The digital yuan cryptocurrency developed by China has the potential to be a gamechanger when it is rolled out fully. By ending the world’s reliance on the dollar, it will alter the geopolitical landscape forever. For several years now, China has been developing the digital yuan, the first cryptocurrency from a central bank and government in the world. And it’s nearing completion. [...]

Donald Trump handily won the state of Texas and its 38 electoral votes on 3 November, gathering about 631,000 more votes than his Democratic rival, Joe Biden. Trump, who trails Biden 232 electoral votes to 306 (with 270 needed to win) refuses to concede the race, claiming widespread fraud involving mail-in ballots across multiple states. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsu [...]

The global death toll from the coronavirus is now over 1.5 million, while the overall tally is more than 65 million, according to Johns Hopkins University. The spike in the number of infections caused several countries to impose quarantines in November, however, most are expected to end their lockdowns this month, before Christmas. Among the most affected nations are the US (14.1 million [...]

The Trump administration has long been critical of the EU, especially Germany, over their support for the transnational pipeline project, which will boost the capacity of Russia to sell natural gas to Europe. Washington insists that the EU must instead buy more expensive LNG from the US or other countries. The European Commission has condemned the US plans to expand the sanctions on Nord [...]

By limiting access to China’s AI and rare earth metals, Beijing is responding to President Trump’s endless stream of sanctions. But this latest move is set to cause big problems for the companies that work with the US military. China’s announcement of new laws controlling the exports of ‘sensitive items’ in a way that mirrors the US Commerce Department’s ‘entity list’ is the [...]

Just how smart do you have to be to win an American presidential election? Well, it helps if you have some brains to work with, as all of these 43 presidents have exceptionally high IQs – well over the U.S. average of 98. We know this because professor Dean Simonton, a psychologist from the University of California, Davis, totted up the evidence and used biographical information to make his info [...]

Debates in Congress over a new COVID-19 relief bill have dragged on for months, even as new coronavirus cases have hit record highs. A slew of federal programs designed to alleviate the economic impacts of pandemic shutdowns will expire in weeks, setting the stage for a series of crises that could leave millions more in the US hungry and homeless. As the COVID-19 pandemic and its associat [...]

Stephen Vizinczey says all a great power has to do to destroy itself is persist in doing the impossible... Like bankruptcy, societies and complex systems collapse slowly then all at once. The cycles that civilisations go through are well documented and whilst in hindsight it’s glaringly obvious to understand what drove the breakdown, in real time we are often too close and too invested trying t [...]

In a freshly-published book, Maria Butina has documented her time inside the American prison system, where she spent more than a year after being dubbed a foreign agent acting on behalf of Moscow’s ‘influence campaign.’ The book ‘#Prison diary’ is based on the journal Butina kept chronicling her experiences behind bars, including the time she spent in solitary confinement. [...]

The sale comes amid tighter restrictions from the United States in May, which blocked the Chinese tech giant's access to software and semiconductors made with US technologies. Ren Zhengfei, founder of Huawei Technologies, said he hoped Honor would become a strong competitor in the smartphone market and even surpass his company in the future, the South China Morning Post reported on Friday [...]

The continuing surge of coronavirus cases across the US along with the inevitable restrictions that are employed to stave off the spread of the pandemic are forecast to weigh heavily on economic recovery. The US economy is predicted as heading towards a potential contraction in economic growth early next year, marking the first "double dip" recession in the country’s history since the e [...]

The United States and Eritrea are the only countries in the world to tax based on citizenship. If you’re a US citizen living outside the United States, you still have yearly IRS tax filing obligations. These tax filing obligations can be an expensive annual hassle (even if you owe no tax). They may even result in double taxation. Fortunately, properly renouncing your US citizenship can provide [...]

Donald Trump has been a US president who has revelled in lies and obscenity. As we consider his legacy, his continued crass behaviour should make us ask how such a worthless person got the job in the first place. On November 23, Donald Trump finally agreed to begin the transition of power, but the way it was announced tells us a lot about him. Head of the General Services Administration Emil [...]

After years of denial, Berlin has acknowledged that the US Air Force is using Ramstein Air Base in Germany to carry out drone attacks in anti-terrorist operations, Die Linke (the Left) MP Andrej Hunko told RT. They crucial role played by the Ramstein base – the largest American military facility on foreign soil – in controversial US drone killings in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Yem [...]

The ongoing US trade war with China has raised concerns about the United States deploying the ‘nuclear option’ of freezing China’s banking sector out of the global US dollar payments system, prompting the use of alternative currencies such as the euro and the yuan to settle financial transactions. The European Union’s single currency was the most used currency for global payments [...]

Any mention of the prosecution of Julian Assange has been removed from the EU's latest report on fundamental rights, despite the best efforts of MEPs such as Ireland's Clare Daly. The European Parliament passed the final version of the fundamental rights report for 2018 - 2019 on 25 November, excluding any mention of imprisoned publisher and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. An amendment [...]

Russia's space agency Roscosmos may be hit with US sanctions for the first time ever, as a draft document reveals the Russian Ministry of Defense might become the subject of economic penalties from Washington. As well as Roscosmos, the proposed sanctions would also target Rosatom, the federal nuclear energy agency, as one of 28 organizations in the aviation, rocket, space, nuclear, instrument [...]

LONDON – The UK judge presiding over the case of the Venezuelan gold in the Bank of England urged the legal team representing Venezuela's self-proclaimed president Juan Guaido to find “better excuses” for its failure to comply with a UK court order to pay for the legal costs of the appeal it lost in October. This is according to a statement by Venezuela Central Bank (BCV) lawyers, w [...]

There is a battle in the halls of the European parliament to ensure that the latest report on fundamental rights references the US prosecution and attempted extradition of WikiLeaks founder and publisher Julian Assange. The EU's parliament will be voting on its latest report on fundamental rights, which also encompasses media freedom. The report on fundamental freedoms for 2018 - 2019 ori [...]

A notorious US naval destroyer sparked a diplomatic incident on Tuesday morning after Russia claimed that it had launched an incursion into its territorial waters. The USS John S McCain, a specialist combat ship designed to hunt submarines, was operating in the Sea of Japan (also called the East Sea), off the coast of the Russian Far Eastern capital, Vladivostok. Authorities say it was more than t [...]

Donald Trump’s lack of input at the G20 summit made it easy to ignore him. While Joe Biden will play more of a role globally, the rest of the world should not look to him for leadership given the turmoil America is in at present. The 2020 G20 Riyadh summit took place over the weekend with participating nations discussing greater cooperation in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, the global econ [...]

The US Supreme Court has declined to hear a case that Republicans hoped would disqualify late-arriving mail ballots in Pennsylvania. The Trump campaign still plans on taking another case to the court, claiming widespread fraud. More than 2.6 million mail ballots were cast in Pennsylvania this election. Voters mailing in their ballots broke heavily for Democratic candidate Joe Biden, with near [...]