Germany’s ruling SPD party is ready talk reparations with Poland. The Polish government is demanding 6.6 trillion zlotys, or 1.6 trillion US dollars, in reparations from Germany for material and humanitarian losses during the World War II. The Polish government states that a 1953 Stalinist era agreement of relinquishing all reparations claims were made under duress from pressures of the Soviet Union and are therefore are null and void. Polish side claims it never received fair compensation for the 1939-1945 war that left the country in ruins. If the compensation is paid, it would amount to $41,000 per Polish citizen, or 230% of the country’s GDP. That amount surpasses the restitution paid out to Holocaust victims and their heirs that Germany paid out in the amount of $87 billion.

Gangs in Honduran Prisons

On June 20, 46 female inmates were massacred at a Tamara women’s prison outside of Tegucigalpa. The Barrio 16 street members smuggled in guns, grenades, machetes, and flammable liquid before subduing prison guards. The female gang members then attacked a cellblock where a rival gang was housed; victims were shot, hacked with machetes, and set on fire. Honduras, with a network of 21 prisons, is making efforts at replicating neighboring El Salvador’s crackdown against gangs and gang members. El Salvador recently moved 4,000 of its 70,000 jailed gang members to Terrorism Confinement Center, a specially built maximum security prison that can hold 40,000 prisoners.

Nicaragua Distances US for Iran

In mid June, Iranian president Ebrahim Rainsis visited Latin America’s Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba. “During all these (years?), you resisted against the conspiracies of imperialism and triumphed,” said president Rainsi to the Nicaraguan parliament. “The United States wanted to paralyze our people with threats and sanctions, but it hasn’t been able to do it,” he told Nicaragua’s president Daniel Ortega. Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Nicaragua in 2007 and this visit is yet another sign of multi polarization of the region and Central America. While the Iranian president visited the most established leftist regimes in the Western Hemisphere, he was not yet invited by the new left governments that took power in Brazil, Colombia, and Chile.

From Volcanoes to Bitcoins

El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele has presented a plan of constructing several volcano powered energy plants devoted primarily to bitcoin mining. This is a fast track project. The state owned geothermic company La Geo estimates that the country generates around 200MW, or 22%, of its energy through geothermal power. The estimates also show the capacity of increasing that to 644MW, where around 70% of El Salvador’s energy would come from volcano power. That would make the country one of the biggest bitcoin miners in the Americas. Volcano generated and geothermal energy bitcoin mining operations have been in operation since October 2021. That was just weeks after El Salvador declared bitcoin, alongside the US dollar, to be its legal tender. El Salvador abandoned its Colones for the US dollar in 2001.

War is good for Business

The Ukraine-Russia war is providing a great boom to international military manufacturing complex Black Rock and other global players. Many new types of armaments are being manufactured, and development in munitions manufacturing should maintain the war for the next decade or two as the wars in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. The British government is supplying depleted Uranium ammunition to Ukraine. The Biden administration is considering providing Ukraine cluster bombs that are banned by the UK, France and Germany for being too dangerous to civilians. Ukraine is deploying scatter mines that the country itself has banned. Russia has developed intercontinental nuclear “vanguard” missiles that can travel at 27 times the speed of sound, and has stationed them near the Finnish border and other locations. Iran is finishing construction of low cost Shahed kamikaze drones outside of Moscow. Iran’s drone technology comes in significant part from a captured US stealth drone, RQ-170 Sentinel.

While US unemployment rate fell to 4.1% the country’s labor participation rate is at 62.7% and matching that of 1978. 95.4 Million Americans are no longer in labor force and living from savings, family aid, receiving government benefits or doing ad jobs. part time workers looking for full time jobs are considered employed. US defines its unemployed as someone who is “actively seeking work, and available to take a job.”

Nicaragua

From being the safest country in Central America, Nicaragua has spiraled out of control in matter of weeks. The spark was Socialist government’s plan of raising retirement tax from 6.25% to 7%, but the fuel was the president-designate Daniel Ortega’s suppression of opposition to his third consecutive term as president. Ortega, thought by many to be suffering from Lupus, has pointed to his vice president cum wife Rosario Murillo as successor. Police through the country has fired live munitions into crowds killing over a hundred protesters in April and May. Sandinista government thug gangs have attacked protesters and many detained are tortured. The continuing protests are likely to end in a regime change, early elections or a government crackdown.

Venezuela

According to NY Times, American cities have a hard time catching up to the safety of many African and Middle Eastern cities. The first 45 cities listed as most dangerous are in North and South America and not a single one is in Africa or Middle East. The news outlet doesn’t consider Tripoli in Libya, Karachi in Pakistan, or Mogadishu in Somalia as dangerous, but puts two Honduran cities and four US cities in that top 45. Supposedly the most dangerous of them all is Caracas, Venezuela with 111 yearly homicides per 100,000.

Iceland

With its cool climate and cheap energy rates produced from geothermic power plants, Iceland has become a bitcoin miner’s paradise. Bitcoin mining is the process by which crypto currency transactions are verified and added to the public ledger, AKA block chain. Miners are rewarded with generated bitcoins that appear at a rate of 12.5 every 10 minutes. 80% of bitcoin mining cost is electricity and the activity consumes more energy than country of Ireland. If and when price of bitcoin reaches $50,000 the global energy expected to be used in bitcoin mining is estimated to increase five times, surpassing that of Egypt. While US energy costs averages 21 cents per kilowatt hour and Iceland is 11 cents. With Roatan’s energy at 35 cents and temperatures in high 90 bitcoin mining on Roatan is a losing proposition.

Japan

Business of android is booming. After cleaning robots, fast food robots, parking security robots, vehicle driving robots, men are discovering sex robots. Animatronics talking heads with programmable personality and memory are convincing Japanese men that it is simpler to have a robot than a girlfriend. The android’s artificial intelligence allows it to respond to different scenarios initiated by the owner and it has programmable voice, humor and temperament. Japanese are purchasing these love dolls for $8,000-$20,000 each.

Syria

White Helmets, a pro-Syrian opposition rescue and propaganda organization, faked a Syrian government gas attack in Douma, Syria on April 7. The group placed and photographed undamaged munitions shells and bribed local kids to participate in filming footage later disguised as authentic. Within a week of this staging and with no thorough investigation Democrats and Republicans applauded president Trump decision to fire 105 tomahawk cruise missiles, costing $1.9 million apiece, on Syrian government forces as deterrent. Rand Corporation (the company constructing the tomahawk missile) stock got a bump while damage to Syrian government was limited.