Author: Steven Sahiounie

The Dutch government says before the summer it will put restrictions on the country’s “most advanced” chip exports to protect its national security, following a similar move by the US. It will include technology produced by computer chip equipment maker ASML. ASML is one of the most important firms in the global microchip supply chain. Semiconductors, which power everything from mobile phones to military hardware, are at the centre of a bitter dispute between the US and China. “This is a real step forward, a real victory for the US and also very bad news for China. US-China relations are…

Ukrainian agencies and mayors report explosions across multiple Ukrainian cities at 3:00 am. Russia launched a large-scale raid on Thursday morning, targeting the Black Sea port of Odessa, Kharkov, Kiev, and the Dnipro region, causing power cuts in several areas Maksym Marchenko, governor of the Odessa region, wrote on Telegram that a mass missile attack targeted a power plant in the city, which resulted in power cuts, however, no casualties have been reported yet. “As a result of a mass missile strike, an energy infrastructure site was hit in the region as well as residences,” Marchenko said on Telegram, as reported by The Guardian,…

US President Joe Biden plans to hold bilateral talks with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on March 13, 2023. AUKUS heads of State are scheduled to meet next week to discuss the Australian bid to purchase nuclear-powered submarines. Australia is set to choose whether to purchase British-made Astute-class nuclear-powered submarines or American-designed Virginia-class submarines. According to the White House, all three leaders are scheduled to meet in San Diego, California, on Monday to discuss the deal and regional security matters. US President Joe Biden will hold bilateral talks with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Australian…

The US is facing an economic downturn that could start in the third quarter of 2023 and continue into the first quarter of 2024, Bank of America’s (BoA) chief executive, Brian Moynihan, has warned. Speaking at the Financial Review’s Business Summit on Tuesday, he said that the downturn would not be deep, and projected interest rates to start falling in the second quarter of next year. “It’s a very slight recession in the scheme of things. I don’t think you’ll see a deep recession,” Moynihan was quoted as saying by Reuters. “It will be more of a technical recession than it will…

The US House of Representatives votes down troops’ pull-out from Syria at a time when Senate repeals the vote to end Iraq war authorization. The US House of Representatives voted down legislation on Wednesday, instructing US President Joe Biden to end the US occupation of the Syrian Al-Tanaf region and remove approximately 900 troops. The resolution, initially introduced by the Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz, was supported by only 103 members of Congress, as the majority of members of Congress, amounting to 321, have voted against the pull-out. Gaetz argued that he did not believe that “what stands between a caliphate and not a caliphate…

On March 6, Hezbollah announced that it had uncovered an Israeli spying device near the separation line in south Lebanon. In a brief statement, Hezbollah said that the device, which was disguised as a rock, was planted by Israeli soldiers near the al-Abad site in the outskirts of the town of Houla. The group didn’t provide any further information on the device. Several similar spying devices were uncovered in south Lebanon, the heartland of Hezbollah, in the past. Some of the devices included motion sensors, while others had electro-optical\infrared imagers or even signal\electronic intelligence systems. Such spying devices are usually…

“It has nothing to do with shelling attacks, nothing happened in the area that could have led to the power cutoff. It is just an act of pure spite on the part of Kiev,” Vladimir Rogov noted Ukraine has cut off power to the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant in the city of Energodar, Chairman of the We Stand With Russia movement Vladimir Rogov told TASS on Thursday. “[Ukraine] cut off the supply through the last remaining powerline to the Zaporozhye NPP at 4:53 a.m. The nuclear power plant is currently disconnected from external power sources,” he said. “It has nothing…

Bitcoin whales have been swimming in different directions. Smaller whales, or those holding a balance of 1,000 or more bitcoin (BTC), have been in a steady, prolonged decline, falling 13% to 2,003 since a short-term peak of 2,292 in March 2022. But the number of larger whales, or those holding over 10,000 BTC, have exhibited the exact opposite behavior, increasing 34% over the same period. The diverging behavior reflects the groups’ differing sentiment about bitcoin’s prospects in the months ahead, and their investment strategies. Given past behavior it appears that smaller whales may be taking a more tactical approach to…

U.S. authorities transferred $1 billion worth of bitcoin (BTC) recovered from a dark web hack to new wallet addresses, including one owned by Coinbase, on Wednesday, stoking investor fears that intense sell pressures could drive down the token’s price. Authorities moved the bitcoin in three transactions, according to data from blockchain security firm PeckShield. Nearly 10,000 bitcoin were sent to Coinbase-controlled wallets, while roughly $41,000 tokens were directed to government-controlled wallets. PeckShield published its findings on Twitter early Wednesday morning, and investors were quick to notice. In the hours after the report’s release, investors expressed their fears that authorities would sell the…

Bitcoin traders are taking a breather and considering their next steps as the market digests the collapse of Silvergate Bank, which culminated in its “voluntary liquidation” Wednesday U.S. time. CryptoQuant data shows that transfer volume, denominated in BTC, is down 35% over the last 24 hours. At the same time, the total number of transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain has dropped by 17% during this same time period, and the number of active addresses has fallen by 10%. For the month of March, bitcoin trading volume has come in at an average of around $25 billion, according to data from CoinGecko,…