Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro is attempting to bolster the socialist country’s collapsing currency and floundering economy by turning to cryptocurrency. Maduro’s effort to unilaterally introduce the “sovereign bolivar” and its cryptocurrency backer the “petro” is largely viewed as an unlawful scheme intended to help the Maduro government circumvent international sanctions and raise desperately needed foreign dollars without fixing the underlying issues behind Venezuela’s economic collapse. Cryptocurrencies, such as the highly popular Bitcoin, have attracted a great deal of cash, but speculative investment has transformed them into investment bubbles that are quickly collapsing. Unfortunately, cryptocurrencies have not lived up to their hype, but the blockchain technology behind cryptocurrencies has far more important applications, especially for socialist countries.
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Google’s plans to relaunch its ironic search engine in China as a fully censored app have sparked outrage among the tech giant’s users and employees. In 2010, Google began rerouting Chinese users to the Hong Kong based google.com.hk from google.cn, which censored content served to Chinese users while alerting them to that fact, after more than 20 Western companies were targeted by hackers believed to have connections to the Chinese government. Although Google as a brand retreated from the Chinese market, it continued to operate in China via Hong Kong as well as through its ownership of sites like 265.com and partnership with companies like Beijing Guxiang Information and Technology Co. Under the covert Dragonfly project, a small team of Google employees has been secretly working on a product meant to reintroduce Google into the Chinese market. For many, the lack of transparency on behalf of Google leadership raises numerous ethical concerns.
Another Catholic Church Child Sex Abuse Scandal Showcases The Hazards of Politicizing Religion8/15/2018 The Catholic Church is, once again, making headlines for child sex abuse and its efforts to cover up the sins of pedophile priests. According to a grand jury report, more than 1,000 children are believed to have been molested by over 300 clergy within six dioceses of Pennsylvania. The Catholic has, of course, had a long history of child sex abuse scandals. Although the findings of the report are extremely graphic and very disturbing, the unfortunate truth is that they likely represent only a fraction of cases to be found around the world. Although one pedophile ring within the Church was so well-organized and coordinated its members were able to mark victims they had groomed with little golden crosses, the Church’s historic response was to frame the premeditated rape and sexual assault of children as a test of faith for those pedophiles allegedly struggling with their urges. The victims, in turn, were cast aside, essentially blamed for tempting wayward priests.
The human race had the best opportunity between 1979 to 1989 to avoid the era of catastrophe global warming and climate change will bring about, yet global leadership failed to act. In "Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change,” Nathaniel Rich details the stories of those key people who tried to push governments around the world into action and the failure of leadership to lead. As Rich highlighted, people across the political spectrum and within pollution-intense industries were willing to confront and understand the threat of greenhouse gases. Although there are plenty of individuals to blame for inaction, and people can debate whether or not geopolitical plans to freeze and reduce carbon emissions could have been implemented, the failure to act in a way and on a scale proportionate to the threat reveals a great deal about human nature and the ability of modern people to solve modern problems.
The Chinese government finds itself in a peculiar and precarious position. The Communist Party of China maintains full control over the People’s Republic of China with General Secretary Xi Jinping steadily consolidating and solidifying more power, yet China is also a highly influential member and beneficiary of a global capitalist economy and liberal world order. With the US under the control of President Donald Trump, it faces an intensifying trade war with its greatest economic partner and rival. Due to its attempts to buildup its military prowess and assert control over its self-proclaimed territory, Beijing risks inflaming the South China Sea Crisis as well as various conflicts with its regional rivals. To boot, it seems fears of mass civil unrest and rebellion may well soon become a reality as the Chinese Peoples appear to be increasingly critical of their leadership for itself failures to manage economic and international issues.
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