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The Bolsheviks (Russian: Большевики́, IPA: [bəlʲʂɨvʲɪˈkʲi], from большинство́ boľšinstvó, 'majority')[a] were a far-left, revolutionary Marxist faction founded by Vladimir Lenin that split with the Mensheviks from the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), a revolutionary socialist political party formed in 1898, at its Second Party Congress in 1903.[3]
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon was set to be deposed Friday at his bank's New York headquarters for lawsuits that accuse the company of facilitating and profiting from sex trafficking by its long-time customer Jeffrey Epstein.
The suits claim that JPMorgan, the biggest bank in the United States, kept Epstein as a customer even after learning he was being investigated for sexually abusing underage girls in Florida and after he pleaded guilty in a state charge there in 2008 to paying for sex from a minor.
The German economy has entered a recession which started in early 2023 after household spending in Europe's economic engine finally succumbed to the pressure of high inflation.
Under the weight of immense inflation, the German consumer has fallen to his knees, dragging the entire economy down with him," said Andreas Scheuerle, an analyst at DekaBank.
Germany’s three-party ruling coalition descended into public infighting on Tuesday as the Greens’ Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck accused the liberal Free Democrats of Finance Minister Christian Lindner of breaking promises by delaying a controversial green energy law.
Habeck also attacked a plan by Lindner to enforce painful cuts of up to €22 billion in next year’s budget and warned that Germany faced “major [financial] needs everywhere, especially in the areas of decarbonization and digitalization.”
The spat highlights growing tensions in the government of Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is leading a coalition with the Greens and the Free Democratic Party (FDP).
The parties hold diverging opinions over how Germany should implement the EU’s green plans to slash carbon emissions by 55 percent by 2030 and become climate neutral by 2050. That green energy dispute is complicated by a shortfall in tax income, which reduces the financial leeway to subsidize the shift to renewable energies.
At the core of the spat is a new energy law for buildings, which aims to phase out gas and oil heating in German households by requiring that, as of next year, any newly installed heating system in Germany must run 65 percent on renewable energy. That idea is highly controversial owing to its costs, as the most viable option to hit this green energy target is a heat pump, which costs around €20,000 more than a classic gas boiler.
Both national and global companies will participate in the upcoming Brazilian central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot project. Banco Central do Brasil, the country’s central bank, will begin adding participants to the digital real platform around the middle of June 2023.
On May 24, the central bank published the final list of CBDC pilot participants. Participants were chosen from a pool of 36 bids made by single companies and consortia, “totaling more than 100 institutions”. The final number of participants is 14; however, some represent groups of companies. For example, the United States-based tech giant, Microsoft; Brazil-based bank, Banco Inter; and the digital technology company, 7COMm, comprise one of the 14 participants.
Among other participants are Visa, Santander, and several Brazilian banking institutions, such as Itaú Unibanco, BTG Pactual and Banco Bradesco.
With a population of 214 million, the largest country in Latin America remains a location of attraction for global crypto companies. In January, Binance and Mastercard teamed up to launch a prepaid crypto card in the country. Since March, Coinbase has partnered with local payment providers to offer crypto purchases, and enable deposits and withdrawals in the local currency. On May 19, the central bank granted Latam Gateway — the payment provider for Binance in Brazil — a license to operate as a payment institution and electronic money issuer.
The world’s largest crypto exchange Binance has acquired the first license to expand its business to Southeast East through a joint venture with Gulf Energy that starts in Q4 2023.
The digital asset market in Thailand is likely to change due to the arrival of the top cryptocurrency in the world in trading volume.
The Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand on May 26 ratified the joint operations between Binance and Gulf Energy development to run a digital asset and brokerage exchange. The license is the first the exchange has achieved in Southeast Asia.
Binance’s debut in Thailand will likely change the prospects of the digital asset market in the area. Bitkub, a local exchange in Thailand, currently holds the lion’s share of digital assets in Thailand at 75.4%, with Zipmex coming at a far second battling the collapse of the Terra Luna crash in mid-2022.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) recently published a white paper titled "Pathways to the Regulation of Crypto-Assets: A Global Approach," advocating for a collaborative approach towards crypto regulation on a global scale.
The white paper highlights the unique challenges and necessary considerations regarding the regulation of crypto-assets. Considering the borderless, open-source, decentralized nature of these digital currencies, their regulation requires a delicate balance between preventing harm, protecting users, and promoting innovation.
The white paper concludes that a global approach to regulating crypto-assets is ideal, urging international organizations, national/regional authorities, and industry stakeholders to consider its findings in developing a coordinated approach to crypto-asset regulation. It also emphasizes the need for academia, civil society, and users' involvement in evolving a responsible ecosystem.
In conclusion, the WEF white paper outlines an urgent need for stakeholders worldwide to collaborate in formulating comprehensive crypto-asset regulations. As the crypto-asset ecosystem continues to evolve, this paper will serve as an important guidepost for shaping the future of digital currency governance.
In a recent Federal Reserve Bank Atlanta Policy Hub captioned “An Introduction to Web3 with Implications for Financial Services,” XRP was mentioned as an “international payment medium.”
The report reiterates the relevance of Ripple’s business model as it uses XRPL to meet cross-border settlement needs at a low cost.
While the report focused on bolstering the effect of Web3 on financial services, the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank also mentioned the relevance of XRP and Stellar network in value transfers.
According to the report, XRP is “roughly envisioned as an international payment medium or wholesale settlement coin.”
It further mentioned how XRP and Stellar blockchains facilitate cost-effective value transfers, just like the proof of concept, Project Mariana.
Stagflation is taking hold in Britain as inflation printed much hotter than expected this morning with services and core CPI at their highest since 1992.
Headline CPI printed 8.7% in April, higher than any of the 36 estimates from economists or the 8.4% reading forecast by the central bank (though admittedly back in single-digits from the 10.1% print in March).
However, core prices excluding food, energy and tobacco accelerated to 6.8% last month from 6.2% in March.
Britain’s Treasury chief said he would be prepared to see the U.K. economy slip back into recession if further interest rate hikes are necessary to bring down inflation.
With the Bank of England expected to keep raising rates following higher-than-anticipated inflation figures this week, Jeremy Hunt said it was necessary to prioritize measures to slow the pace of price increases.
For anti-Trump Republicans, faith in the invisible hand has taken on a whole new meaning that has nothing to do with Adam Smith.
IRS supervisory agent Gary Shapley spent about six hours Friday privately testifying to Congress about an alleged coverup in the criminal investigation of first son Hunter Biden.
Hunter Biden reaped millions of dollars from overseas ventures that Republicans call influence-peddling during and immediately after his father’s vice presidency.
Wealthy figures in China, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Romania, Russia and Ukraine are counted among Hunter’s past clients and associates. Many of the dealings remain murky, though details were chronicled in files from Hunter’s abandoned laptop and in bank files acquired this year by the House Oversight Committee.
Hunter wrote in emails retrieved from his former laptop that he had to share “half” of his income with Joe Biden and records show that the elder Biden met with many of his son’s partners and even appeared to be penciled in for a 10% cut of proceeds from a Chinese government-linked partnership under negotiation in 2017.