Russian officials have repeatedly signaled their desire to conduct transactions with China using gold.

Russia's largest, state-owned bank Sberbank announced on Thursday its Swiss subsidiary had begun trading physical gold on the Shanghai Gold Exchange.

Reuters reports:

Sberbank was granted international membership of the Shanghai exchange in September last year and in July completed a pilot transaction with 200 kg of gold kilobars sold to local financial institutions, the bank said.

Sberbank plans to expand its presence on the Chinese precious metals market and anticipates total delivery of 5-6 tonnes of gold to China in the remaining months of 2017.

Gold bars will be delivered directly to the official importers in China as well as through the exchange, Sberbank said.

Russia's second-largest bank VTB is also a member of the Shanghai Gold Exchange.

A federal judge in Hawaii has expanded the definition of "close family" members who would be exempt from US President Donald Trump's temporary travel ban, ruling that the State Department's criteria went against common sense.

US District Judge Derrick Watson said that grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins should also be considered "close family members," challenging the government's narrower definition.

"Common sense, for instance, dictates that close family members be defined to include grandparents. Indeed, grandparents are the epitome of close family members. The Government's definition excludes them. That simply cannot be," Watson wrote in his ruling on Thursday afternoon ‒ around 11pm local time in Washington, DC.

The decision was hailed by Neal Katyal, former solicitor general in the Obama administration and one of the lawyers aiding Hawaii in the case, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union.

The "decision has already been made" to release radioactive material from the Fukushima plant into the ocean, according to its owners. Fishermen have reacted with fury to the decision, claiming it will devastate their already struggling industry.

Under the plan the radioactive material tritium, which is being used to cool reactors whose cooling systems were damaged in the 2011 tsunami, will be released into the Pacific Ocean.

"I'm very sorry that Tepco has been prolonging making a decision," the new chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) Takashi Kawamura told reporters on Thursday, reported Reuters. "We could have decided much earlier, and that is Tepco's responsibility."

The plan still requires the approval of the Japanese government before TEPCO can proceed.

Some 770,000 tons (metric) of tritium-containing water is currently stored in 580 tanks at the plant, reported the Japan Times. Toxic water at the plant is currently being treated through a processing system that can remove 62 different types of radioactive material, except tritium.

North Korea has warned that US troops stationed at a new base in South Korea are still within striking range, adding that American forces will face a "miserable end" if they continue their "reckless military confrontation."

The North Korean military stated that even though the 8th US Army Command on Tuesday moved to a new base in Pyeongtaek, some 70 kilometers (43 miles) south of Seoul, the North can still successfully target the facility.

"The larger the US military base is, the more effectively our military hits targets," a North Korean military spokesman said, Yonhap news agency reported, citing the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

"If [the leadership] issues an order, our military will destroy the US imperialists with salvos of firings," the spokesman said. "If the US sticks to reckless military confrontation despite our warning, it cannot avoid a miserable end."

The 8th US Army Command made the move to its new base at Camp Humphreys on Tuesday, after more than a decade of planning. The $10.7 billion facility is set to become the largest continuous and most populated overseas installation, according to Stars and Stripes.

Around 80 percent of the construction is complete, and the rest is expected to be finished in the next 12 to 18 months, 8th Army Commander Lt. Gen. Thomas Vandal said, as cited by Stars and Stripes. Remaining units will be transferred once the facility has been completed.

Ever notice how Vice President Mike Pence is never implicated in any of President Donald Trump's scandals and always comes out looking pure as the driven snow?

With the leaking of Don Jr.'s emails to the New York Times, which they sourced to "three advisers to the White House briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it," people are finally starting to ask questions about whether or not this establishment Republican cold warrior is leaking to take Trump down so he can become President.

A GOP operative and donor from the Chicago area, Peter W. Smith, who was investigating and working to obtain Hillary Clinton's "missing" emails from Russian hackers allegedly killed himself in a Rochester, Minnesota hotel room only days after discussing his efforts with the Wall Street Journal, according to public records.

Rochester Police Chief Roger Peterson on Wednesday called his manner of death "unusual," according to the Chicago Tribune. Records show that Smith's death occurred at the Aspen Suites in Rochester, and they list the cause of death as "asphyxiation due to displacement of oxygen in confined space with helium." Police allege that Smith used a plastic bag and a helium tank to kill himself.

Smith was renowned for engaging in opposition research, the formal term for digging up dirt about political rival candidates, which could have made him a potential target in the high stakes game of power politics.

For many years, President Bill Clinton was Smith's primary target. The wealthy businessman was partially responsible for exposing the "Troopergate" allegations about Bill Clinton's sex life. He also discussed financing a probe of a 1969 trip Bill Clinton had taken while in college to the Soviet Union, according to a report in Salon magazine.

Ending the Tory program of austerity cuts and increasing public spending risks a dangerous economic shock to the UK economy, according to the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR).


The watchdog argues that if Brexit leads to a recession and higher inflation, or a drop in migration, then the amount the government has to borrow could soar.

This view chimes with the position of Chancellor Philip Hammond, who has proven resistant to the idea of ending the seven-year program of austerity.

The OBR said any of the possible negative outcomes of Brexit could force the government to re-impose harsh cuts, raise taxes or, in the worst case, default.

At least 15 Conservative MPs are in talks with Labour about keeping Britain locked into accepting free movement and the EU's single market after Brexit.

Labour MP Stephen Kinnock said there was a "growing recognition" of the need for Britain to embrace a Norway-style arrangement to head off the threat of severe economic damage.

He is seeking support for Britain remaining within the European Economic Area (EEA) after Brexit and, therefore, the EU single market, for a "time-bound period."

"I have been reaching out with a particular proposal to 15 Conservative MPs so far," Kinnock told the Telegraph. "There is a growing recognition now in the economy that getting the right transition deal is now the top priority.

"What we need to do is to form a coalition of common sense to secure in particular a sensible pragmatic transition deal, which in my opinion should be based on the EEA. It is a sensible halfway house to give our economy the certainty it so desperately needs."

Indonesia has renamed part of the South China Sea, reaffirming its position that Beijing's claims to the waterway infringe on its exclusive economic zone. China says the renaming is "totally meaningless."

The country renamed the northern reaches of its exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea on Friday, choosing instead to call it the North Natuna Sea.

The Ministry of Maritime Affairs unveiled a map with the new name on Friday.

"We want to update the naming of the sea we gave a new name in line with the usual practice: the North Natuna Sea," the ministry's deputy of maritime sovereignty, Arif Havas Oesgroseno, told reporters, as quoted by Reuters.

With evidence mounting that Al-Baghdadi really is dead, should the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights be asked to explain its high level contacts with ISIS?

A couple of weeks ago the Russian Defence Ministry circulated reports that the leader of ISIS and its self-styled 'Caliph' - the man who previously called himself Ibrahim Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi - had been killed in a Russian air strike on a building in Raqqa where a number of top ISIS commanders where holding a meeting.


The Russians have since claimed that as well as Al-Baghdadi thirty other top ISIS commanders and 300 ISIS fighters were also killed in the air strike.