Back in April 2015, when Venezuela still had a somewhat functioning economy and hyperinflation was not yet rampant, the cash-strapped country quietly conducted a little-noticed gold-for-cash swap with Citigroup as part of which president Nicolas Maduro converted part of his nation's gold reserves into at least $1 billion in cash through a swap with Citibank.

As Reuters reported then, the deal would make more foreign currency available to President Nicolas Maduro's socialist government as the OPEC nation struggled with soaring consumer prices, chronic shortages and a shrinking economy worsened by low oil prices.

The chief commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has warned Saudi Arabia and the UAE that they could face retaliatory measures for supporting terrorists on behalf of the US and Israel.

General Mohammad Ali Jafari on Saturday stressed that Iran would give a "decisive" response to a Wednesday terrorist attack which killed 27 IRGC border guards in the southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan province.

"The patience that the establishment once exercised against conspiracies and reactionary regimes in the region, especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE which carry out these acts on orders from the US and the Zionist regime, will be different and we will definitely take reparative measures," he said.

On Wednesday, an explosives-laden car rammed into a bus carrying the IRGC personnel on a road between the cities of Zahedan and Khash, leaving 27 of them dead and 13 others wounded.

Russia has warned the US-led NATO alliance over a recent decision to beef up military presence in the Black Sea, saying such a move would further increase tensions in the volatile region.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said on Friday that the decision by the Western military alliance to strengthen its position in the sea “is not a surprise” for Moscow.

“We are talking about the strengthening of military and maritime forces of NATO member states, first and foremost, Romania and Bulgaria, plus non-coastal states entering the Black Sea more often,” he said.

"It is our understanding that this activity aggravates the situation in the sphere of security,” Grushko added.

US National Security Adviser John Bolton has expressed Washington's support for New Delhi after India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed a strong response to those behind a recent deadly car bomb attack in Kashmir.

In a telephone conversation with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval, Bolton said the Trump administration supports New Delhi’s right to self-defense against cross-border terrorism, Indian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

The Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) claimed responsibility for Thursday’s deadly car bomb attack, which killed at least 44 Indian paramilitary troops in Kashmir.

The Arab public believes their leaders attended the US-backed conference in Poland in a pre-planned scenario to normalize ties with Israel. A leaked video of the closed meeting shows Arab leaders play down the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and defend Israel's right to defend itself.

Tony Kevin, a former Australian ambassador, defends Julian Assange & WikiLeaks & reveals a plan to get him safely from Ecuador’s London embassy back to Australia.

According to an Israeli media report, the Israeli government has completed work on a massive, far-reaching plan that would expel an estimated 36,000 Palestinians from “unrecognized” villages in the Negev Desert. If the plan is approved by the Knesset, Israel’s legislative body, its implementation could begin as soon as this year and would take four years to complete. News of the plan was first published by Israel Hayom – Israel’s largest Hebrew-language newspaper, funded by Sheldon Adelson, the top donor to both U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Chronic incompetence, affirmative action, poor maintenance and Third World chaos have plunged South Africa into yet another power supply nightmare with nationwide blackouts—euphemistically called “load-shedding”—while new video from a recently built power station show that it is on the verge of a dangerous collapse.

As the ACLU, the state of California, congressional Democrats and other Leftists line up to sue POTUS Donald Trump for issuing a national emergency declaration on Friday, lost in the “establishment” media’s breathless reporting of all the ways the president is a bigoted jerk who is going to get his when the case makes it to federal court is the fact that there’s nothing new under the sun here.

Specifically, while the press is busy playing its normal role of Democrat Party propaganda machine, few are reporting that POTUS Trump’s declaration was practically ripped out of former President Barack Obama’s ‘national emergency on the border’ playbook.

The Washington State Capitol in Olympia on Friday, February 8, 2019, was filled and buzzing with thousands of concerned citizens and families who drove in from all over the state to attend a public hearing for House Bill 1638, titled, “Promoting immunity against vaccine preventable diseases.” Woven within this misleading bill title is a clause that strives to remove the philosophical/personal exemptions to the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine for children who attend both public and private schools and licensed daycares.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Breitbart News that he is proposing a plan to keep a “small percentage” of U.S. troops in Syria, after the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’s (ISIS) caliphate is destroyed.

“The bottom line is we can reduce our presence, but there needs to be some U.S. forces — a small percentage compared to what we have today, making sure our gains are maintained,” he said in an interview Friday at the Munich Security Conference.

Graham is hoping to get allies and partners onboard with creating a stabilizing force that could maintain a safe zone in northern Syria, along its border with Turkey.

India accused its fellow nuclear power Pakistan of being behind a terrorist suicide bomb attack in Kashmir that killed at least 44 Indian security officers on Thursday, reportedly marking the deadliest attack in the disputed region in decades.

Thursday’s incident intensified the hostility between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India. In a speech in the wake of the attack, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared, “We will give a fitting, jaw-breaking reply, our neighbor will not be allowed to destabilize us,” the Independent reveals.

Modi said the Indian government security forces have “total freedom” to deal with the militants, the Associated Press (AP) notes.

UN Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) Ghassan Salame told Sputnik on Saturday he had received the invitation from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to visit Moscow.

"The Russian foreign minister invited me to Moscow. I hope to respond to his invitation [and to visit Russia] soon", Salame said, adding that he had received the invitation during a meeting with Lavrov on the margins of the Munich Security Conference.

Commenting on the situation of the son of late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Hannibal, who currently is a Lebanese prison, the envoy said the UN mission in Libya was making every effort in terms of humanitarian assistance.

Two plow drivers clearing streets were threatened during this past week by people infuriated when their driveways ended up blocked with mounds of snow in the Spokane, Washington, area.

According to Spokane County spokeswoman Martha Lou Wheatley-Billeter, during one incident, a man with a holstered handgun yelled obscenities at a plow driver and climbed onto the plow truck, trying to open a door.

“While the snow may initially come down moderate to heavy late tonight, it'll generally be a long duration light snow lasting the entire day Sunday,” O’Mara said.

A Winter Weather Advisory is in effect Saturday night and Sunday.

Skiers eager to hit the slopes had to sit out a Presidents' Day holiday weekend as heavy snow and rain fell for a fourth straight day Friday in California's mountains, where the snow was so deep in some areas plows couldn't go out and cities were running out of places to pile it.

Several routes to the ski mecca of Lake Tahoe were closed Friday, including about 70 miles of Interstate 80 from Colfax, California, to the Nevada state line. Chains were required for travel in many other parts of the towering range.

"They have ordered up a large blower to try and clear the pass," Placer County Sheriff Lt. Andrew Scott said in a tweet he posted with a video of a snow-covered I-80. "Please stay home."

The storm is forecast to dump between 3 and 6 feet of fresh snow in a region where some ski resorts reported getting 3 feet of snow since Thursday. An avalanche warning was issued for the greater Lake Tahoe Area, where heavy snow and high winds are forecast through Sunday.

Bad news: Somehow even more snow is on the way to the Des Moines metro, and it’s going to start as the Iowa state wrestling tournament wraps up at Wells Fargo Arena.

Jim Lee, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Des Moines, said the snow will start in Des Moines as early as 6 p.m. Saturday — right when the wrestling finals for all classes are scheduled to begin.

“It’ll be snowing in Des Moines before the tournament lets out,” Lee said.

The Winter Weather Advisory has been extended and is now in effect until 10 a.m. for the summit of Haleakal? on Maui and the summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa on Hawai?i Island.

The National Weather Service says occasional snow showers will continue to impact the highest elevations through mid morning Saturday. Snow covered and icy roadways leading to the summits will make travel to the summits extremely dangerous.

Due to the life-threatening conditions, the National Park Service has closed the road leading to the summit of Haleakal?. Travel to the summits should be avoided until the roadways have been cleared from snow and ice and deemed safe for travel.

Standard archeological techniques can’t determine whether the prehistoric artists were hunter-gatherers or farmers. Analyzing the paintings’ surfaces with techniques from biology offers much more information about how they worked and when they lived.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert withdrew her name from consideration for the U.N. ambassador nomination, the department said Saturday.

“I am grateful to President Trump and Secretary [Mike] Pompeo for the trust they placed in me for considering me for the position of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations," Nauer said in the statement. "However, the past two months have been grueling for my family and therefore it is in the best interest of my family that I withdraw my name from consideration.

She went on to describe her time working in the administration as being "one of the highest honors of my life."

An exceptional sauropod dinosaur specimen from the middle Cretaceous of Tanzania represents a unique species and provides new insights into sauropod evolution, according to a study published February 13, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Eric Gorscak of Midwestern University, Illinois, and Patrick O'Connor of Ohio University, USA.

Titanosaurs were the most speciose and widespread group of sauropod dinosaurs, the largest terrestrial animals in Earth history. They reached their peak diversity in the Late Cretaceous after all other sauropod groups vanished, but their early evolution is poorly understood due to a scarcity of well-preserved titanosaur fossils from before the Late Cretaceous, especially outside of South America. In this study, the authors describe a newly-discovered middle Cretaceous titanosaur from southern Africa.

A federal judge recently approved a $1 billion lawsuit against Johns Hopkins University, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co (BMY.N) and the Rockefeller Foundation. The lawsuit is seeking restitution for victims who were intentionally infected with syphilis during government experiments in Guatemala during the 1940s.

Hundreds of Guatemalans were reportedly infected with syphilis during the studies, which were designed to test the ability of penicillin to treat sexually transmitted diseases. The lawsuit was pending and waiting in limbo for the past four years until it was finally approved by U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang last month. In 2015, when the lawsuit was originally filed, there were 750 victims seeking restitution, now there are only 444 plaintiffs and some remaining relatives.

The test subjects in the experiments were mainly children, orphans, patients from mental hospitals and inmates.

The Pentagon is now publicizing its first military airlift of Venezuelan aid delivered to the Colombian town of Cucuta on Saturday, which sits on the border shared by the two countries, despite embattled President Nicolas Maduro vowing to keep such "unauthorized" aid out by stationing troops along the border.

Washington is using aid delivery to undermine the socialist Maduro government in Caracas, which has blasted US-led attempts to foment coup and fuel unrest.

A Gulfstream II jet, aircraft # N987SA, allegedly used to transport Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) rendition prisoners from Europe and America to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba crash-landed Sept. 24, 2007 in Mexico carrying a cargo of over four tons of cocaine. It is suspected the Gulfstream jet ran out of fuel as it traveled from Colombia to the United States.

The media’s relentless assault on President Trump has caused Americans’ distrust of journalists to reach new heights, and new polling reinforces their fall.

A recent IBD/TIPP poll surveyed participants about “the public’s perception of the mainstream news media.” The poll found that “fully half the country says its trust in the media decreased over the past two years.” Only eight percent said their trust in the media has increased.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to Poland for the Warsaw summit was beset by a string of missteps.

The French parliament has adopted a proposal to decorate every classroom in France with the national and European Union flags, but the measure has drawn flak from both the left and the right. It is now being reconsidered.

French schools are set to replace the words ‘mother’ and ‘father’ with ‘Parent 1’ and ‘Parent 2’ following an amendment to a law which passed through French Parliament this week.

The new naming convention is ostensibly aimed at ending discrimination against same sex parents but critics argue that it “dehumanises” parenthood and may lead to rows over who gets classified as ‘Parent 1.’

The amendment, passed Tuesday as part of a wider plan to build a so-called “school of trust,” will also enforce mandatory school attendance for all three-year-olds.

Mexico will support Pemex by injecting US$3.6 billion into the debt-laden state-held oil firm, including by refinancing debt and cutting taxes, Mexican officials said on Friday.

The Mexican government, however, will not take on new debt for Pemex, Reuters quoted officials as saying at a regular press conference.

The Mexican state oil firm has a total of US$106 billion in financial debt.

If Pemex needs more capital injection, the government will provide it, according to Finance Minister Carlos Urzua.

Chinese scientists have revealed plans to build and launch in orbit a space solar station that could capture the Sun’s rays 24/7, Chinese media report.

China has already started to build an early experimental space power plant in the city of Chongqing, The Sydney Morning Herald reported, citing an article in China’s Science and Technology Daily.

The space solar station, planned to orbit the Earth at 36,000 kilometers (22,370 miles) could provide “an inexhaustible source of clean energy for humans,” according to Pang Zhihao, a researcher at the China Academy of Space Technology Corporation.

Such solar power technology could supply reliable energy 99 percent of the time and have six times the intensity of the solar farms that work on the earth, the scientist says.

China will start by launching small solar stations between 2021 and 2025, while a possible next step would be a Megawatt-level station planned to be built in 2030.

On Thursday, M.J. Rosenberg, who has worked for AIPAC for years in the 70’s and 80’s, confirmed Ilhan Omar’s controversial tweet concerning AIPAC – that it’s “all about the Benjamins” (referring to $100 bills).

“In short, AIPAC’s political operation is used precisely as Representative Omar suggested”, Rosenberg wrote in The Nation.

This is no small thing, and this shows just how important this debate is – and it’s a debate that Ilhan Omar sparked off. We should be ever so thankful for her person and her courage.

Rosenberg is pushing back against the Israel apologists who seek to shut this debate down.

Former general Benny Gantz, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strongest challenger in an election scheduled for April, voiced support on Sunday for the right-wing leader’s tough policy towards Iran, reports Reuters.

“I am standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Prime Minister Netanyahu in the fight against Iran’s aggression,” Gantz, a former chief of Israel’s armed forces and a centrist candidate, told the Munich Security Conference.

Polls predict that Netanyahu’s Likud party will win the April 9 election, taking about 30 of parliament’s 120 seats – enough to form a coalition of right-wing and religious factions similar to one he now heads.

The surveys forecast a second-place finish, with some 20 seats, for Gantz’s Resilience party. That would line him up to join a future Netanyahu-led coalition – unless he tries to mobilise other factions against the incumbent.

Tens of Palestinian protesters were wounded and suffered severe breathing problems due to the heavy use of tear gas by the Israeli army as it cracked down on weekly protests in the West Bank city of Bil’in.

After Friday prayers, the protesters gathered in the centre of the village – which is located to the west of Ramallah – and headed towards the Separation Wall near Um Al-Laimoun, in the southern part of Bil’in.

The Israeli army opened fire at the protesters – who included foreign and Israeli peace activists – and threw gas canisters, leaving tens of them suffocating.

The revelation that top Justice officials considered unseating Trump should answer that question for good.

Warsaw, Poland is not a fun place to visit in darkest February, but that is where the US just staged an anti-Iranian jamboree of 60 client states that brought derision and scorn from Europeans and much of the Mideast.

The point of this cynical exercise was to lay the diplomatic groundwork for an anti-Iranian coalition to act as a fig-leaf for an upcoming attack on Iran planned by President Donald Trump and his close ally, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu.

The real question is who is calling the shots in bleak Warsaw, Trump or Bibi Netanyahu? It seems to many that the Israeli tail is again wagging the American dog.

Has anyone else noticed how almost anything you say nowadays – if it’s leftwing – can suddenly be cited as proof of your anti-semitism?

That is, if you haven’t already been denounced as a Kremlin stooge.

Oppose the regular neoconservative regime-change operations, such as the latest one targeting Venezuela, and point to the long record of war crimes committed by one of its current architects, Elliott Abrams, and that apparently is probable evidence that you’re an anti-semite

US President Donald Trump baffled the whole world last December by saying that the self-proclaimed caliphate, Daesh, had been defeated in Syria, going on to announce the withdrawal of all American troops from the Arab Republic.

Syrian state-run news agency SANA has cited local sources as saying that US forces have used helicopters to transfer large boxes full of the "spoils" of Daesh* terrorists from the al-Dashisha area in Hasaka province's southern countryside.

The sources claim that the boxes contained huge amounts of gold that the terrorist group had safely stored east of al-Shadadi city — an account, which, as SANA stresses, corresponds with other reports that Daesh had transported some 40 tonnes of gold bullions stolen from Mosul in Iraq and other areas in Syria to al-Dashisha.

Negotiators for President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are discussing a possible deal for their upcoming summit that would include a declaration ending the Korean War in return for verifiable steps to halt Pyongyang’s nuclear program, according to current and former U.S. officials.

The president is quickly turning his sights toward a second nuclear summit with North Korea that could reset a political narrative of domestic frustration.

At this year’s Munich Security Conference the US has failed to push its European allies towards further confrontation with Moscow, while Russia has played a constructive role at the event by continuing a dialogue with its partners.

If you manage to get close to the main entrance of the Bayerischer Hof hotel in the Bavarian capital during the annual Munich Security Conference (MSC), you'd see dozens of VIPs — politicians, their staff, NATO generals, and hundreds of police officers. It's been like this for years, but this time there was also something else beyond the glossy pictures of motorcade arrivals.

Two police officers were attacked by angry protesters as law enforcement attempted to control yellow vests demonstrators marching through Whitehall and Piccadilly, The Independent reported, citing London's Metropolitan Police.

"Six arrests were made following a moving yellow vest protest in Whitehall and Piccadilly on Saturday, 16 February. Two officers were assaulted during the course of policing the protest", a police spokesman stated, as quoted by The Independent.

The fallout from the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro has continued years after the last games have ended. The debt incurred by the local Olympic organizing committee, Rio 2016, has now increased dramatically to more than three times its original estimate, according to a new report by Deadspin.

The debt was listed at $32 million in December 2016 and now, a little more than two years later, it has more than tripled to $113 million. The Brazilian government and the IOC have both refused to help the local organizing committee dispatch of its debts.

Haiti continues to be gripped by civil unrest and mass protests demanding that President Jovenal Moise step down over charges of corruption and and rampant inflation under his watch — yet unlike similar unrest happening hundreds of miles due south of the small Caribbean country in Venezuela, Washington has stood in support of the president. Starting Thursday the US State Department urged all American citizens out of the country and issued a no-not-travel advisory due to "crime and civil unrest".

The visit, which took place Wednesday to Friday in the middle of a tight election race, was designed to highlight the strong Israeli-US alliance and Netanyahu’s prominent role on the world stage after a decade on the job.

It was a well-scripted rollout. Netanyahu held highly publicized talks with US Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, met with Oman’s foreign minister, and sat at the Warsaw summit’s head table next to Yemen’s foreign minister.

But it was the accidental and/or deliberate mishaps that occurred on the sidelines of the summit, well documented by journalists and social media, which stole the show.

Bills introduced in the Tennessee legislature would define gold and silver specie as legal tender and eliminate sales taxes levied on it. Passage of these bills would pave the way for Tennessee residents to use gold and silver in everyday transactions, a foundational step for the people to undermine the Federal Reserve’s monopoly on money.

Against the backdrop of his multiple criminal investigations, and as the April elections loom, opponents portray Prime Minister Netanyahu as a criminal, while his ardent supporters pledge unequivocal support to the man they see as a champion.

CEO Jo Käser tells DW the German conglomerate hopes to raise its investments in Russia despite EU-US sanctions. He said it was "regrettable" that several Siemens power turbines ended up in Russian-annexed Crimea.

As Donald Trump leads the US's withdrawal from multilateralism, the Munich Security Conference is dominated by concerns the world is fragmenting. But, to some, insisting on this world order threatens Cold War conditions.

Shocking footage has emerged of a major pile-up on a highway in Kansas which killed one and injured several others.

The crash happened near the Oak Grove interchange and Westbound lanes of I-70 just east of Kansas city and involved 47 vehicles on Friday.

One person died and several others were injured and taken to hospital when the crash occurred as the city was was gripped by a winter storm, with heavy snow covering much roads.

In truth, the cataclysm was born of the planned economy and communist bureaucracy itself.

For this was an empire of falsified statistics, of unattainable deadlines easily beaten by corner-cutting, sullen indifference to individual responsibility, terror at conveying bad news to superiors and chains of toadying yes-men clinging to their comfortable party privileges. They made the disaster at Chernobyl almost inevitable.

Philip Hammond will not visit China this weekend amid reports that Beijing pulled out of trade talks after Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson threatened to deploy a warship in the Pacific.

The Chancellor was expected to meet Chinese vice premier Hu Chunhua, but Treasury sources said the trip was never confirmed.

It follows reports in the Sun newspaper that Mr Hu scrapped the plans hours after Mr Williamson announced that he would be sending HMS Queen Elizabeth to the Pacific region.

“Happy Valentine’s Day. We saluted our victory – or the victory for the American people – earlier with chocolate. Chocolate from California, I call it the chpagne of chocolate. So again, I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. You should go home now to your loved ones,” Pelosi said.

Albania's capital, Tirana, was plunged into chaos on Saturday as thousands of people swarmed the square in front of Prime Minister Edi Rama's residence, clashing with police and storming the building with metal poles.

Violence erupted at the protest against Rama's Socialist Party government, with hundreds of demonstrators breaking through police cordons set up around the residence.

US president Donald Trump has said Britain and other European allies should "take back" more than 800 Islamic State fighters captured in Syria.

Trump warned the ISIS fighters could "permeate Europe" and called on Britain, France and Germany to "step up" and put the prisoners on trial in their countries.

US-backed fighters in Syria are poised to capture ISIS's last, tiny enclave on the Euphrates, bringing its self-declared caliphate to the brink of total defeat.

Now Trump wants European countries to help out in putting them in jail through their respective justice systems.

London and Washington worked against a genuine peace settlement in Afghanistan after the Soviet pullout 30 years ago, UK government papers released by the National Archives in London reveal.

Thirty years ago today the last Soviet soldier crossed the river Oxus from Afghanistan back into the Soviet Union. The almost 10-year war against Islamist extremism on the USSR's borders was over. But not the suffering of the Afghan people whose chances for a peaceful life were ruined by the duplicitous policies of the West.

Venezuelan congressional chief and self-appointed interim president, Juan Guaido, must be acknowledged as such by the European Union, according to the US vice president.

US Vice President Mike Pence, speaking on Saturday at the Munich Security Conference, declared that the EU must recognize Guaido as the official — although temporary — leader of the beleaguered South American nation, until a new official presidential election can be held, according to Reuters.

Pence's remarks appeared to be a veiled warning against the entire economic bloc, as opposed to the traditional diplomatic process of negotiating with nations on an individual basis.