Venezuela is considering using the Russian alternative to the traditional SWIFT international payment system, as the country braces for new US sanctions that could further weaken its financial sector, according to Bloomberg.

Venezuela's central bank has sent a request on the matter to the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) as the regulator's approval is necessary if Caracas wants to use the payment platform, the report said, citing sources. However, neither of the sides involved, nor the world's largest payment system, SWIFT, has commented on the report.

Russia developed its own money transfer mechanism -called the System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS)- in 2014, amid concerns that SWIFT's political neutrality could be shattered under US pressure.

The Russian alternative payment system already includes nearly 400 users, including the country's major banks. Last month, the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) said that foreign banks had shown interest in joining the platform and are already testing it.

President Donald Trump is not letting go of his latest obsession: the four progressive Democratic freshmen Congresswomen who are also women of color.


In an early Wednesday morning rant Trump quoted Louisiana Republican Senator John Kennedy, a chameleon who likes to appear as a moderate on MSNBC, then take off his mask and reveal himself as strongly conservative.

A representative from Google denied to Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) that the company operates search blacklists during a Senate hearing today, despite the fact that leaked emails published by Breitbart News have exposed the tech giant for doing exactly that.

In response to a line of questioning from Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Google VP for government affairs and public policy Karan Bhatia denied that the company, which also owns YouTube, uses blacklists.

"We don't use blacklists [or] whitelists to influence our search results," said Bhatia.

The Trump administration plans to divert more than $40 million in humanitarian aid from Central America to the U.S.-backed opposition in Venezuela, according to an internal memo and interviews.

The memo, dated July 11 and obtained by The Times, is a notification to Congress from the U.S. Agency for International Development that the money is going to Venezuela in response to an "exigent" crisis involving U.S. "national interest."

The U.S. has been an ardent supporter of forces attempting to oust the leftist government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and now recognizes his challenger, opposition leader Juan Guaido, as the legitimate ruler of the besieged nation.

All of the money being diverted will go to Guaido and his faction, the memo said, to pay for their salaries, airfare, "good governance" training, propaganda, technical assistance for holding elections and other "democracy-building" projects.

The $41.9 million had been destined for Guatemala and Honduras, two of three countries in Central America's so-called Northern Triangle, an impoverished and violence-ridden region that accounts for the majority of migrants now fleeing to the United States.

The blockade by Ukraine has made many people in eastern Ukraine essentially "stateless" and it was Moscow's duty to support them by facilitating the issuing of Russian passports, Sergey Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, has said.

Kiev's military campaign against the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in eastern Ukraine placed the locals "in unbearable living conditions, cut off from everything: social benefits, pensions, salaries, national financing banking services, education and health, deprived of electoral rights," Lavrov said in an interview with the 'Argumenty i Fakty' weekly.


The Ukrainian authorities "made the inhabitants of these areas de facto stateless. In this situation, our duty was to support these people," he added.

Obtaining Russian passports would allow the residents of Donetsk and Lugansk to solve the most pressing problems like traveling freely, having access to medical, educational and banking services, the FM explained.

The US Congress has backed an amendment to the 2020 US Defense budget which could force an investigation into allegations that the pentagon had weaponized insects, including ticks, in a secret program.

Rep. Christopher Smith (R-New Jersey), co-chair of the House Lyme Disease Caucus, asked a series of hard-hitting questions about the alleged 'bioweaponization' program and its potential side-effects, including the possible spread of a bacterial infection.

"Americans have a right to know whether any of this is true," Smith said in a news release. "And have these experiments caused Lyme disease and other tick-borne disease to mutate and to spread? Who ordered it? Were any ticks released by design?"

The investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, the Wall Street financier charged with underage sex offences, has expanded to a sprawling ranch he owns in New Mexico's high desert.

Epstein's "Zorro Ranch," worth $12 million, is in the hills outside Santa Fe and has a private runway for his plane, stables, and perfectly manicured gardens.

The office of New Mexico attorney general Hector Balderas confirmed it was investigating allegations against Epstein, and interviewing people who allege that they were victims.

The Trump administration last week cut its fourth and biggest arms sale to Taiwan, sparking a furious condemnation from Beijing that the US was undermining its sovereignty and "grossly interfering in China's internal affairs".

The weapons deal reportedly worth some $2.2 billion is expected to be given final approval by Congress in the next few weeks. It follows three other major arms sales since 2017 to Taiwan conducted by the Trump administration.

Beijing slammed the latest military transaction as a "violation of international law and the One China policy" - the latter referring to the long-established US consensus with China that Taiwan island is under Beijing's sovereignty.

Since the Chinese communist revolution in 1949 Taiwan has always been viewed as a renegade province by Beijing, having sheltered retreating anti-communist nationalist forces. Previous US administrations have sold weapons to Taiwan since 1979 when Washington and Beijing normalized diplomatic relations.

However, the Trump administration appears to be blatantly exploiting secessionist tensions between Taiwan and mainland China. By massively arming the island, there is a danger that Taiwanese separatists will feel emboldened to declare independence, a move which Beijing has always said would trigger it to deploy military force in order to assert its sovereignty.

The Department of Justice announced a new immigration rule Monday that will restrict illegal immigrants from countries, other than those bordering the United States, for applying for asylum first in the U.S. if they have attempted "to enter the United States across the southern border after failing to apply for protection in a third country." For example, the rule would not allegedly apply to Mexicans, whose first safe country is America.

Attorney General William Barr authorized the change in the rules under the Department of Homeland Security, as an effort to curtail the humanitarian crisis at the border and deter those abusing the current law from the dangerous trek to the United States.

The new rule has very limited exceptions and will go into effect 30 days from Monday. It will not apply to those potential immigrants who've already applied for asylum, the rule states. Barr stated in Monday's decision:

"The rule's bar on asylum eligibility for aliens who fail to apply for protection in at least one third country through which they transit en route to the United States also aims to further the humanitarian purposes of asylum. It prioritizes individuals who are unable to obtain protection from persecution elsewhere and individuals who are victims of a 'severe form of trafficking in persons' as defined by 8 CFR 214.11, many of whom do not volitionally transit through a third country to reach the United States.

"By deterring meritless asylum claims and de-prioritizing the applications of individuals who could have obtained protection in another country, the Departments seek to ensure that those refugees who have no alternative to U.S.-based asylum relief or have been subjected to an extreme form of human trafficking are able to obtain relief more quickly. Additionally, the rule seeks to curtail the humanitarian crisis created by human smugglers bringing men, women, and children across the southern border."

The DHS rule, Barr states, reduces "the incentive for aliens without an urgent or genuine need for asylum to cross the border." Moreover, the rule also intends "to aid the United States in its negotiations with foreign nations on migration issues."

Irony is the word which comes to mind at the mention of the "Global Conference for Media Freedom" co-hosted by the UK and Canadian foreign ministers. Everything about this twilight zone gathering smacked of irony:

Irony that governments which support terrorists in Syria and whitewash Israeli murders of Palestinian journalists have the gall to hold a conference feigning concern for journalists' rights and media freedom.

Irony that journalists actually suffering persecution and unjust imprisonment -like Kirill Vyshinsky and Julian Assange - were not the focus of the conference, with Assange only mentioned in passing, and Vyshinsky, presumably, not at all.

Irony most of all that a conference — according to Global Affairs Canada, an "international campaign to shine a global spotlight on media freedom..."- refused participation of two major and sought-out media outlets, both Russian: RT and Sputnik.

Organizers apparently tried to claim the reason for the exclusion was simply that they'd met their quota of journalists attending. But they didn't maintain the lie to Western media, RT London correspondent Polly Boiko noted:

"Behind our backs other news channels got a very different message: 'We have not accredited RT or Sputnik because of their active role in spreading disinformation.'"