Author: Sputnik

How far the United States should go in reducing coronavirus lockdown measures is a debate that has caused a political storm in Washington in recent weeks, with many Republicans calling for America to get back to work, while Democrats demand caution.

Two Republican senators have hit back against Democrat Beto O’Rourke’s characterisation of Texas’ gradual reopening of the economy as, “dangerous, dumb and weak.”

Rep. Dan Crenshaw and Sen. Ted Cruz both sniped at O’Rourke, a former congressman from El Paso who launched an unsuccessful 2020 presidential bid, from the Twittersphere following his strongly worded statement.

Dangerous, dumb and weak. https://t.co/dJMTRh6KIV

— Beto O’Rourke (@BetoORourke) May 23, 2020

​Mr Cruz, who was elected to the Senate in 2013, simply asked with sarcasm, “is this the new Dem slogan?”

Is this the new Dem slogan? https://t.co/mxQ0qDOKXZ

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 23, 2020

Rep. Crenshaw however, was much more thorough in his critique, slamming what he called a “condescending reaction” by O’Rourke.

“The guy who wanted to be Texas’s Senator truly believes Texans can’t make decisions for themselves and that they are ‘dumb and weak’ for living their lives and trying to feed their families,” Crenshaw wrote.

“And yes, he’s talking to all Texans, not just our governor. Governor Abbott can’t force anyone to go back to work. Texans are choosing to do that, despite what people like Beto scream from their ivory towers,” Crenshaw added.

And yes, he’s talking to all Texans, not just our governor. Governor Abbott can’t force anyone to go back to work. Texans are choosing to do that, despite what people like Beto scream from their ivory towers.

— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) May 23, 2020

In another Tweet, O’Rourke bit back against Mr. Crenshaw, accusing him of “getting rich selling his own book to the GOP (and being Trump’s most reliable enabler in the House).”

Subsequently, O’Rourke called upon his Twitter followers to make donations to Mr. Crenshaw’s Democrat opponent, Sima Ladjevardian, in the upcoming November 2020 elections.

Yet, Rep. Crenshaw was not willing to stop the Twitter brawl there.

“Millionaires fundraising for millionaires. All while telling middle-class Texans they’re ‘dumb and weak’ for wanting to get back to work,” he responded. Crenshaw, who fought in Afghanistan as a Navy SEAL, then asked his followers to donate to his 2020 campaign.

Millionaires fundraising for millionaires. All while telling middle-class Texans they’re “dumb and weak” for wanting to get back to work. Help me fight back Beto and his far-left fundraising machine. Please donate here: https://t.co/qxgX15stB2 https://t.co/HOfid4hOa1

— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) May 23, 2020

​The locking of horns between Cruz and Crenshaw on one hand, and O’Rourke on the other, comes after Texas Governor Greg Abbott outlined “Phase II” of his plan to bring Texas out of the coronavirus lockdown. Under the new measures, child care centres and youth clubs were reopened from May 18, while bars and leisure venues were due to open their doors on May 22. Following that, major sporting events are set to resume from May 31. Restaurants will also be allowed to function at 50 percent capacity.

The developments comes as President Trump continues to call for America to reopen its economy and get back to business as usual. On Friday, Mr Trump declared that churches and places of worship were deemed “essential” services, and threatened to “override” any actions taken by governors to prevent the restarting of religious services. As of Sunday, May 24, the US death roll sat at over 97,000.

---

Owen Shroyer covers the “Don’t Mess With Texans” reopening rally in Austin, Texas.

Competition has been opened up by the US Air Force for contractors to design a “loyal wingman” drone governed by the “Skyborg” artificial intelligence system.

The program hopes to yield an autonomous aircraft to accompany pilots on missions.

Announcement of the new contract solicitation was posted on the US government’s beta.sam.gov website on May 15, notifying defense contractors of the opportunity to field their proposals for the new autonomous drone.

The winners will “conduct research to develop, demonstrate, integrate and transition air vehicle, payload and autonomy technologies and systems that will provide affordable, revolutionary capabilities to the warfighter through the Skyborg program,” according to the documents.

The notice describes the terrifyingly named Skyborg system as “a transferable suite of autonomous capabilities paired with teamed, autonomous, low-cost platforms to enable expeditionary operations that can generate massed combat power with minimal logistical footprints; delivering a future Air Force which can deter, blunt and defeat peer adversaries.”

“The intent of Skyborg is to integrate an autonomy mission system core and suite of services (developed under a separate Skyborg System Design Agent (SDA) program) with multiple low-cost air vehicle systems, each designed to perform one or more mission types,” the Air Force notes.

In other words, the drone will carry weapons into combat alongside piloted aircraft, and while it’s capable of firing them offensively, its being a drone means it could also be used as a shield for the human pilot by attracting fire to itself or even playing “bodyguard” against an incoming missile or gunfire.

The Air Force was previously testing a loyal wingman drone concept in the XQ-58 Valkyrie, built by Kratos Defense & Security Solutions but bearing a superficial similarity to Lockheed Martin’s F-22 and F-35 stealth aircraft – not in the least because it sported a similar low-visibility technology. However, the Valkyrie was seen as just one potential platform for the Skyborg AI. Air Force Magazine reported last week that Kratos as well as Boeing, General Atomics and Lockheed Martin would each be submitting their own proposals.

The Air Force has said it hopes to field the Skyborg system by the end of 2023.

---

Alex Jones covers what is on the horizon with COVID-19, the lockdown, the vaccine, and how Big Tech wants to run your life.

---

---

US President Donald Trump has shared in his Twitter account the “self-explanatory” letter sent to Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is the head of the World Health Organisation, in which he threatened to make the funding freeze permanent and “reconsider our membership” in the organisation if the agency “does not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days.”

In April, US President Donald Trump ordered that the funding of the World Health Organisation by the United States be halted, following his administration accusations against the agency of being “China-centric” and downplaying the danger of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trump lambasted the WHO for “ignoring the credible reports of the virus spreading in Wuhan” that “conflicted directly” with the Chinese government. He also accused the agency of “making claims” regarding the coronavirus “that were grossly inaccurate or misleading” and giving in to the alleged “pressure” applied by Chinese President Xi Jingping to not immediately proclaim the coronavirus outbreak an emergency.

“The only way forward for the World Health Organisation is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China,” the letter read.

Trump slammed the WHO for praising China “for its alleged transparency”, insisting that “China has been anything but transparent.”

“Even now, China continues to undermine the International Health Regulations by refusing to share accurate and timely data, viral samples and isolates, and by withholding vital information about the virus and its origins,” the letter said.

Trump also referred in his letter to the example of the former Director-General of the WHO Harlem Brundtland, who “did not hesitate to criticise China for endangering global health by attempting to cover up the outbreak” and stressed that “many lives could have been saved” if this example was followed.

This is the letter sent to Dr. Tedros of the World Health Organization. It is self-explanatory! pic.twitter.com/pF2kzPUpDv

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 19, 2020

The WHO has insisted repeatedly that the response to the pandemic was given timely and accurately.

China, in its turn, has vehemently denied all accusations of data concealment and that it downplayed the COVID-19 threat, slamming the allegations as politicised and releasing a document in which it “dispels the myths” spread by the US media and politicians.

It was also one of the first country to have the majority of COVID-19 patients recovered and the imposed restrictions lifted.

The accusations against China were fuelled by some members of Trump administration and the President himself, who, along with other guesses, alleged that the virus may have originated from the Wuhan lab, which was dismissed by the scientists and never proved by the US.

In April, Donald Trump has halted the financing of the World Health Organisation by the United States, citing accusations of the agency being “China-centric.”

Paul Joseph Watson joins The Alex Jones Show to break down the dubious numbers being used to lock down society and cause more deaths than the coronavirus.

---

---

A new accuser has come forward in the Epstein sex trafficking case, with court files claiming the lady, who was reportedly first hired by the convicted paedophile at the age of 17, was groomed by him for “commercial sex” and insidiously forced into a lesbian marriage.

Court papers seen by the Mail on Sunday tells the story of another Jeffrey Epstein accuser, who is referred to by a pseudonym, Katlyn Doe, to protect her identity while an investigation is underway.

The newspaper also obtained some insights from its sources on the matter, which indicated, in tune with official records, that the woman was at Epstein’s New York mansion at the time of the Duke of York’s lengthy visit to his financier friend.

A source, who said she was also inside the property at the time, alleged the woman could have even given the Duke a foot massage while he watched the newly released movie The King’s Speech together with Epstein in a cinema room on the mansion’s upper floor.

According to the cited court files pertaining to a lawsuit now filed at a New York court, Katlyn endured seven years of atrocious sexual abuse by Epstein, who reportedly seized on her vulnerability due to anorexia and other unnamed medical issues and groomed her as a sex slave.

On top of that, he is said to have promised her money for marrying a woman from his criminal sex trafficking network so that the foreign recruiter could get American citizenship. This allegedly happened around 2013, when same-sex marriages were allowed for the first time in some states.

By the time Epstein, who stopped sleeping with 25-year-old Katlyn in 2014 because she “was too old”, showed her the door, the woman had been paid only half of the promised sum of $20,000, which she reportedly needed for an operation.

Katlyn knew that if she did not agree to the lesbian marriage and continue “to commit commercial sex acts, Jeffrey Epstein would cause her serious psychological, financial, reputational, and medical harm”, the legal papers claim.

Her ordeal is claimed to have been one of at least three fake marriages ordered by Epstein to keep his criminal network members and friends by his side in America.

Last week, the Mail on Sunday reported, citing a source, that Epstein had specially arranged for three young women to meet Prince Andrew during his stay, which the Duke said he planned to use to cut ties with his friend.

The source claimed the Duke treated his friend’s house “like it was his” and stayed in a lavish bedroom suggestively referred to as “Room Britannica”.

One of the women was named as Latvian-born model Lana Zakocela, who has said she attended gatherings at the house as part of her modelling business but does not know if the Prince was there, while also stressing Epstein had never done her any harm personally.

According to the British tabloid, Zakocela is not the woman named in legal documents as Katlyn Doe.

Katlyn’s lawyer Bradley Edwards said last night that he couldn’t “discuss any of the current cases being litigated”, with the Duke’s press service likewise refusing to comment “on allegations made by a so-called witness who has chosen to wait ten years to come forward and has chosen to remain anonymous”.

Andrew has already been accused of having sex three times with another of the financier’s victims, Virginia Roberts, including once in 2001 at Epstein’s New York home.

The Duke has repeatedly and strenuously denied the claims, also arguing he didn’t know about Epstein’s blatantly criminal activities when he visited him at his estate, on the doorstep of which he was infamously photographed waving his hand at someone.

Andrew has also been accused of refusing to cooperate with the FBI over the probe into the dealings of the late Epstein, who was convicted back in 2008 on paedophile charges and served some part of his term in jail. Last year, while awaiting trial on new charges – over the sex trafficking of underage girls – Epstein was found dead in his New York prison cell.

---

In their own words: World Leaders Push For The NWO.

The Texas A&M University System board of regents has approved funding that will be used to create the US Army Futures Command’s (AFC) latest hypersonic weapons test center.

Regents on Thursday voted in favor of spending some $79 million in university funds on the US Army and AFC’s Bush Combat Development Center, which was unveiled last year during a naming ceremony dedicated to former US President George H.W. Bush.

Prior to the announcement of funding from the school, approximately $50 million was approved by the state of Texas, and around $65 million was contributed by the Army. The “investment” as the school termed the move, was originally slated to run $130 million for the testing center alone, according to the university’s October 2019 news release.

In addition to a kilometer-long tube that will be used to actually field potential hypersonic weapons on the RELLIS Campus, the university’s decision has approved “laboratories, runways, underground and open-air ranges and a resilient network of sensors and systems for experimentation, data collection, analysis and storage,” according to the May 15 news release obtained by Defense News.

“Texas A&M and the RELLIS campus will become a nexus for collaboration and high-tech testing in service to our nation’s security,” Elaine Mendoza, chair of the A&M System board, said in a statement.

“Today’s vote will bring hundreds of millions worth of private investment to Central Texas as these facilities come to life. Simply put, this is where American defense contractors will want to set up shop if they want to work with the US Army Futures Command.”

Defense News noted that since the establishment of the AFC in July 2018, its commander, General John M. Murray, has been seeking outside assistance from the local tech and educational community of Austin, Texas.

The creation of the new program on the campus grounds comes shortly after the Pentagon announced the successful test of its Common-Hypersonic Glide Body. The US Department of Defense noted at the time that the launch was a “major milestone” in the US’ continued effort to obtain hypersonic weapons.

It’s worth noting the US military did not disclose the exact velocity the missile reached at the time, only stating that it traveled at “hypersonic speed.”

---

President Trump said that he was mobilizing the military to inoculate most of the population against COVID-19 with a vaccination that has not even gone into production yet.

---

---

The US Navy has announced one of its destroyers transited the Taiwan Strait, separating autonomous Taiwan from mainland China – the sixth such transit this year.

This one, however, comes amid media reports of Chinese plans to seize islands controlled by Taipei, and a week before Taiwanese President Tsai Ing Wen is sworn in for a second term.

Sixth Transit This Year

Early on Thursday, the US Pacific Fleet announced via its Facebook page that a US warship had sailed through the 180-mile-wide waterway separating Taiwan from the Chinese mainland. The autonomously governed island is preparing to inaugurate its anti-reunification president for a second term; meanwhile, the US is making moves to win Taipei’s admission to the World Health Organization (WHO) at Beijing’s expense.

“The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell (DDG-85) conducted a Taiwan Strait transit May 13 (local time), in accordance with international law,” Lt. Anthony Junco, a US 7th Fleet spokesperson, told USNI News. “The ship’s transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific. The US Navy will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told Reuters that Beijing “paid close attention” to the transit, adding, “We hope the US side can appropriately handle the relevant issue, and play a constructive role in regional peace and stability, not the opposite.”

The last US transit of the strait was three weeks ago, when the destroyer USS Barry sailed through the waterway. As Sputnik reported, the warship then returned to the South China Sea, where it again challenged China’s territorial claims by sailing near the Paracel Islands, prompting People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy forces to converge and expel the Barry.

Washington calls such maneuvers “Freedom of Navigation Operations” (FONOPs), sailing through waters claimed by China as if they were international waters. Last month’s confrontation was far from the first; in October 2018, the Chinese destroyer Luyang sailed to within 45 yards of the US destroyer USS Decatur as the latter ship engaged in a FONOP near the Spratly Islands, also in the South China Sea.

Tsai’s Upcoming Inauguration

However, the May 13 transit comes amid a slew of Taiwan-related news.

Tsai, whose inauguration is scheduled for May 20, is a fierce opponent of reunification with the People’s Republic of China. Taiwan is the last surviving territory of the Republic of China, the government that ruled all of China between 1912 and 1949, when the communist Red Army conquered the mainland and declared the PRC’s foundation. Both governments claim to be the sole legitimate representative of the Chinese people, but while nearly every country has since switched its recognition from Taipei to Beijing over the last 71 years, Washington has continued to funnel military aid to Taipei as well as be its advocate on the international stage.

While the Nationalist Party has called for closer relations with Beijing and strongly maintains its status as the rightful Chinese ruler, Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party has a strong independence streak, and observers have feared since her 2016 election to the presidency that a declaration of independence could follow. Beijing has promised that if Taipei seeks independence, there will be war.

US Pushes for Taiwan in WHO

In its latest ploy, the US Congress’ US-China Economic and Security Review Commission has pushed the WHO to admit Taiwan as a member. The group’s report given to the WHO on Tuesday claims Taipei’s omission from the body caused unnecessary deaths from COVID-19, but the island of 23 million has recorded just 440 cases and seven deaths from the virus.

Moreover, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said he cannot invite Taiwan to be an observer without the approval of all member states.

Beijing has blasted the suggestion as “nonsense,” with China Daily noting that Beijing had notified Taipei of the new virus on January 3  – just days after the crisis began – and that a Taiwanese delegation arrived in Wuhan on January 13 to “evaluate the situation first hand.”

The US move comes amid a barrage of claims by the Trump administration that the WHO has been delinquent in its duties, accusing the agency of complacency with ostensible Chinese mismanagement of the outbreak and causing it to spread to the rest of the world. US President Donald Trump has threatened to end Washington’s funding of the WHO, calling the agency “China-centric.”

Rumors of a Chinese Invasion

The transit also comes two days after Japanese media reports sparked worries that China was preparing to hold large amphibious drills near Hainan Island in order to prepare for an invasion of the Taipei-controlled Pratas Islands, which Beijing calls the Dongsha Islands. According to the Beijing publication Global Times, the rumors began with the Kyodo News Agency on Tuesday.

The following day, Taiwan’s coast guard announced its Pratas Island Garrison would train in live-fire exercises next month.

Shanghai-based military commentator Ni Lexiong told the South China Morning Post that both Taipei and Beijing are “bluffing. It’s a fake crisis …  these islets alone are not worth a military campaign and all the consequences of that. The only target valuable enough for the PLA is Taiwan.”

---

Watch as Joe Biden and the rest of the Obama administration are exposed now that acting DNI director Richard Grenell has released the names of officials that asked for NSA unmasking in the days leading up to the Trump administration!

The Meteor series of weather observation satellites was first developed in the 1970s, and continuously upgraded and revamped in the decades since to monitor atmospheric and sea surface temperature, cloud and snow cover, sea ice conditions, humidity, radiation conditions in near space and the state of the ozone layer.

Russia’s Meteor-M No.2-2, which was struck by a micrometeoroid in December, has come back online and resumed its normal operations, a Roscosmos spokesman has confirmed to Sputnik.

According to the spokesman, the information being received by the satellite is being used to resolve its set objectives, including the provision of hydrometeorological informational content to consumers at the federal and regional levels.

The troubled satellite, which was launched from the Vostochny spaceport in July 2019 aboard a Soyuz rocket, lost contact with Earth-based systems on December 18, just 11 days after being put into operation, after being struck by a hunk of space rock, suffering decompression to its thermal control system.

Ground control was able to regain contact with the satellite and maneuver it back to its normal orbit and orientation in late December, and it was switched to sleep mode to conserve power before being brought back online.

Russia has a total of three Meteor-M series satellites in orbit, with the No.1-2 unit’s meteorological data-gathering equipment completing its mission in 2014, but additional scientific equipment on board continuing to function as normal. One Meteor-M satellite was lost in 2017 due to a launch failure.

Roscosmos expects to launch Meteor-M No.2-3 in August 2021.

The appeal comes as leaders from the SPD, Germany’s second-largest party and member of Chancellor Merkel’s governing coalition, demand the withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from the country’s airbases.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has thrown his hat into the debate surrounding the storage of about 20 US B61 nuclear bombs at the Buchel Airbase in western Germany, penning an op-ed in German media in which he suggests Russia and other actors are to blame for the need to keep the bombs where they are.

“Around the world, terrorism continues, authoritarian regimes challenge liberal democracies, and we see the proliferation of nuclear weapons to countries like North Korea, as well as the continuing aggressive actions by Russia,” Stoltenberg wrote in an a piece published by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Charging Russia with investing “significantly in its military capabilities, and especially in its nuclear arsenal,” Stoltenberg claims that “while NATO views its own nuclear deterrent as a political tool, Russia has firmly integrated its nuclear arsenal into its military strategy.” Moscow, he added, “has placed nuclear-capable missiles in Kaliningrad, just 500km from Berlin. It has threatened Allies such as Denmark, Poland and Romania with nuclear strikes.”

The figures seem to tell a different story. In February, the Pentagon estimated that Russia has spent the equivalent of $28 billion modernizing its nuclear forces. For comparison, the US is in the middle of a $1.5 trillion program to upgrade its nuclear arsenal, (i.e. as much as 53 times more than Russia). It’s also the US, not Russia, which scrapped the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019, and has shown little interest in renewing the soon-to-expire New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), while halting the disclosure of information about the size of its nuclear weapons stockpile in April 2019.

Furthermore, Russian officials have repeatedly stressed that Moscow’s nuclear doctrine remains unchanged, and that Russia will not resort to preemptive nuclear attacks against any nation or bloc under any circumstances, reserving the right to use its nuclear weapons only as a last resort in the event of an enemy first strike, or in response to large-scale conventional aggression.

A World Without Nukes

Despite Washington’s recent moves to tear up arms control treaties, including the INF, a treaty specifically designed to reduce the danger of nuclear war in Europe, and to deploy dual purpose missile defence components in Eastern Europe, “NATO,” Stoltenberg insists, “seeks a world without nuclear weapons through effective arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation.”

“I welcome Germany’s clear commitment to NATO and our nuclear deterrent,” Stoltenberg noted, adding that the alliance’s nuclear deterrence “remains a vital part of keeping our peace and freedom. It is for the security of the whole alliance, for Germany, its neighbours, friends and Allies, who all have legitimate security concerns and who are all protected by NATO’s nuclear deterrent.”

All members of the alliance “appreciate Germany’s role in NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangements,” Stoltenberg stressed.

Bundestag Debate on Bombs

The NATO chief’s comments come amid the ongoing debate in the Bundestag regarding whether the NATO nuclear weapons sharing arrangements, which include the permanent deployment of US bombs on German territory, have outlived their usefulness. Last week, Social Democrats (SPD) leader Rolf Mutzenich argued that Germany should “exclude the stationing of US nuclear weapons in the future.”

“Nuclear weapons on German territory do not heighten our security, just the opposite,” the lawmaker told Der Tagesspiegel. “The time has come for Germany to rule out a future stationing. After all, other countries have done so without questioning NATO,” he said.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas poured cold water on the idea, saying such “unilateral steps” would only “undermine trust” with the US, and fail to “bring us any closer to the goal of a nuclear-weapons-free world.” Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Germany’s defence minister and leader of the ruling Christian Democratic Party, echoed this sentiment, suggesting that “as long as there are nuclear weapons states who don’t want to be part of our community of values, we need a strong negotiating position.” Kramp-Karrenbauer also accused those who want to give up Germany’s nuclear sharing arrangements of “weakening our security.”

The issue of nuclear weapons and the broader geopolitical tensions between NATO and Russia has become a major subject for public debate in Germany in recent years. In late 2019, polling commissioned by the German News Agency showed 55 percent of Germans thought Berlin and other European NATO states should reduce their dependence on the US, with 54 percent of respondents urging an improvement of ties with Russia.

Germany is one of several Western European nations where the issue of US nuclear weapons has become a matter for political debate. In January, Belgium’s parliament narrowly rejected a resolution demanding the removal of US nuclear weapons from that country, with the Workers Party, Greens, Centrists and Socialists, as well as the francophone DeFI voting in favour of the weapons’ removal while the nationalist Flemish N-VA, Flemish Christian Democrats, Vlaams Belang and Liberals opposed it.

---

Alex Jones discusses the dismemberment of the coronavirus task force & Fauci’s fraud!

---

---

It’s the first time a source purported to have been close to the late paedophile has given an account of what happened during Andrew’s alleged stay at Jeffrey Epstein’s opulent Manhattan estate. If true, the claims would undermine the Duke’s account of the six-day trip to the BBC.

Paedophile Jeffrey Epstein arranged for three young women to meet Prince Andrew at his infamous New York mansion, an unnamed former model who was allegedly part of the billionaire’s orbit claimed in an interview with the Daily Mail on Sunday.

The Duke’s press service hasn’t yet addressed the claims.

Despite the perpetual flow of guests coming and going at the property, the model claims that Epstein rarely invited friends to stay at his house for long, but Andrew was an exception because he was “a prince”, a VIP figure in the multi-floor estate.

The Duke would reportedly stay in a room decorated like a royal residence on the third floor and nicknamed Room Brittanica, the model claimed.

The women, understood to all have been in their early 20s, were reportedly told to “dress up beautifully” for meetings with the Duke of York. This allegedly served as a huge promotion for the place, and at least two such meetings occurred during Andrew’s infamous stay at the mansion in December 2010, the source claimed.

Epstein desperately needed such a massive promotional tool, according to the woman, to rebuild his mired reputation after the first sexual abuse conviction in 2008, when he served part of his term, around 13 months, in jail.

To bait the young girls, the tycoon is reported to have falsely promised them that they would certainly be “rewarded” with a “bright career future, powerful, connections and money” for meeting the Duke.

One of the three women named by the insider was Latvian-born model Lana Zakocela, who has worked for Victoria’s Secret, the company owned by Epstein’s only known financial client, Les Wexner. Zakocela admitted visiting the place more than once as a usual part of her work, but noted she didn’t know if Andrew was at the mansion at the time, stressing Epstein had never done her any harm. The Mail on Sunday has agreed not to name the other two young women, who were reportedly invited to see the prince at Epstein’s.

In his disastrous Newsnight interview last year, Andrew insisted that the “sole purpose” of the visit was to cut ties with Epstein. Many wondered, however, why he needed to stay at the mansion at all and why he stayed for so long there, something that he couldn’t fully explain.

The British newspaper’s recent comments notably contradict Andrew’s account of events and what caused his extended stay at Epstein’s – the episode that has plagued his status and career as a senior royal.

The source’s account comes after March reports citing an explosive book by US lawyer Bradley Edwards, who has represented a number of Epstein’s alleged victims, including Prince Andrew’s accuser Virginia Roberts.

Edwards claimed that US prosecutors had “conspired” with Epstein’s lawyers to conceal the true scale of the paedophile’s criminal actions. Andrew has been accused of sleeping with the underaged Miss Roberts, allegations he has ardently denied.

---

John McCain’s widow offered telling insight into the culture of the elite.

In an interview with journalist Megyn Kelly, Tara Reade called on the former vice president to drop out of the 2020 presidential race and said she is ready to testify under oath and take a polygraph test if Biden takes one too.

The woman accusing Joe Biden of sexual misconduct, Tara Reade, has said she is “leaving the Democratic Party” after the blowback she received in response to her claims. Reade, who has accused the prominent Democrat and presumptive presidential nominee of sexually assaulting her in 1993, said she voted for Barack Obama twice, but now feels she is “politically homeless”.

“I’m leaving the Democratic Party and I won’t be part of any. I won’t be a Republican; it’s just not my political belief system. I’ve been pretty much progressive all my life…I feel politically homeless”, Reade said in an interview with journalist Megyn Kelly released on YouTube on 8 May.

When asked about double standards in the Democratic Party, Reade said she was “angry” and “upset” seeing people like Massachusetts senator and 2020 presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren continue to support Biden even after Reade made the accusations against the former vice president.

“I don’t really care deep down if they believe me or not … but I want other survivors to know that they can come forward. So we can come forward unless it’s a Democrat? Is that the message that they’re sending?”, she said.

Reade stressed that she didn’t come forward with accusations when she voted for Barack Obama because her daughter was small and Reade herself wasn’t ready to face the media spotlight. Reade denied her accusations are politically motivated and said this is about watching the person that assaulted her “be elevated to the highest office in the land”. “He’s running on a platform of character and I just, I found that gross”, she said.

Reade claims Joe Biden shoved her against the wall and sexually assaulted her in 1993 when she worked as his assistant. She filed a complaint about Biden’s behaviour back then, but didn’t mention the incident. Biden has categorically denied he sexually assaulted Reade. In an interview with MSNBC he said: “They aren’t true. This never happened”.

Reports that China was launching a pilot program to test its ambitious Digital Currency Electronic Payment made headlines in late April, amid the emergence of screenshots on social media showing the DCEP wallet.

As China expands globally, seeking significant financial autonomy and less dependency on America amid its trade war with Washington, the country has long sought to wean itself from the US-dollar dominated financial system.

Finally, after years of effort, China is gearing up to release the world’s first sovereign digital currency – DCEP (short for Digital Currency/Electronic Payments).

China’s central bank launched a trial program across four cities – Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiongan and Chengdu – to test the use of its digital currency, touted as incorporating some features of cryptocurrencies, but lacking the anonymity of such digital assets, the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People’s Bank of China confirmed to the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

The acknowledgment came in the wake of reports triggered by a spate of screenshots on social media that supposedly showed the DCEP wallet.

Breaking: #China Central Bank Digital Currency #DCEP is coming!

Pics show that Agriculture Bank of China is making internal test on DCEP wallet, and these pics are real!

We downloaded the App and found that the first four pilot areas are Shenzhen, Xiong’an, Chengdu and Suzhou. pic.twitter.com/R0AeVi0eaK

— BlockBeats (@BlockBeatsChina) April 14, 2020

DCEP trial runs will be piloted to a small range of banks and end users, eventually spreading to a wider range amid improvements in the technology and system.

There are said to be three principal differences between DCEP and existing cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, according to Terry Liu, CEO of VoneChain Technology, a blockchain consultancy based in Shanghai, cited by Wired UK.

First, while Bitcoin is mined, meaning the source is decentralised and controlled by an algorithm, DCEP is government sanctioned and centralized.

Secondly, the underlying technology is different. The blockchain ledger will be controlled by the government and not distributed across the system.

And thirdly, it will operate like a normal currency and be integrated throughout the commercial system, the expert is cited as saying.

China-US Verbal War

China’s digital currency breakthrough was widely trailed and comes against the backdrop of an escalating war of words with the US.

Amid the COVID-19 global pandemic and the economic fallout triggered by it, the US has been ramping up accusations against China, claiming it had covered up the initial outbreak of the virus and lacked transparency regarding death toll numbers.

More recently, there have been statements uncorroborated by any evidence from US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the virus had originated at a laboratory in Wuhan, where the outbreak started in December 2019.

China has emphatically dismissed the speculations as “groundless accusations”.

China’s Long-Sought Ambition

China has been seeking to shake off reliance on US dollar settlements that allow Washington to impose unilateral punitive sanctions on companies via the threat of exclusion from the SWIFT dollar settlement system.

DCEP as part of the further development of an RMB-based trade settlement system could serve to counter what Beijing has branded as “weaponisation of the US dollar” as a foreign policy tool, reported the China Daily on 24 April.

“A sovereign digital currency provides a functional alternative to the dollar settlement system and blunts the impact of any sanctions or threats of exclusion both at a country and company level”, said the outlet.

The ongoing Covid-19 crisis, with its protocols of social distancing and “contactless” payments might also enhance the appeal of a Chinese digital currency, with the launch of Facebook’s Libra earlier this year also seen as accelerating China’s development of DCEP.

Previously, Beijing had taken bold steps to globalize the yuan and enhance its status to match the size of the Chinese economy, futures, yet these ambitions were fraught with challenges.

First and foremost, Chinese authorities restrict yuan conversion and capital outflow.

While not regulating yuan convertibility for trade payments, China imposes restrictions on conversion for capital transactions, Lee Chi-hyun, a researcher at the Korea Center for International Finance, was quoted as saying by Asia Times.

“Fundamentally speaking, for the globalization of the yuan, its value should be stable, and there should be quality yuan assets so that yuan holders can make investment profits out of yuan holdings… Otherwise, people will not want to hold yuan,” said Lee.

Now, many experts perceive China’s launch of a digital currency as part of its long-term play to underwrite the globalization of the yuan.

---

Most people don’t realize that as much as 90% of the medicine they use comes from China!