issues that the alliance is going to have to grapple with" in the coming months before the NATO alliance meets again at the end of June in Spain, the official said.

That includes finalizing force posture changes on NATO’s eastern flank.

The mood inside the NATO summit was "sober, resolute, and incredibly united," the official said.

"There was a very strong sense that we are facing a significant historical moment, and very strong support from all the leaders who spoke about the need to defend our democracy," the official said.
Other topics that arose included China, and a collective desire to avoid Beijing supporting Russia in its invasion.



And leaders discussed contingencies should Russia use a chemical or nuclear weapon on the battlefield in Ukraine.

"I think there is a recognition that NATO needs to continue a lot of the good ongoing work to be prepared to respond to various contingencies," the official said.

Four days after Russia invaded Ukraine, President Joe Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan authorized a team of officials to quietly map out potential ways the US could respond if Russian President Vladimir Putin took an extreme step, including deploying chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, a senior administration official told CNN.

The group, known internally as a Tiger Team, is a new version of the one assembled last fall when it appeared Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine. Now a month into the invasion, this group meets several times a week to examine how the US could respond if Russia were to conduct a biological weapons attack, encroach on NATO territory, target US convoys or any other step Putin may take given his clear frustration over Russia's lack of progress.
These national security officials are focused on what they can plan against for the next three months, the official said. The New York Times first reported the details of the preparation.
The Tiger Team is focused on creating contingency plans for several scenarios, including Russia's potential use of chemical or biological weapons, targeting of US convoys delivering military assistance, disruptions to global food supply chains and the growing refugee crisis.
The National Security Council has also created another strategy group that will work in tandem with them to conduct a longer-term examination of potential major geopolitical shifts happening because of Russia's invasion. The strategy group is working to monitor and mitigate risks, while considering how to advance and defend US interests, the official said.
Before leaving for Brussels, Biden warned that the threat of Putin conducting a chemical weapons attack in Ukraine was "real." That will be up for discussion as he huddles with allies Thursday in a series of summits dedicated to the invasion of Ukraine.
In Brussels, the leaders will also have to confront another threat Putin has made: deploying his arsenal of nuclear weapons.
In an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeatedly refused to rule out that Russia would consider using nuclear weapons.
When asked under what conditions Putin would use Russia's nuclear capability, Peskov replied, "if it is an existential threat for our country, then it can be."
The United States condemned Peskov's "dangerous" comments. "It's not the way a responsible nuclear power should act," Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby told reporters on Tuesday.
Putin has previously hinted at using nuclear weapons against nations that he saw as a threat to Russia. Back in February, the Russian President said in a televised statement, "No matter who tries to stand in our way or all the more so create threats for our country and our people, they must know that Russia will respond immediately, and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history."
Any use of chemical weapons by Russia would flatly unacceptable and "totally change the nature of the conflict" in Ukraine, NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday. Speaking ahead of a NATO summit in Brussels Thursday, the NATO chief warned that the use of chemical weapons would be a " blatant violation of international law and of far reaching consequences."
Stoltenberg accused China of providing political support and of "spreading blatant lies and disinformation," and said Beijing's role in the invasion would be addressed at the summit. "Beijing has joined Moscow in questioning the right of independent nations to choose to choose their own path. The alliance is concerned that China could provide "material support for the Russian invasion."
Stoltenberg demanded that Belarus must also end its "complicity in Putin's invasion," and warned decisions taken at the summit tomorrow will have "far reaching implications."

edition.cnn.com/2022/03/24/politics/us-planning-on-how-to-counter-putin/index.html

David Beckham has handed over control of his Instagram account to a doctor in Ukraine, in a bid to highlight the "amazing work" of medical professionals caring for patients amid the Russian invasion of the country.

Throughout Sunday, the former England football captain, who has been a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since 2005, enabled Dr. Iryna -- head of a perinatal center in Kharkiv -- to show his 71.6 million followers the conditions under which she and her colleagues are working.
During the takeover, organized by UN children's agency UNICEF, Iryna, who is identified only by her first name, posted clips and images from the facility in Ukraine's second-largest city on Beckham's Instagram Stories and revealed how the war had affected her role and the work of her team.

Iryna said she now works "24/7," adding that while her team were "probably risking (their) lives" working during the conflict, "we love our work."
Writing on Instagram Stories, she said: "On the first day of the war, all pregnant women and mothers were evacuated to the basement. It was a terrible three hours that we spent together.
"Unfortunately, we can't take babies who are in intensive care to the basement because they rely on life-saving equipment," she wrote alongside photographs of newborns in the intensive care unit connected to oxygen generators.
In another clip, she filmed a young mother, Yana, holding her son, Mykhailo, who was born with breathing problems.


"The first days were the most difficult. We had to learn how to work with bombings and strikes. My workday is 24/7 now, I'm here all day," Iryna continued.
"Now, I'm not only the head of the center, but I continue to work as a pediatric anesthesiologist. I unload cargo, I work on logistics and offer emotional support."
Beckham has launched an emergency appeal via his 7 Fund for UNICEF to help provide aid to those affected in the war-torn country.
On Instagram, the father-of-four urged his followers to donate to UNICEF, which is working in Ukraine to provide families with access to clean water and food, ensure child protection services continue, and assess the refugee situation in neighboring countries.
"Thanks to your donations, the oxygen generators they have received are helping newborns survive in appalling conditions," Beckham said. "Please continue to support these incredible people and charities like UNICEF in any way that you can. Together we can really make a difference."
The president and co-owner of Inter Miami previously confirmed that he and his wife, Victoria Beckham, had made a personal donation to the appeal.

Chelsea FC will be allowed to sell tickets to away games, cup matches and fixtures involving the women's team after the UK government made alterations to the club's special license.

Due to UK sanctions placed on Russian oligarch and Chelsea club owner Roman Abramovich for his alleged ties with Vladimir Putin following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Blues had previously been unable to sell any tickets or merchandise.
Under the new license, proceeds from ticket sales will go directly to the Premier League, rather than Chelsea, and then be distributed to relevant parties -- either the Premier League or charities.
Away fans can now buy tickets for Premier League games at Stamford Bridge, with the revenue going to the Premier League.
These changes will also allow away fans to attend knock-out fixtures, including Chelsea's home Champions League quarterfinal first leg against Real Madrid on April 6 and the FA Cup semifinal against Crystal Palace at Wembley Stadium on Easter weekend.

Home tickets, meanwhile, are still subject to sanctions with only season-ticket holders or those who purchased tickets before the introduction of sanctions able to attend matches.
Chelsea have requested that any money generated by ticket sales, which the club would have usually received, be donated to victims of the war in Ukraine.
"The revised licence allows fans to attend Chelsea FC games; Chelsea fans to travel to away Premier League fixtures and Chelsea fans to attend the FA Cup, UEFA Champions League and WSL games," a Premier League spokesperson said in a statement.
"The Premier League will receive and hold any revenue from the sale of these tickets that would normally have gone to Chelsea. Chelsea FC have requested and the Premier League agreed that this revenue will be donated to charity to benefit victims of the war in Ukraine.
"The beneficiary charities will be announced in due course after consultation with the club."
Chelsea's future is currently the source of much uncertainty since Abramovich announced that he would be selling the club, just days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Multiple bidders have expressed their interest, and the Raine Group -- a US bank handling the sale of the club -- is expected to announce a shortlist by the end of the week. The UK government will be the final arbiter of the sale.

edition.cnn.com/2022/03/24/football/chelsea-tickets-abramovich-sanctions-spt-intl/index.html

The Taliban prevented girls above the 6th grade in Afghanistan from making their much-anticipated return to school on Wednesday.

Just hours after schools for girls were due to open, the Taliban ordered them to shut down again. Teenage girls in Afghanistan have now been denied their right to an education for 187 days.
Under increasing international pressure, the Taliban had originally said that schools would open for all students -- including girls -- after the Afghan new year, which is celebrated on March 21, on the condition that boys and girls were separated either in different schools or by different learning hours.
But on Wednesday, girls above the 6th grade were told to stay at home until a school uniform appropriate to Sharia and Afghan customs and culture can be designed, the Taliban-run Bakhtar News Agency reported.
The decision is likely to spark widespread international condemnation. US diplomats said the Taliban's move was "disappointing."
Tamana, 18, who goes by her first name due to security issues, told CNN she had arrived at school Wednesday morning to start her senior year, but wasn't allowed in.
"I couldn't sleep last night as I was so excited to go back to school after eight months of being deprived of education, but when I and many other girls arrived at our school gate this morning we were told to go back home and wait until further notice," she said, adding that her dreams had been shattered once again. "All of my classmates went back home in tears."
The education ministry said in a statement that it "assures the people of our nation once again that it is fully committed to ensure the rights of our compatriots to education."
The UN mission in Afghanistan responded Wednesday, tweeting that it "deplores" the Taliban's decision to extend their "indefinite ban on female students above the 6th grade being permitted to return school."
Ian McCary, the Chief of Mission for the US Embassy in Kabul -- which is currently operating out of Doha -- said he was "deeply troubled" by reports that girls were not being allowed to return to school, posting on Twitter that the news was "very disappointing & contradicts many Taliban assurances & statements. All Afghan youth deserve to be educated."
His concerns were echoed by the US Special Envoy for Afghan Women, Girls, and Human Rights Rina Amiri, who said the move "weakens confidence" in the Taliban and "further dashes the hopes of families for a better future for their daughters."

edition.cnn.com/2022/03/23/asia/taliban-girls-school-delay-afghanistan-intl/index.html

North Korea has fired what is believed to be its first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in more than four years as Western leaders gather in Brussels for a security summit.

The suspected ICBM flew to an altitude of 6,000 kilometers (3,728 miles) and to a distance of 1,080 kilometers (671 miles) with a flight time of 71 minutes before splashing down in waters off Japan's western coast on Thursday, according to Japan's Defense Ministry.
Thursday's launch is North Korea's 11th of the year, including one on March 16 which is presumed to have failed. Analysts said the test could be the longest-range missile yet fired by North Korea, exceeding its last ICBM launch in November 2017.
Japan's Vice Defense Minister Makoto Oniki told reporters Thursday the altitude would suggest it is a "new type of ICBM," a potential sign North Korea is closer to developing weapons capable of targeting the United States.
The US joined allies South Korea and Japan in strongly condemning the launch Thursday and called on North Korea to refrain from further destabilizing acts.
US President Joe Biden is currently in Belgium, where he is attending a G7 summit alongside Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The gathering is part of a series of meetings, including an extraordinary NATO summit, as Western leaders seek to align their responses to Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine. A European Council meeting will also take place Thursday.
According to analysts, the recent spate of North Korean missile tests suggest the country's leader, Kim Jong Un, is attempting show an increasingly turbulent world that Pyongyang remains a player in the struggle for power and influence.
"North Korea refuses to be ignored and may be trying to take advantage of global preoccupation with the war in Ukraine to force a fait accompli on its status as a nuclear weapons state," Leif-Eric Easley, associate professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, told CNN.
"North Korea is nowhere near initiating aggression on the scale of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But Pyongyang's ambitions likewise exceed self-defense as it wants to overturn the postwar security order in Asia, added Easley.
Thursday's test also comes just two weeks after South Korea elected a new conservative President, Yoon Suk Yeol, who is expected to take a harder line against North Korea than outgoing office holder President Moon Jae-in.
In response to Thursday's suspected ICBM test, South Korea's military launched several warning missiles for the first time since 2017, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a text sent to reporters.
"Our military is monitoring North Korean military's movements and have confirmed that we have the capability and posture to accurately strike the origin location of the missile launch and command and support facilities any time North Korea launches a missile," the JCS said.
Provocative act
Analysts said North Korea appeared to have conducted a so-called lofted missile test Thursday. "This is a tactic often employed by them to test longer range systems without more provocatively overflying another country," said Joseph Dempsey, research associate for defense and military analysis at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
He said the preliminary data of Thursday's test indicate it could be a Hwasong-17, a much larger ICBM than the Hwasong-15 tested in 2017.
Kim Dong-yub, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said data indicates Thursday's missile could have a maximum range of about 15,000 kilometers (9,320 miles) -- theoretically putting it within reach of the continental United States, depending on the weight of the warhead it would carry -- and about 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) further than the Hwasong-15.
Despite the potentially extended range, Kim said Pyongyang has still yet to demonstrate its ability to master the technology required to enable a warhead to successfully re-enter the Earth's atmosphere into the final stages of flight.
US response
Pyongyang's other most recent launches, on February 26 and March 4, were likely intended to test a new ICBM system, the US Defense Department said earlier this month.
The US Indo-Pacific Command announced earlier this month that the US is intensifying "intelligence, readiness and surveillance collection activities" related to North Korea following the recent missile launches.
The move is a signal from the Biden administration that it needs to strengthen its military posture to ensure the US and allies in the region like South Korea and Japan are protected against North Korea's missile tests.
The command said they have "ordered intensified Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance collection activities in the Yellow Sea, as well as enhanced readiness among our ballistic missile defense forces in the region."
Earlier this month, the US military staged exercises on and around the Korean Peninsula to show its readiness in the wake of North Korean activity, including simulating ballistic missile defense systems.
The US Army's 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade moved to a remote location, "occupying its wartime defensive position, emplacing the Patriot missile system, and executing air and missile defense operations under a simulated combat scenario," US Forces Korea said in a press release.
And at sea, F-35 and F/A-18 fighter jets flying off the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln along with US Air Force assets based in the region put on a show of force in the Yellow Sea off the western coast of South Korea, according to a statement from the US Navy's 7th Fleet in Japan.
This story has been updated to clarify the location of missile.

edition.cnn.com/2022/03/24/asia/north-korea-missile-test-intl-hnk/index.html

Russia-Ukraine live updates: Battle for Kyiv intensifies

Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Russia’s Chechnya region and an ally of Putin, says Chechen fighters have been deployed in Ukraine.

In a video posted online, Kadyrov claimed that units from the North Caucasus region – a constituent republic of Russia – had suffered no losses so far.

Turkey has banned Russian warships’ access to the Black Sea at Kyiv’s request, according to Zellensky.

The Ukrainian leader praised the move as “extremely important”, adding in a post on Twitter that the people of Ukraine would “never forget” Ankara’s support.

www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/25/unsc-to-vote-on-resolution-condemning-russia-invasion-liveblog