"The Swiss government has created a blockchain taskforce to begin regulatory framework on startups and initial coin offerings. Switzerland has long been accepting toward blockchain startups and cryptocurrency organisations, and is home to 'Crypto Valley,' a region in the country known for the number of companies developing projects based on the technology."
"Exploiting a crucial competitive advantage and motivated by profit and a desire to learn the technology, students around the world are launching cryptocurrency mining operations right from their dorm rooms."
"China’s market for reliable wealth management products is expected to explode in coming years, through the sales of funds and banking products, and traditional finance houses are now being seriously challenged in the market by emerging internet financial companies. Tencent has already teamed up with Howbuy, an online distributor of mutual funds, and a number of fund houses to line up nearly 100 mutual funds products via WeChat."
"Its tech giants hold three drawcards: faster growth in salaries, opportunity and a sense of home. China’s internet space is enjoying bubbly times, with compensation sometimes exceeding American peers’. One startup was said to have hired an AI engineer for cash and shares worth as much as $30 million over four years."
"Do Ryom and Kim really deserve to be vaporized because of a war that ended nearly 70 years ago?"
"The BBC reports 250 ISIS fighters were permitted to leave Raqqa with 3,500 family members to ISIS-controlled territory. The U.S. and British-led coalition reportedly knew about the deal brokered by Syrian Democratic Forces and monitored the exodus. Quentin Sommerville of our partners at BBC report."
"The [Iran] episode exposes a malady of American foreign policy. It lacks consistency, coherence and moral clarity, treats friends and adversaries by separate standards, and is reflexively interventionist. Thus has America lost much of the near-universal admiration and respect she enjoyed at the close of the Cold War. This hubristic generation has kicked it all away."
"Listen to the state-‘guided’ US media this past week and you’d believe a series of spontaneous anti-government protests broke out across Iran. The protests, according to President Donald Trump and his Israeli allies, were caused by `anger over Iran’s spending billions on wars in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon and helping the Palestinian movement Hamas.’ Trump tweeted that Iranians were finally rising up against what he called their hated, brutal regime. Talk about manufactured news."
"South Korea’s interest is to a) avoid war with the North, and b) restart peace negotiations with Pyongyang and move toward fulfilling the promise of reunification. Both countries have ministries devoted to reunification and there is much political capital to be gained if progress can be made along this path. The fact is that Washington is the third man out on this date."
"One of the reasons that Americans are unable to draw the parallels between Great Britain and the United States is that the U.S. version of empire hasn’t followed the British model. Instead of converting foreign lands into colonies, the U.S. government has followed the Soviet Union’s model of empire that was established in Eastern Europe. It uses local proxies or 'puppets' to serve as agents for the U.S. government, just as the Soviets did in Eastern European countries. This has enabled the United States to maintain the façade of supporting 'independent' regimes in the countries it controls, which just happen to 'invite' the United States to maintain military bases in their countries."