Early Friday, China’s central bank surprised by announcing an unexpected cut to the amount that banks set aside for deposits by 25 basis points, vowing to keep ample liquidity in the interbank system and better fund the real economy.

The People’s Bank of China reduced the reserve requirement ratio for almost all banks by 0.25 percentage points, effective from March 27, it said in a statement on Friday. The PBOC last cut the RRR in December, by the same magnitude. The cut, effective March 27, is expected to inject 500 billion yuan ($72.6 billion) worth of liquidity into the market, while the average reserve requirement ratio of Chinese financial institutions will be lowered to 7.6 per cent.

A group of Ecuadorian opposition lawmakers has filed a formal impeachment request against President Guillermo Lasso, alleging extortion and embezzlement from public companies. A previous effort to impeach the conservative politician in June last year fell short of the required vote, after the leader cut off negotiations with indigenous protesters.  

The petition, which was presented on Thursday, was signed by 59 assembly members from the Union for Hope (UNES), Social Christian, and Democratic Left parties.  

“The president is politically responsible for crimes of extortion and embezzlement,” legislator Viviana Veloz of the UNES party of former president Rafael Correa declared during the National Assembly session. “In this accusation it will be demonstrated how President Guillermo Lasso Mendoza participated in a structure of corruption to obtain benefits for himself and others.” 

Russia and the Republic of the Congo are developing a project to create a petroleum product pipeline between the largest cities of the Congo Republic – Pointe Noire and the capital Brazzaville, Russian Ambassador to the Republic of the Congo Georgy Chepik said. The ambassador outlined that an agreement on the pipeline construction is expected to be signed before the upcoming Russia-Africa Summit.

The diplomat stated that the decision to build the pipeline was made during the sixth intergovernmental trade and economic commission, held in September 2022.

According to the ambassador, Russia's ZNGS PROMETEY pipeline construction, repair, and maintenance company has showed interest in the project.

A deliberate attack on a Russian aircraft in neutral airspace would be an open declaration of war against the largest nuclear power, Moscow is not seeking confrontation, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said on Wednesday.

"Some lawmakers’ calls go far beyond common sense," he said, commenting on US Senator Lindsey Graham’s (from South Carolina) threats to shoot down Russian planes approaching US aircraft in international airspace.

"The Russian Ministry of Defense has explained in detail the reasons and course of actions of Russian pilots during yesterday’s incident over the Black Sea. I repeat, for those who have not gathered themselves to look at the situation objectively: our fighters did not come into contact with the American UAV," he said, commenting on the loss of a MQ-9 American drone. "Russia did everything possible to prevent this kind of incident - it informed the international community in good time about the boundaries of the temporary airspace regime established for the special military operation."

"Of course, it is a shame for the Pentagon to lose expensive piece of equipment. But in this case, the US military should redirect accusations of unprofessional actions back to themselves," he noted.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has signed legislation to amend the state's discrimination law to expand civil rights protections to members of the LGBTQ community.

Whitmer signed the legislation Thursday that adds the LGBTQ community as a protected class to the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act of 1976.

"It is a new day in Michigan," she said during a press conference Thursday before signing bipartisan Senate Bill 4, which passed the Senate 23-18 and then the House 64-45 earlier this month to expand the landmark legislation.

The bill specifically codifies protections from housing and employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identify or expression.

A Minnesota nuclear plant has had a massive leak that has authorities highly concerned about what might come next. Authorities are actively working on trying to contain the fallout from all of this, according to reporting by the Daily Caller. They report that the primary concern is that the plant has lost some 400,000 gallons of water, and this is leaving it potentially exposed to larger problems.

The leak at Xcel Energy’s Monticello nuclear power plant was first detected in November, according to the Daily Caller, and it was reported to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and state officials.

However, according to CBS News, those officials did not disclose the issue to the public until March 16. Thus, it is unclear how long active radioactive materials have been floating around that haven’t been properly dealt with.

South Africans are nervously awaiting a controversial “national shutdown” on Monday organised by the radical Marxist party, which is accused of threatening violence and “looting” for those who refuse to take part.

Amid ongoing rolling blackouts — and the looming threat of a total collapse of the power grid — skyrocketing crime and unemployment and deteriorating services, the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has announced a nationwide shutdown on March 20 to protest the ruling African National Congress (ANC) government.

But the country’s main opposition party has warned of “widespread violence” if the day is allowed to go ahead.

The EFF, which has been accused of inciting violence against white farmers through its use of the “Kill the Boer” song at its rallies, has warned businesses and shop owners to stay closed on Monday.

The lobby group argued that the song, which can be heard at many EFF rallies, incites violence and fuels farm murders. They wanted Malema and Ndlozi to apologise and pay R500 000 damages.

Previously, Malema stated the party could not afford the exorbitant sum of money requested by AfriForum and further dismissed the claims of inciting violence.

During the judgment, the court found the song did not constitute hate speech and found AfriForum had failed to prove the matter.

One of the main Jewish preoccupations is worrying about going out of existence. Following in the footsteps of Alan Dershowitz, who wrote The Vanishing American Jew 26 years ago, Dominic Green wrote in The Jewish Chronicle that “Suddenly, everywhere you look, Jews are disappearing.”[1] As one proof of his claim, Green states that under Biden the percentage of Jewish judicial appointees has dropped from the historic norm of 20 percent to 8 to 9 percent.[2] In his rush to tell us that the sky is falling, Green neglected to tell us that in controlling 20 percent of the judiciary, the Jews are massively over represented in how the laws of this country get enforced. Ignoring the fact that Jews make up only 2 percent of the population, Green, more importantly, claims that Jews are disappearing from “the upper echelons” at the very moment when the Biden West Wing has enough Jews to constitute a minyan, the number of Jews required to hold a prayer service at a synagogue. 

America and the West have begun promoting the idea of a war against China over Taiwan. If China invades Taiwan, President Joe Biden has said, the U.S. would go further than it has in Ukraine, sending American ground troops as well as weapons. Thirty-seven percent of American voters agree with Biden. But how do you go to war to defend a country from invading itself?

According to the U.S., the United Nations and most of the world — including Taiwan itself — Taiwan is part of China.

Can the U.S. invade Ohio?

Like many other places, Taiwan is in a tough spot caused by decisions made by U.S. policymakers many years ago.

Until 1945, Taiwan was a Japanese colony. The birth certificate of my former father-in-law, an ethnic Taiwanese, read “Taipei, Japan.” The end of World War II brought a breather. Occupation forces withdrew. The Taiwanese expected independence as part of postwar decolonization. But America had other plans.

"What we are seeing, though, is an increase recently in the unprofessional and unsafe behavior of the Russian Air Force in the region," Kurilla stated.

The general explained that Russian aircraft have become emboldened to act aggressively toward U.S. bases in a way not typical of an organized military force.

The governor of New York has gone back to court seeking permission to detain citizens of her state in quarantine camps – without notice, without rights and for as long as some state-chosen health officials say is needed.

The fight arose during COVID-19, when state officials decided they would adopt a new rule giving the state exactly that power.

A lawsuit ensued, and the result was that the detention plan was ruled unconstitutional.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, through Attorney General Letitia James, now has appealed the court's rejection of her "Isolation and Quarantine Procedures" scheme, according to a report from lawyer Bobbie Anne Flower Cox at the Brownstone Institute.

The pictures, and the numbers, say it all.

Shabby tent encampments erected in city parks, along streets and beneath overpasses. Homeless people, many with mental health or drug problems, sprawled across sidewalks or subway seats. Needles and other paraphernalia often nearby.

America's homelessness scourge is huge and shows few signs of getting better.

California is by far the worst hit. It has about a third of all the country's homeless people, and Los Angeles, San Jose, Oakland, and other Golden State cities have among the largest numbers of unsheltered people in the country.

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development says 582,462 people did not have a permanent home on the single night in January last year when researchers carried out their most recent snapshot survey.

• 23-year-old Alexandria Borys was fatally shot in a grocery parking lot in Irmo, SC.

Arrested was Christina Harrison, 23.

Reports say Borys was gunned down in front of her small children—a 2-year-old and an infant, apparently after an argument with Harrison. As we’ve noted before, what are called the Derbyshire Rules, as expanded by the late Lawrence Auster, discourage this sort of argument—“mildly remonstrating” with blacks frequently produces a lethal response.

She was shot in the back.

The Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) is launching an investigation into a recent executive order the group called an “unprecedented scheme” they believe violates the democratic process.

In a press release, FGA said they are “sounding the alarm” on the “‘woke army’ being assembled inside the federal government,” through Executive Order 14091 (EO), titled “Executive Order Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through The Federal Government.”

FGA announced that their investigation will include filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests targeting the 23 agencies addressed in the Equity EO, including the Departments of State, Justice, Defense, Labor, Transportation, Social Security, Education, and Health and Human Services.

The group will share the information they gather with Congress, the states, and the American people, according to their press release.

FGA asserted that the plan (pdf) was developed by a left-wing activist group, and said it was “designed to circumvent the normal, democratic process and instead force their ideology onto Americans.”

Arab leaders are offering Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a deal that includes billions of dollars for reconstruction efforts and a pledge to lobby the west to lift sanctions in exchange for "[asking] Iran to stop expanding its footprint in the nation," according to Arab and European officials that spoke with the Wall Street Journal.

Other conditions set by the leaders of the unnamed Arab nations include a pledge from Damascus to engage with opposition and rebel groups, accept Arab troops to "protect returning refugees," and crack down on the captagon drug trade.

The secret talks reportedly gained momentum following the devastating earthquakes that struck Turkiye and Syria last month, killing 6,000 in the Levantine nation alone.

Nonetheless, a Syrian government adviser told the WSJ that Assad "has shown no interest in political reform or a willingness to welcome Arab troops." Western powers have also made little effort to lift crushing sanctions or stop politicizing humanitarian aid deliveries.

Update (17:45ET):  As negotiations drag on late on Saturday night local time, Bloomberg reports that liabilities at the Credit Suisse investment bank are proving to be a key sticking point in the takeover talks ("UBS is worried about the balance sheet risk associated with the investment bank, which has suffered a string of losses and scandals in recent years"), with Reuters adding that UBS is asking the Swiss government to cover about $6 billion in costs if it were to buy Credit Suisse. The $6 billion in guarantees "would cover the cost of winding down parts of Credit Suisse and potential litigation charges."

There are other snags: one sources cautioned that the talks to resolve the crisis of confidence in Credit Suisse are encountering significant obstacles, and 10,000 jobs may have to be cut if the two banks combine.

Meanwhile, with UBS facing pressure from the Swiss authorities to carry out a takeover of its local rival as soon as possible to get the crisis under control, the FT reported that Switzerland is preparing to use emergency measures to fast-track the deal, the Financial Times reported, citing two people familiar with the situation.

It looks like those robotaxis that were promised years ago are finally making their way onto the roads. The only problem is they aren't Teslas - instead, they are products of Beijing's internet search giant, Baidu.

The company, akin to Google in the U.S., received "the first permits to provide fully driverless ride-hailing services in a suburb of Beijing", according to a Bloomberg wrap-up Friday morning. Baidu says it has plans of putting 10 robotaxis on the road to start in the Beijing Yizhuang Economic Development Zone, which Bloomberg notes is "roughly the size of Manhattan". 

The vehicles will have no human driver in the car. As a condition of the new permits, the company won't be able to charge fees for rides yet. "Baidu won China’s first commercial licenses for fully humanless taxis in Wuhan and Chongqing" back in August, Bloomberg wrote. 

Oxfam has released an “inclusive language” guide which apologizes for using the English language before going on to deem a number of words ‘offensive’, such as “headquarters,” “local,” “people,” “mother” and “feminine hygiene.”

Yes, really.

The poverty and hunger charity was slammed for caving to absurd levels of political correctness after issuing the bizarre 92-page guidance to staff members.

“We recognise that this guide has its origin in English, the language of a colonising nation. We acknowledge the Anglo-supremacy of the sector as part of its coloniality,” states the introduction.

“This guide aims to support people who have to work and communicate in the English language as part of this colonial legacy. However, we recognise that the dominance of English is one of the key issues that must be addressed in order to decolonise our ways of working and shift power.”

Apparently, merely using the English language is now racist and offensive.

Within a year of its launch, millions of Ukrainians found that their personal data, such as driver’s licenses, social media information, and banking information, were being traded online.  There’s always been the risk of losing your wallet and your driver’s license, but with everything online, the risks of fraud and identity theft increase astronomically.

Early on in his presidency, Zelensky talked about streamlining the voting process via the app.  Aside from the fact that experts have never agreed about the safety of online voting, by July 2022, Zelensky had banned political opposition parties and shut down media companies with alternative views. Having one central app that controls everyone’s important documents makes it far easier for any ruling party to maintain its power.

Controlling elections is only the beginning.  Diia launched in February 2020, and by March 2020, Diia was helping the Ukrainian government enforce its lockdown policies, as discussed in the recent report by Redacted.

While the House is raising hell about the true COVID-19 lab leak theory, countless Americans in all 5o states are dropping like flies from the extremely poisonous and often fatal Covid injections.

When they’re not dying suddenly from ‘SADS’, they are dying horrible deaths from a plethora of Covid ‘vaccine’-induced diseases and injuries including VAIDS (vaccine-induced AIDS).

Then there are the staggering number of vax victims who are seriously sick and ill, wounded and weakened, diseased and debilitated, paralyzed and incapacitated, injured and maimed, disabled and handicapped, mutilated and disfigured, etc.

No one even talks about the untold stories of excruciating emotional pain and mental anguish and psychological suffering experienced by the family and friends of those who were criminally coerced, compelled and conned into taking the Covid killshots, clotshots and cancershots.

Fox News Channel's Tucker Carlson recently talked about what he learned during his career in media during an appearance on the "Full Send" podcast, lighting into his corporate media colleagues (and former self) for lying at the behest of the establishment and expressing regret over his past defense of the Iraq War.

Republican Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) called for Joe Biden’s impeachment following the bombshell news that President Donald Trump expects to be arrested Tuesday.

As Slay News reported, the George Soros-installed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is preparing to arrest Trump next week.

Trump also confirmed the news in a post on Truth Social.

Green fired back over the news, arguing that the move is a response to the GOP-led House Oversight Committee uncovering new evidence of the Biden family’s deals with China.

She said: “Of course as soon as our Oversight Committee comes out with REAL PROOF that the entire Biden family was getting paid by CHINA for influence and favors from Joe Biden, these communist thugs decide to arrest Trump. IMPEACH JOE BIDEN!!!

“And it’s not even political like Trump impeachments, it’s actually deserved.

The Soros-backed Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg isn’t known for his intellectual dexterity.  The NY DA’s made-up crimes against President Trump look more like an Andrew Weissmann special. 

The Manhattan DA doesn’t have the ability to come up with the comingled mess of a case that his office is attempting against the President of the United States, Donald Trump. He’s just not too bright.  So he needed lots of help.

Reports are that his Chief Assistant DA Meg Reiss is the mastermind but was this really her insane and sadistic idea?

This looks and smells like an Andrew Weissmann special.  Weissmann, a little man with a secret personal life, was behind numerous prosecutorial crimes in large cases since his early days in New York in the 1990s.  He has a horrible track record of prosecutorial abuse.

From the Wall Street Journal – Economists are now estimating that 186 US banks may be prone to the same risks as Silicon Valley Bank. This number is likely higher as the pressures that regional banks are facing are ramping up.

This number comes from a recent economic study published on March 13.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the US Senato on Thursday that not all uninsured deposits would be protected in future bank failures, ONLY those banks that pose systemic risks. Regional banks will get screwed.

In a surprising development last weekend, Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to restore normal relations, reopen embassies in each other’s country, and reactivate security and trade agreements that have lain dormant.  The agreement has the potential to shake up both regional and global politics, but could also mean a lot less than it initially seems.

It must be emphasized that this agreement, while certainly important, is not a cure-all for the Iranian-Saudi rivalry that has had such devastating effects across the region. That competition will still exist, as it existed before Saudi Arabia cut off relations with Iran in 2016 in the wake of protests that attacked Saudi missions in Iran after Saudi Arabia executed Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent Shi’ite cleric and vocal critic of the Saudi government. 

Even if the agreement, brokered by China after years of negotiations mediated by Iraq, holds, the competition for regional dominance between the two major oil exporters, who also are each seen as leaders, or at least prominent hubs, of different denominations of Islam, will still be there. Some territorial disputes will remain, as will regional conflicts in places like Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon where the two countries often back opposing forces. 

The failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) is just the tip of the iceberg as more than $620 billion in losses across the entire banking sector looms as a financial ticking time bomb.

According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the banking sector is currently sitting on unrealized losses of well over half a trillion dollars that at some point will have to be realized – but when?

The answer right now is nobody knows, but one thing is for sure: the FDIC, the Federal Reserve, and the Treasury Department are doing everything in their power to plug all the leaks on this financial Titanic to avoid a contagion event – at least for now.

We are told that the reason for this predicament has to do with the loads of bonds and treasuries that banks bought up during times of low-interest rates. Those bonds and treasuries are now deeply underwater as Jerome Powell continues to hike interest rates in a failed attempt to quell skyrocketing inflation.

A Defense Department public affairs guidance document exclusively obtained by investigative reporter Jordan Schachtel shows that while the military Covid-19 vaccine mandate has ended, the Pentagon has no plans to reinstate thousands of service members who were discharged for refusing to take the vaccine.

The Defense Department document entitled “PUBLIC AFFAIRS GUIDANCE: RESCINDING THE COVID-19 VACCINATION MANDATE” acknowledges that troops discharged over the vaccine want to know if they will be reinstated.

However, the Pentagon fails to confirm or deny whether such reinstatements will occur, stating, “All Service members and Veterans may apply at any time to the appropriate Discharge Review Board or Board for Correction for Military/Naval Records if they believe that there is an error or injustice in their records.”

Webmaster addition: Okay, so at a time when the military recruitment is at record lows, the military won't let unvaccinated service members return? This doesn't make much sense, unless the US is planning to use biological weapons in WW3, in which case unvaccinated troops will be a liability.