Bitcoin Pares Gains. Why the Coming Days Could Bring More Volatility.
Having rallied 30% in two weeks, Bitcoin is taking a pause. But a busy few days of macroeconomic news could usher in more volatility.
Having rallied 30% in two weeks, Bitcoin is taking a pause. But a busy few days of macroeconomic news could usher in more volatility.
Polling began in the second round of elections for Tunisia's toothless parliament on Sunday, but as the divided nation grapples with economic woes, all eyes will be on turnout.The latest polls, whose first round in December saw just 11.2 percent of registered voters take part, are seen as the final pillar of Saied's transformation of politics.
The idea of New York in wintertime conjures up images of Manhattan's Times Square and Central Park shrouded in snow.Meteorologists define snowfall in NYC as snow that measures at least 0.1 inches in Central Park.
Officials recover bodies of 41 people, including women and children, after bus falls into ravine
US trade flows are realigning on the back of pandemic shocks and tensions with China, but efforts to reduce interdependence between the superpowers have not brought a swift decoupling."The recent (Inflation Reduction Act) and Chips Act, and related sanctions are clear indicators of the Biden administration's efforts to decouple from China" in these areas, said Koopman.
Italian energy giant Eni signed an $8 billion gas deal with Libya's state-run National Oil Corporation Saturday as Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited Tripoli.Meloni also visited Algeria this week seeking supply deals from Africa's top gas exporter.
"A week before my mother died, her house was broken into and burned down," said Mathieu Okoma Agoa, from a village in Ivory Coast.Okoma Agoa's mother suffered from leprosy, a disease that made her a social outcast long before she died.
New York officials and members of the city's Jewish community called Friday for the removal of plaques bearing the name of French Nazi collaborators from Manhattan's celebrated Broadway street.The parade took place before they worked for the Nazis during Germany's occupation of France during World War II. "Removing the plaques is not a whitewashing of history.
North Korea on Sunday denied providing arms to Moscow after the United States said the nuclear-armed state supplied rockets and missiles to Russia's private military group Wagner."We also know that North Korea is providing military support to the Russian war efforts with the rockets and missiles," he added.
Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih won the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party's (MDP) presidential primary election, the first time an incumbent has faced a primary challenge, according to preliminary results on Sunday. But his challenger, former President Mohamed Nasheed has not accepted the results reported by the party. Nasheed's supporters and representatives have alleged voter fraud and vote rigging in the contentious election in the archipelago off India and Sri Lanka.
A gunman stormed Azerbaijan's embassy in Tehran on Friday, killing the mission's head of security in an attack Iran said was motivated by personal reasons but Baku labelled an act of "terrorism".Following the attack, Azerbaijan's foreign ministry said the diplomatic mission's head of security was killed and that two guards were wounded but in a "satisfactory" condition, adding that an investigation had been launched.
Hundreds of people, including foreign diplomats and activists, paid homage Saturday to a human rights lawyer who was shot dead in Eswatini, sparking alarm over political violence in Africa's last absolute monarchy.EU ambassador Dessislava Choumelova called for the "safety of all citizens including political activists".
India's rising tide of Hindu nationalism is an affront to the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi, his great-grandson says, ahead of the 75th anniversary of the revered independence hero's assassination.Today, Gandhi's assassin is revered by many Hindu nationalists who have pushed for a re-evaluation of his decision to murder a man synonymous with non-violence.
Demonstrations in Lima turned fatal on Saturday as one protester died in clashes with police near Congress after lawmakers rejected a request by Peru's embattled president to bring elections forward.In the early hours of Saturday, lawmakers had rejected her request to move the polls forward to December, even as anti-Boluarte protests raging across the country have left dozens dead.
The pensioner who allegedly sent letter bombs to Spain's prime minister and the Ukrainian embassy was placed in pre-trial detention on Friday on grounds he could flee to "Russian territory". The home-made devices were sent in late November and early December to Spain's prime minister and defence minister, the Ukrainian and US embassies, the European Union Satellite Centre near Madrid and to a Spanish arms manufacturer in the northeastern city of Zaragoza.
Ukrainian troops were locked in a "fierce" confrontation with Russian fighters Friday for control of the town of Vugledar southwest of Donetsk as the two sides battle along the southern front.Both sides claimed success in the small administrative center of apartment towers surround by flat fields, a short distance from the strategic prize of the village of Pavlivka."The encirclement and subsequent liberation of this city solves many problems," said Denis Pushilin, the Moscow-appointed leader of the Donetsk region."Soon, Vugledar may become a new, very important success for us," he was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.But Kyiv said the town, which had a pre-invasion population of around 15,000 people, remained contested. "There is fierce combat there," Ukrainian military spokesman Sergiy Cherevaty told local media."For many months, the military of the Russian Federation... has been trying to achieve significant success there," he said.Moscow's push for Vugledar is part of its effort to seize control of the entire Donetsk region, which it has already declared a part of Russia.The town also lies along a southern front that some think could be the focus of a possible Ukraine offensive seeking to cut through Russian-occupied territory to the Azov Sea.Russian attacks in the Vugledar area could be "part of a series of spoiling attacks aimed at constraining possible future Ukrainian counteroffensive operations," said the US-based Institute for the Study of War.- Barbs on Holocaust Remembrance Day -Russian President Vladimir Putin used International Holocaust Remembrance Day Friday to lash out at Ukraine, calling those in the country "neo-Nazis" to justify the 11-month-old invasion."Forgetting the lessons of history leads to the repetition of terrible tragedies," Putin said."It is against that evil that our soldiers are bravely fighting," he said.But in Poland, where some three million Jews were slaughtered during World War II, officials pointed their fingers at Russia as perpetuating Nazi thinking. "On the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, let us remember that to the east Putin is building new camps," Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Facebook."Solidarity and consistent support for Ukraine are effective ways to ensure that history does not come full circle," he added.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky marked Holocaust Remembrance Day by urging the world to unite against "indifference" and "hatred"."Today, as always, Ukraine honours the memory of millions of victims of the Holocaust. We know and remember that indifference kills along with hatred," he said.- More Polish tanks -Morawiecki meanwhile said Poland would deliver an additional 60 tanks to Kyiv to help it fend off Russia's aggression."Right now, we are ready to send 60 of our modernised tanks, 30 of them PT-91. And on top of those tanks, 14 tanks, Leopard 2 tanks, from our possession," he said.The tanks that have already been sent by Poland are mainly T-72 Soviet models, of which the PT-91 are a modernised version. Ukraine has also been promised battle tanks from Germany and the United States, announced earlier this week. And Belgium announced a new 93.8 million euro ($100 million) package of military aid for Ukraine that includes cash, missiles, machine guns and armoured vehicles.- Olympics controversy -Meanwhile controversy boiled over the International Olympic Committee's efforts to find a "pathway" for Russians to take part in the 2024 Paris Games despite the invasion of Ukraine.Russia and its ally Belarus have been sidelined from most Olympic sports since the invasion of Ukraine last February.But the IOC said "no athlete should be prevented from competing just because of their passport".Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said Thursday that she supported the concept of Russian athletes competing under a neutral banner at the 2024 Olympics.Zelensky on Friday invited IOC President Thomas Bach to visit the frontline city of Bakhmut, where some of the heaviest fighting has taken place in recent months."I am inviting Mr Bach to Bakhmut so that he can see for himself that neutrality does not exist," Zelensky said. "It is obvious that any neutral banner of Russian athletes is stained with blood."Ukraine's sports minister warned his country could boycott the games if Russian and Belarusian athletes take part.bur/pmh/bfm
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz travels to Chile on Sunday, part of a Latin America tour that also includes Argentina and Brazil, where Berlin and the EU are seeking a reset following the election of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.As Russia's war against Ukraine grinds on, Germany will seek to use the Latin American tour to drum up further international support against Moscow, the Berlin government source said.
Rwandan authorities on Saturday said they had arrested six people for allegedly hurling insults at a woman who made history as one of the first female referees chosen for the men's World Cup.The 34-year-old made history last year by becoming the first woman to referee at the Africa Cup of Nations.
First Valentyna's gas was cut when Russia's invasion came to Bakhmut in Ukraine's Donetsk region.They are just two among some 8,000 Bakhmut residents whose precarious existence in the city has been thrown into even greater uncertainty since water supplies were fully cut in October.
Czechs went to the polls Friday on the first day of a presidential run-off election in which retired NATO general Petr Pavel is expected to beat the billionaire former prime minister Andrej Babis.Analysts predicted high turnout for the two-day vote, after an acrimonious campaign marked by controversial stances.Pavel, a former paratrooper, topped the most recent opinion polls with 58 to 59 percent support, compared with 41 to 42 percent for Babis.The victor will replace Milos Zeman, an outspoken and divisive politician who had sought close ties with Moscow before making a U-turn when Russia invaded Ukraine last year.Casting his vote in the northern village of Cernoucek, Pavel said he wanted to be "a dignified president" for the country, an EU and NATO member of 10.5 million people."I won't offer you pie in the sky, but instead I'll describe reality as it is," he said.Babis, whose wealth and legal headaches have made him a divisive figure, called the election "a referendum on Babis" as he cast his ballot in Pruhonice, just south of Prague. Pavel edged ahead of Babis at 35.4 percent to 35 percent in the first round of voting two weeks ago, wooing right-wing and centrist voters with his no-nonsense rhetoric.Babis is banking on support from his centre-left ANO movement, but experts say he has turned off some voters with chaotic diatribes in campaign debates.Babis is "rhetorically hard to figure out", said Otto Eibl, a political scientist at Masaryk University.Since the first round of voting, Babis and his family have been targeted by death threats, while Pavel was the victim of a hoax claiming he was dead. "Quite frankly, if the polls are well conducted, I think it will be hard for Babis to come back," said Tomas Lebeda, a political scientist at Palacky University. While the role is largely ceremonial in Czech politics, the president names the government, picks the central bank governor and constitutional judges, and serves as commander of the armed forces.- NATO remarks -Pavel, 61, was decorated as a hero in the Serbo-Croatian war, when he helped free French troops from a war zone.He went on to become chief of the Czech general staff and chair of NATO's military committee.Like Babis, Pavel was a member of the Communist Party in the 1980s, when Czechoslovakia was ruled by Moscow-steered communists.Babis went on to become the fifth wealthiest person in the Czech Republic, according to Forbes magazine, as owner of the Agrofert food, chemicals and media group.The 68-year-old, who served as prime minister from 2017 until 2021, stirred controversy at the tail end of the campaign by saying he would not send troops to fellow NATO members Poland and the Baltics if they were attacked.He later walked back the comments, which go against NATO's collective defence protocol, but not before he had garnered criticism from all four countries.Tereza Branis, casting her vote for Pavel at a school in Prague on Friday, said she wanted a "reliable" president."He should represent us so that other countries could rely on us and we on them," she told AFP. Independent political analyst Jan Kubacek said the election was unlikely to result in significant foreign policy shifts, no matter the victor."The Czech Republic will stay pro-Western," he told AFP.Polling stations will close at 10:00 pm (2100 GMT) on Friday before reopening at 8:00 am and closing at 2:00 pm on Saturday, with final results expected shortly afterwards.frj/amj/js
The United States said Friday it would refuse entry to two Serbian ultra-nationalist former members of parliament wanted by a UN court for witness tampering in a trial over crimes against humanity."The United States continues to stand with all Serbians in support of democracy and the rule of law and will continue to promote accountability for those who abuse public power for personal gain," State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.