Tag: finance

After many years of a massive refugee influx into Europe from Middle East wars, especially going to back to the height of the 2015 migrant crisis, several European countries have ordered a halt to processing asylum applications from Syrians. This comes after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria.

The UK, German, and Austria have confirmed they are freezing their applications. Germany alone has taken in some one million Syrians. Other countries halting their process includes Italy, Norway, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Finland.

Austria has gone the furthest, with country’s interior minister, Gerhard Karner, saying, “I have instructed the ministry to prepare a program of orderly repatriation and deportation to Syria.”

London’s Home Office also confirmed it has “temporarily paused decisions on Syrian asylum claims whilst we assess the current situation.”

“We keep all country guidance relating to asylum claims under constant review so we can respond to emerging issues,” a spokesperson said.

German officials have also begun signaling that Syrians should make arrangements to return home. Germany’s interior minister, Nancy Faeser, said on Monday that “Many refugees who have found protection in Germany now finally have hope of returning to their Syrian homeland and rebuilding their country.”

However, many Syrians would have greater fear of the new jihadist groups which took over Damascus, and might seek asylum given an al-Qaeda offshoot (HTS) now controls the country. This is especially true of Syrian Christians, Alawites, and Druze.

There’s no assurance that the situation will get any better in Syria under HTS rule, after the basically overnight collapse of an entire state system and its services. One NGO is speaking sense in terms of the realities on the ground:

“Chaos and violence continue to reign in Syria. Armed groups control large parts of the country and there is neither a stable government nor functioning state structures,” its spokesperson Tareq Alaows said in an email. “Much of the infrastructure has been destroyed and millions of people inside Syria are still displaced. Many cities are considered unsafe and there is no sign of a normalization of living conditions.”

Still, the presence of such large numbers of Syrian and other Middle East refugees has long unleashed a political firestorm in European politics. This is whey European officials are relieved that these massive changes in Syria provide an opportunity to send people back to their homeland.

Authored by Ian Proud,

Europe is falling apart at the seams and sowing the seeds of its own implosion…

In Georgia, the Americans and Europeans are actively sponsoring an attempt to unseat the democratically elected Georgia Dream government, in circumstances that are genuinely baffling. Having frozen indefinitely the EU accession process for Georgia in July of this year, Europeans are up in arms at the Georgian government’s decision to confirm a freezing of talks until 2028 (which is much sooner than indefinite). Georgia’s ruling President, in fact a French Diplomat, seems determined to stay in office to see through the regime change, despite her constitutionally allotted term coming to an end. She is roundly applauded in EU capitals and in Washington as a modern-day Joan of Arc.

From the very start of the war, it has always been clear that, absent direct NATO involvement in the fight, Ukraine could never win. Setting aside the immense human cost in lives lost, injuries suffered, and cities destroyed since the war started in 2022, Ukraine’s economy has suffered immense damage as the U.S. and Europeans leaders nonetheless encouraged Zelensky to fight to the last Ukrainian. Past his constitutionally allotted time as President, Zelensky clings to power, lauded a hero by his many admiring, so-called democratic fans in the west.

In France, the government of Prime Minister Michel Barnier is falling apart because he is trying to steer a deeply unpopular budget, that would require a painful mix of tax increases and spending cuts, through parliament without a vote. In one of the great ironies, his imminent failure is rooted in the anti-democratic tendencies of his previous employer, the European Commission. But it also talks to the rising popularity of the far-right National Front on Marine Le Pen, and a pan-European rise in populist parties fed-up with the failure of the moralising, yet mendacious, mainstream.

In Germany, the Rainbow Coalition of Olaf Scholz has turned a dirty brown, as irreconcilable tensions about spending and huge financial and military support for Ukraine have erupted. The tough fiscal backdrop that Germany faces is linked to its underperforming economy, which is less competitive than the U.S. and the Eurozone average. A huge increase in energy prices in Germany hasn’t helped; it’s an article of economic insanity to buy American Liquefied Natural Gas at a 30-40% markup on piped Russian gas. Car giant Volkswagen has announced plans to close at least three factories in Germany and lay off ten thousand staff. It’s all Russia’s fault, apparently, although the considered view is that a combination of U.S. and Ukrainian actors blew up the NordStream gas pipeline.

Inevitably, Russia is the common denominator in all of these situations.

Eastern European countries shifting to nationalist mavericks, that must be Russia’s fault too. Even President Yoon Suk Yeol’s bizarre failed attempt to impose martial law on an open, democratic and modern South Korea was blamed tangentially on Russia, given its strategic cosying up to North Korea. President Putin’s influence is everywhere!

A relentless avalanche of state propaganda casts President Putin, as the baddest baddies of all time. The British Foreign Office set up its own propaganda unit in 2014 specifically to fill the airwaves with stories about how Putin was wrong, and we were right. Every propaganda campaign needs a clearly defined enemy, after all. Hard-pressed European citizens must therefore accept economic hardship, democratic backsliding (a western liberal term) and an increased risk of nuclear immolation at the alter of defeating Vlad the Terrible.

And yet, Europe feels less safe now than it has since the Cold War, not because of what is happening in Russia, but because of what is happening in Europe itself. Anyone who thinks Germany in industrial decline, facing a growth in far-right sentiment, and with a lack of clear political leadership is basically fine, should cast their minds back to the Thirties. The fundamental, intellectual flaw in Macron’s internationalism, is that he only wants to engage with foreigners who act like coiffured Brussels bureaucrats. European leaders have lost the ability to look at the strategic landscape in a clear and dispassionate way that put’s Europe’s interests first.

Ever since 2014, European elites have tethered themselves inescapably to a U.S. democratic party obsession with defeating Russia because they don’t like dealing with Putin. That has led to an almost complete, and self-destructive severing of economic ties between Europe and Russia. That split in economic relations has undoubtedly contributed to the rise in nationalism and political tension across Europe as citizens struggle to pay their bills and ask why they are being sucked into an unnecessary war. As I have said many times before, peace in mainland Europe after World War II emerged in large part as previously warring counties sought to deepen economic ties, to create reasons to live in harmony. We are progressively, and dangerously, throwing away that legacy of hard-earned peace.

The greatest irony, although, perhaps, not the biggest surprise, is that European discord and war has only benefitted the U.S. economy. I remember well the efforts by the U.S. as far back as 2014, to prevent Russia from building new gas pipelines into Europe as the American fracking revolution was taking off. U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has recently made it clear that America wants to benefit through access to trillions of dollars of rare and precious minerals in Ukraine, as a deluded justification to pump billions of dollars of weapons into a losing war. Graham also vowed to ‘crush’ European economies that sought to enforce the International Criminal Court arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The only reason I think Trump may be a marginally better U.S. president than the disastrous Biden, is that he might finally make Zelensky agree a peace deal. However, it is also clear that Trump has no deeper sympathy towards Europe beyond stopping the needless injection of U.S. billions into Ukraine. He has, after all, promised across the board tariffs of 10-20% on goods from Europe and to ‘crush’ (a popular term of U.S. statecraft these days) any country that supports development of a BRICS currency.

Europe is falling apart at the seams and sowing the seeds of its own implosion.

Too many Europeans have bought into the lie that if we cut off all relations with Russia it would make us safe. In fact, it drags us ever closer to World War III. And for that, I blame the U.S. far more than I blame Russia.

Humans have always sought to create and implement tools that reduce meticulous tasks and enhance productivity–and AI is the newest tool people are adding to their toolbox.

In the past couple of years, AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini have cemented themselves as staples in our modern work processes. Using large language models to do tasks like brainstorm ideas, summarize reports, or conduct research, have become increasingly common time-saving measures for knowledge workers.

In this chart, Visual Capitalist’s Kayla Zhu visualizes the share of knowledge workers who use their own AI tools at work, broken down by generation. The figures come from Microsoft’s 2024 Work Trend Index Report, which surveyed 31,000 knowledge workers across 31 countries.

AI at Work Cuts Across Generations

While companies are still figuring out how to best incorporate AI into their formal systems, a majority of knowledge workers across generations are already using their own AI tools at work.

Across all four generations, the proportion of workers using personal AI tools at work ranges from 73% to 85%.

Unsurprisingly, the generation with the greatest share of workers bringing their own AI tools to work is Gen Z at 85%.

Gen Z, having navigated school and their early career stages during the rise of generative AI, has found it increasingly necessary to acquire AI skills to meet the growing demands of employers.

However, using AI at work isn’t as straightforward as it seems.

According to Microsoft’s report, 52% of people who use AI at work are hesitant to admit using it for more important tasks, and 53% worry that using it on important work tasks makes them look replaceable.

Pew Research Center found that in 2022, 19% of American workers were employed in jobs that are the most exposed to AI, in which the most important tasks may be replaced or assisted by AI.

Information technology and finance workers specifically have the highest share of tasks expected to be impacted by AI.

To learn more about which artificial intelligence tools workers use the most, check out this graphic that shows the most popular AI tools by web visits.

Authored by Sam Bidwell via The Critic,

As Keir Starmer lambasts the “open borders experiment” of the past few years, are Britain’s politicians finally waking up to the scale of our immigration crisis?

With the latest figures from the ONS showing that net migration to Britain stood at more than 700,000 in 2024, with total incoming migration standing at more than 1.2 million, it’s long past time that substantive action was taken. If, as the Prime Minister said last week, our experiment with mass migration has been a mistake, then politicians have a duty to atone for their wrongdoing. Naturally, that means revising our visa rules in the first place, making it more difficult for new immigrants to come to this country — but even if we change those rules, we are still left with an almighty conundrum.

Under the current immigration rules, most migrants on work and family visas will be eligible for Indefinite Leave To Remain (ILR) status after just five years. ILR status holders have a right to live and work indefinitely in the UK — and gain access to additional support from the state, in the form of services like universal credit. ILR status is also tricky to remove, without amending the Nationality, Immigration, and Asylum Act 2002.

Combine this legal mechanism with a migration wave of several million people, and the result is a slow-motion fiscal car crash. Fail to act now, and in less than five years, millions of low-wage, low-skilled workers will be eligible for a lifetime of support from the British state. After just a few short years in the workforce, the British taxpayer could be left on the hook for a migrant’s benefits, social housing costs, healthcare, state pension — and the cost of any dependents that they choose to bring to the UK. This would, effectively, lock in this migration wave — deepening the fiscal impact of migration, and making it more legally challenging to remove those who came here over the past few years.

At a time when the UK already has limited fiscal headroom thanks to years of sluggish growth, is it fair to add billions of pounds in additional costs to the burden carried by the British taxpayer?

As research from the excellent Karl Williams at the Centre for Policy Studies shows, just 5 percent of work visas handed out in 2022-23 were given to migrants likely to be net contributors — with 72 percent of “skilled work visa” holders earning less than the UK average salary.

The OBR’s analysis admits that the average low-wage migrant worker costs the taxpayer £465,000 by the time they reach the age of 81.

Now, imagine millions of these low-wage migrant workers, all gaining eligibility for a lifetime of support from the state — clearly, our current ILR rules are not fit for purpose. 

Fortunately, revision of those rules is actually relatively easy.

As I argue in my recent research for the Adam Smith Institute, the Home Secretary has the power to change the conditions for ILR by issuing a Statement Of Changes In Immigration Rules, using their powers under the Immigration Act 1971 to change rules around entry and settlement. Unless Parliament passes a resolution within forty days condemning the changes, then those new rules pass into law — it really is as simple as that.

The Home Secretary could change the standard eligibility criteria for ILR from five years to fifteen, while leaving the five-year rule in place for migrants from the United States, the European Union, the Anglosphere, and the Asian Tiger economies. This distinction would help to ensure that Britain remains a competitive destination for high-value, high-skilled migrants, while addressing the bulk of migrants, from countries like India, Nigeria, and Pakistan. As my oven-ready legislative framework makes clear, Parliament might also choose to signal its support for the Home Secretary by passing a bespoke ouster clause, shielding these changes from pernicious judicial review. In our increasingly litigious culture, one can never be too careful.

This wouldn’t be the first revision of ILR rules, either — in 2006, then-Home Secretary Charles Clarke changed the eligibility time from four years to five. Nor would it leave Britain as a European outlier; in recent years, the Netherlands has extended its own settlement eligibility period from five years to ten, and Sweden has created new rules to allow the Government to revoke settled status from migrants.

For those of us concerned about the long-term social and fiscal impact of migration, a revision of the ILR rules is the best short-term use of our energy; the savings to the taxpayer speak for themselves. It would also give the Government time and space to think about whether or not it wants to reissue visas to those who arrived over the last few years. After all, a five year visa grant does not entitle an individual to a lifetime of residence in the UK — access to this country is time-limited by design. If the Government feels that mass migration has been a mistake, then it would be well-within its rights to refuse to reissue visas to low-skilled workers who arrived since 2021. This becomes much easier if our ILR rules are revised, preventing long-term settlement in the first instance.

The question is not one of possibility — as my research lays out, this change is both practically possible and politically defensible. It would probably also be enormously popular with the public — at a time when trust in politicians is already low, this would represent the most substantive policy intervention on migration for decades.

The question is one of political will, and sincerity of conviction. If Keir Starmer and his colleagues are serious about addressing uncontrolled mass migration, then they have a duty to lay these changes before Parliament. If this experiment really has been a mistake, then why should the British people live with the impacts for decades to come? If they fail to do so, then we can only assume that their platitudes about addressing this issue were just that — platitudes, empty words designed to comfort a frustrated electorate.

As a country, we deserve better than that — we deserve real action. It’s time to address Britain’s impending ILR crisis.

Today, approximately half of the world’s service exports are made on digital platforms.

While the top exporting countries of digital services are largely concentrated in developed countries, export markets in India and China are rising significantly. In 2023, India’s digital service exports topped $257 billion, rising by 17% annually. Meanwhile, the value of China’s digital service exports grew by almost twofold between 2019 and 2023 to reach $207 billion.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, shows the top 20 largest exporters of digital services in the world, based on data from the World Trade Organization.

Ranked: The Top Exporting Countries of Digital Services

To start, digital services are defined as those that are traded through electronic networks, such as apps or digital platforms.

They can encompass a broad range of activities including IT support, media streaming, R&D, and financial services. Given that a higher volume of business and consumer transactions are made online, digital services are making up a growing share of the global economy.

Here are the top exporting countries of digitally-delivered services in 2023:

With $649 billion in exports, the U.S. is the leading country for digitally-delivered services, at 15.3% of the world total in 2023.

Roughly two-thirds of service exports from America are conducted digitally. Financial services stands as the leading sector, while cloud services is among the fastest-growing overall. Moreover, advancements in AI are projected to boost digital exports looking ahead amid strong demand, cost savings, and increased innovation potential.

Ranking in second is the UK, where more than 80% of services exports are delivered through digital channels.

Following next in line is Ireland, one of the top exporting countries of computer services. Thanks to the country’s favorable tax policies, many big tech firms such as Google, Facebook, and Apple have their European headquarters in the country.

To learn more about this topic from a sector-based perspective, check out this graphic that breaks down different types of global digital service exports.

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

The Swedish government has tasked multiple authorities with mapping instances of refugees traveling to their home countries, a practice Migration Minister Johan Forssell described as undermining the integrity of the asylum system.

The initiative, led by the Swedish Migration Agency in collaboration with the police and Swedish embassies, seeks to strengthen the enforcement of residency and protection status regulations amid concerns that many of those claiming asylum in the Scandinavian country are returning to their country of origin for holidays.

“If you have asylum because you fled a country, it is strange if you travel back to that country. It could mean there are no longer grounds for protection or that false information was given,” said Forssell.

While the Migration Agency already has the authority to revoke permits in such cases, the new assignment aims to improve information-sharing and establish clearer procedures.

The results of this effort are expected to be reported to the government by next summer.

The debate intensified after a 2022 survey by Novus, commissioned by the Bulletin online newspaper, revealed that 79 percent of refugees in Sweden had vacationed in their countries of origin.

Former Migration Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard previously raised concerns over cases where individuals traveled back shortly after receiving asylum.

In Sweden, there are no restrictions for refugees who have been granted a permanent residence permit to travel back to their home country.

However, refugee status can be revoked if it turns out that the person no longer needs international protection.

Forssell acknowledged the possibility of revising the rules, such as the four-year period that makes the revocation of a residence permit more challenging.

While noting there were no immediate plans for legislative changes, he refused to “rule it out” in the future.

“This is about protecting the legitimacy of the asylum system and ensuring fairness,” Forssell emphasized.

Read more here…

Authored by David Keltz via American Greatness,

“My fellow Americans, our long, national nightmare is over,” the soon-to-be President, Gerald R. Ford, declared on August 9, 1974, upon taking the Oath of Office – following President Nixon’s resignation in the aftermath of Watergate.

Those nine words could not be more appropriate to describe what President Donald J. Trump’s victory means for the United States and the world.

On January 20, 2025, our long national nightmare will indeed be over.

We will no longer have a president in serious cognitive decline—bordering on senility—who was never in charge of running the country and allowed his puppet masters to turn the greatest nation in the world into a Bernie Sandersesque socialist hellscape with our borders thrown wide open, our energy supply vastly diminished, our tax dollars spent on Ukraine and Green New Deal boondoggles, our once mighty military wokeified and weakened with recruitments dropping like flies (thanks Lloyd Austin)—our once mighty arsenal of aircraft and ships depleted—and our Justice Department corrupted and weaponized against the left’s political opponents.

On January 20, 2025, we will no longer have a president who enters his REM cycle soon after sundown while our enemies in Iran, China, Russia, and North Korea plot their next destructive moves—knowing full well that the Ivy League morons in charge of our national security (Blinken & Sullivan) won’t do a damn thing in the way of deterrence.

The stumbling, feet-shuffling, how-do-I-exit-the-stage, gibberish-speaking Manchurian president, who is somehow worth millions, despite working in government for half a century, will be replaced by a man who built luxury skyscrapers and golf courses all over the world and already presided over one of the most successful terms any president has ever had.

On January 20, 2025, we will no longer have a vice president who is as dumb as a doorknob and as incompetent as the New York Giants offense—but would otherwise make a fine president of the giggle club.

Replacing Mrs. Cackles in the second highest office in the land will be another successful businessman and well-respected senator who actually did grow up in poverty and showed us all his intellect, his charm, his cool demeanor, and sound judgment—during his masterful debate performance against one of the creepiest and phoniest individuals ever to seek the vice presidency.

On January 20, 2025, our adversaries will once again fear us and will be put on notice, should they fail to comply with the world’s greatest superpower—as Trump brilliantly laid out on Truth Social this week:

“Everybody is talking about the hostages who are being held so violently, inhumanely, and against the will of the entire world, in the Middle East—but it’s all talk and no action! Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against humanity. Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied history of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!”

In other words, “F*** with us and find out.”

That is the kind of leadership that has desperately been lacking on the world stage for the past four years.

January 20, 2025, will also begin the start of a great U.S. economic boom and a cultural revival that has already begun.

Since Trump’s victory, the stock market has been soaring, with the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average recently closing at record highs and the value of Bitcoin surpassing $100,000.

Small businesses and large corporations will no longer be kneecapped by ridiculous regulations and excessive taxes and will not be penalized if, God forbid, they fail to show how woke they are.

In fact, the Wall Street Journal recently reported that Walmart, Starbucks, Boeing, and other corporations are already dismantling their DEI programs and will stop promoting anything having to do with “racial equity” or “LGBTQ.”

As the great economist Milton Friedman once said, “There is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game.”

And thankfully, the era of woke sports also appears to be dead. Instead of athletes kneeling for the National Anthem, now NFL and college football players do the famous Trump YMCA dance after scoring a touchdown—or after defeating an opponent in the UFC ring.

These are all positive developments.

But some things will unfortunately remain the same.

Hollywood will continue to make anti-white, anti-male, and anti-Christian films that routinely mock middle America. They are free to do so, but their box-office numbers will likely suffer.

And the leftist media will continue its crusade against conservatives and spew its regular anti-Trump derangement pieces—full of falsehoods and unverified sources that bear little or no resemblance to reality.

But the good news is, very few people take The New York Times or The Washington Post seriously anymore—with Gallup reporting that just 31 percent of Americans have confidence in the media to fairly and accurately report the news—a new all-time low.

Thanks to Elon Musk, free speech is no longer an antiquated relic controlled by left-wing tyrants—X is where the masses go to get their news now.

And thanks to President Trump, there is a renewed sense of pride and love for the country.

The stars and stripes are back in vogue.

On January 20, 2025, our long national nightmare will finally be over—unburdened by what has been.

While many believe that pain merely disrupts sleep, research at the UQ School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences is challenging this notion by revealing that poor sleep may play a critical role in the onset and worsening of chronic pain.​

“It’s the biggest unresolved health issue of our time,” David Klyne, a scientist at The University of Queensland in Australia (UQ), said in a press release.

Klyne’s work shows that up to 90 percent of people with chronic pain also struggle with sleep problems, underscoring how vital sleep is to managing and potentially preventing ongoing discomfort.

Chronic pain is a debilitating condition for millions around the globe.

However, new insights suggest that the relationship between pain and sleep may be more complex than previously thought. ​

As George Citroner writes at The Epoch Times, Klyne wants to change how health care professionals treat patients with ongoing pain.

He has found that inadequate sleep can lead to chronic pain rather than being solely a consequence of it.

According to the study, up to 90 percent of people with chronic pain also battle sleep problems, underscoring the crucial role that sleep plays in the experience of pain.

Expert Opinions on Sleep-Pain Connection

Between 67 and 88 percent of people with chronic pain experience sleep disruption and insomnia, and approximately 50 percent of people with insomnia report chronic pain, Dr. William Caldwell, medical director of the Center for Pain Management at Stony Brook Medicine, told The Epoch Times.

Caldwell advocates for a greater emphasis on treating both pain and sleep issues, as substantial evidence links chronic pain with poor sleep quality.

“In my practice, I specifically ask if a patient’s pain leads to altered sleep behaviors,” Caldwell said.

“If sleep is altered, a specific focus is made to improve nocturnal pain symptoms that will hopefully lead to more healthy sleep patterns,” he added.

Klyne’s previous research has indicated a strong correlation between sleep and recovery from pain. For example, people recovering from injuries may heal more rapidly with better sleep.

Lack of sleep may put extra strain on the nervous and immune systems, making pain worse and potentially leading to chronic conditions.

Need for Urgent Attention

Worldwide, chronic pain causes more disability than cancer and heart disease combined. Sleep has been overlooked as a treatment for pain, according to Klyne, who said he hopes his research will change.

His team is recruiting participants for clinical trials, targeting people 18 and older who have experienced back pain for at least two days within two weeks.

Klyne and his team plan to explore how sleep affects pain by having participants wear devices that track sleep patterns and collecting blood and saliva samples to study hormonal and immune responses. “Previous research has focused on understanding the development of new acute or chronic back pain, but this study will look at the far more common experience of fluctuating symptoms in people who live with the condition,” Klein said in a statement.

The research will examine how the nervous and immune systems respond to both restorative and disrupted sleep. Participants will be awakened at varying times during the night, allowing researchers to gather comprehensive data on how different sleep stages impact recovery and pain levels.

“This will allow us to examine the most detailed and important information ever collected for this population outside of a laboratory and minimize disruption to participant’s day-to-day activities,” he added.

This research also ties into Klyne’s broader work exploring how lifestyle factors influence pain, which could prove essential in developing effective treatments.

Implications for Chronic Pain Treatment

If Klyne’s findings are confirmed, they could lead to changes in how chronic pain is treated, emphasizing sleep therapy alongside traditional pain management methods.

Recognizing sleep as a critical aspect of treatment might also help prevent the transition from acute pain to potentially debilitating chronic pain.

Patients who struggle with chronic pain and believe their sleep may be affecting their condition should discuss their concerns with their physician, Caldwell said.

“If chronic pain is altering sleep, it needs to be addressed directly,” he added.

“We know that chronic pain and poor sleep are linked, but there are also clear correlations between altered sleep and general overall health.”

A treatment plan focusing on modalities to address chronic pain and sleep “needs to be developed between the patient and physician,” Caldwell noted.

Via The Cradle

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the former Al-Qaeda affiliate that has just assumed control over Syria, has appointed Mohammad Bashir as the head of a new Syrian transitional authority. Bashir was the prime minister of the HTS-led Salvation Government, which was formed in 2017 and ruled Syria’s northern province of Idlib – where HTS was based before the massive Turkish-backed assault against Syria that began late last month. 

According to reports on Monday, Bashir has been chosen as the new prime minister of Syria, and is coordinating with outgoing Syrian premier Mohammad al-Jalali, who announced on Sunday that he is ready for a “smooth transition” and will cooperate with “any leadership chosen by the Syrian people.”

HTS – formerly known as Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, the Nusra Front – has been implicated in numerous atrocities, including kidnapping, public executions, indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas, and other war crimes. 

In 2016, the Nusra Front was rebranded and expanded into Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, a coalition of armed factions with support from Qatar. The following year, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham became HTS in another Qatari-sponsored rebranding initiative aimed at legitimizing the group. 

HTS has been a proscribed terrorist organization by the UN, US, UK, and EU. Despite a large US bounty on the head of HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Julani, the extremist leader sat with CNN for an interview last week. 

Officials in Washington are considering removing HTS from the US terror list, The Washington Post reported on 9 December. “US officials are in contact with all the groups involved in fighting in Syria, including the main group that ousted Assad, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which was once affiliated with Al-Qaeda and remains on a US terrorist list,” the newspaper wrote. 

No female reporter was required to wear a headscarf when interviewing Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s former secular leader. This is NOT progress: pic.twitter.com/x7Add6q3Rx

— Robin Monotti (@robinmonotti) December 9, 2024

A US official told the outlet that the US government has not ruled out removing the terror designation from HTS to enable deeper US contact and cooperation with the group.

“We have to be smart … and also very mindful and pragmatic about the realities on the ground,” the official said.

Another US official said the White House is in the process of conducting a “real-time assessment” about HTS, which took control of Damascus on Saturday after a lightning two-week offensive launched from its stronghold in Syria’s northwest Idlib governorate. 

Meanwhile Syrian embassies around the world are hoisting a new flag:

BREAKING — New Syrian flag has been raised to Syrian Embassy in Moscow.

Diplomats chanted “free Syria” and “Syria belongs to all Syrians” pic.twitter.com/dCQTyQTEgF

— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) December 9, 2024

The UK government is also considering removing HTS from the list of banned terrorist groups.

By Jesse Colombo of The Bubble Bubble Report

CME Group Inc., the parent company of COMEX, the leading U.S. exchange for gold and silver futures, will introduce a one-ounce gold futures contract in January. This move comes in response to soaring demand from retail investors, spurred by gold’s record-breaking rally this year from $2,000 to $2,630—a respectable 32% gain. Smaller-sized gold products have grown increasingly popular among retail investors seeking exposure to precious metals and greater diversification in their portfolios.

Jin Hennig, CME’s Global Head of Metals, described the one-ounce gold contract as “a great way to lower the barrier to entry in our market.” She also noted, “Our clientele is also getting younger. That’s a lot more doable.”

The one-ounce gold futures contract is set to launch on January 13, 2025, pending regulatory approval. This new offering complements CME’s existing retail-focused products, including 10-ounce micro gold and 1,000-ounce micro silver futures, which represent smaller fractions of the standard benchmark contracts. According to CME, these micro contracts have been among the fastest-growing products in their metals derivatives lineup, achieving record trading volumes this year.

CME anticipates strong demand for the new contract from retail investors in Asia, where gold is deeply ingrained in the culture as both a store of value and a hedge against economic uncertainties. Hennig emphasized that the contract provides “a meaningful way” for individual traders in the region to “manage their own wealth creations.”

While the introduction of this new futures product is intriguing and reflects growing interest in precious metals and financial innovation—something I wholeheartedly support as a proponent of free markets—I do have some concerns. Chief among them is the fact that this is a cash-settled futures contract rather than a physically-settled one. This means that upon expiration of the futures contract, traders cannot take physical delivery of a 1-ounce bullion bar or coin, which is a drawback for those seeking tangible ownership of gold.

This also implies that these contracts are unlikely to be backstopped (even unofficially) by actual physical gold, making them yet another form of “paper” gold in a market already saturated with such instruments that include futures, options, forwards, swaps, CFDs, and exchange-traded funds. Currently, it is estimated that there are an astonishing 133 ounces of paper gold for every ounce of physical gold, as illustrated in the chart below. This imbalance poses several concerns, chief among them the heightened risk of a future run on physical gold. Such a scenario could see the price of scarce physical gold soar while the value of paper gold plummets, creating a significant market shock.

Paper gold—especially when it vastly exceeds the supply of actual physical gold—undermines some of the core advantages of owning physical gold, such as its simplicity, and its freedom from counterparty and default risk. This concept is well illustrated by Exter’s Pyramid, where rare physical gold (not paper gold) occupies the base of the inverted pyramid as the most secure and reliable form of collateral. In contrast, paper gold falls into the far riskier and more abundant derivatives category near the top of the pyramid. This starkly contrasts with physical gold’s role as the ultimate foundation of financial stability at the bottom of the pyramid.

Another significant concern is that the proliferation of paper gold products tends to divert and diminish demand that would otherwise flow into physical bullion. Many analysts argue this is a key factor keeping gold prices lower than they might otherwise be. While the new 1-ounce futures contract makes gold more accessible to investors with moderate means—allowing them to control the equivalent of a $2,700 ounce of gold with only a few hundred dollars in margin—it raises concerns. This easier access may further shift demand away from physical bullion, which represents the true, tangible market for gold.

Bob Coleman, founder of Idaho Armored Vaults, highlighted that a 1-ounce gold futures contract could have been an excellent innovation if it were physically settled. Such a product would have helped reduce spreads and transaction costs in the physical bullion market while enhancing market transparency and liquidity. However, Coleman lamented that CME Group opted to make this contract cash-settled instead, missing an opportunity to provide these benefits:

Vince Lanci, publisher of the GoldFix newsletter, humorously suggested in a post on X that CME Group’s new 1-ounce gold futures contract could drive down premiums on small gold bullion products. While this development would benefit consumers, it would also erode bullion dealers’ profit margins.

The introduction of CME Group’s 1-ounce gold futures contract seeks to address growing retail investor demand and expand access to the gold market, but it also underscores critical challenges tied to the dominance and proliferation of “paper” gold. With its cash-settled structure and lack of physical backing, the new contract raises concerns about transparency, reduced demand for physical bullion, and the broader stability of the gold market. While it lowers barriers for younger and global retail investors, its potential to divert interest from physical gold risks deepening the disconnect between paper and physical markets. As the market evolves, balancing financial innovation with the enduring value of tangible, secure, and stable assets like physical gold is crucial.

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