Following up, the President of the United States just ordered the "largest U.S. military operations in the region since the 1989 invasion of Panama".


So this is totally not a display of power to persuade the Venezuelan military that they should cooperate with the US and hand over the indicted, or else...

They say they have been planning this operation for months but the timing couldn't be more opportune, right after indicting Maduro and his friends. The constitution of Venezuela states that if both President and Vice-president (both indicted) go missing or resign, the National Assembly President takes charge and is supposed to call elections within 30 days.

But the regime installed a "national constituent assembly" that declared itself above the constitution and law, that makes no new constitution but keeps issuing decrees and laws like the National Assembly should, but they don't recognize it after losing the majority of seats in 2015.

As for the naval ship sinking itself after ramming against a much larger cruiser ship, well that should give you an idea of the military condition of this country...

The only thing i can think from this is inflation. It may appear to be helpful at first, but it will kick back everyone later.

"No such thing as a free lunch". All this "money giving" comes from where again? Certainly not from a productive economy. Print to save? Not gonna happen, print always leads to inflation, and inflation leads to everyone getting poorer. This is like a loan with too much interest at best.

This power of politicians to "print" money when they feel like it is what led to all hyperinflation cases in history.

Last weekend snow was falling in Tokyo. This is a city that rarely gets snow in actual winter, let alone in spring (Sakura season no less)...

Its like mother nature is jumping from joy for the last couple of months when humans finally decided to give it a rest to polluting. So much useless politician talks and promises and lies for years; but it took a pandemic for humanity to actually stop polluting. Even the ozone layer was reported recovering, just amazing.

This is like an ongoing worldwide experiment: What would happen if humanity decided to stay home for a while? Even the oceans are rapidly recovering their long gone wildlife in some places.

France registers 499 deaths in the last 24 hours, now with over 4,000 deaths.
New York governor's brother tests positive.
Brazil with 5,717 cases, 201 deaths.
Venezuela confirms 144 cases, 3 deaths, 41 recoveries.
Italy extends quarantine until April 13th.
El Salvador confirms first death.
Spain over 100 thousand cases, 9 thousand deaths. Hundreds of tourists in Cuba from Spain decide to stay there.
Corpses abandoned and burned on the streets in Ecuador, all 24 provinces report cases.
US Carrier Roosevelt disabled with crew infected.
Basic income approved in Brazil for the poor.
Portugal adds 187 deaths and considers 3 month isolation.
Mexico receives 50 thousand kits to detect virus; cartels hit by COVID-19, drug traffic dwindles.
Man disguised as a bush trying to escape quarantine spotted by neighbors ("How not to be seen" fail.).
Colombia freezes rent payments, tenants cannot be kicked and no penalties.
Argentina forbids firing employees and lengthens border closure.
Alibaba masks shipment to Cuba coming via USA stopped by US authorities. Also all airports in Cuba are closed.
A 101 year old man in Rimini, Italy survived COVID-19; he also survived WWII and the Spanish flu.
COVID-19 worst world crisis since WWII.
6 week old baby dies in US from COVID-19.
Wuhan opened to the world among fears from virus import.
UN security council to address COVID-19 situation.
Chilean consul in Rosario, Argentina dies from COVID-19.
Russia makes law to imprison people up to 7 years for violating quarantine.

I don't care. Left us a nice coin and forum, which we use because we find them useful, and that is that.

Money printing is nothing new, and worse is fractional reserve modern banks do, and yet most people are absolutely ignorant of it.

More like appalled, its bored. The same thing, always. I agree with not having time to convince part, its not a religion; your loss for not using it.

Never say never, but no one said it had to be "soon", it could take years, or the USD may collapse tomorrow for the inducing inflation of printing trillions of extra dollars that did not exist before.

While i understand the intent, what pooya said is silly. Bitcoin will always fluctuate, but less and less over time. It will also keep climbing, also slower over time. This is why i am sure it will eventually breach that 19.8k price, tho it might not be soon.

And no, people will not wait until bitcoin magically stabilizes (it never will) to use it. People are already using it, you just have to abandon all your Chicago school of economy misconceptions; it is easy to use a coin that doesn't lose value over time: just use what you need and keep the rest safe. No debts, no banks. Logically, prices and wages will go down too naturally as the coin gains value. Prices in a free market are never fixed, periodically contracts are renewed, etc.

Chile with 2,449 cases, 8 deaths.
Portugal with 6408 cases reaches 140 deaths, readies for "critical month".
Oil barrel price keeps dropping, Brent at 22.28 USD, lowest in 17 years.
Italy prepares 10,000 million € emergency fund to avoid "explosive situation".
Angela Merkel tests negative for the third time, but remains quarantined.
Australia uses 80,000 million dollars for 6 million wages, plans to give companies 1500 AUD every 15 days for each employee.
Governor of Florida refuses cruisers with death and sick covid-19 people. Zaandam and Rotterdam ships left Panama with unknown course.
UK designs ventilator to treat covid-19 patients outside ICUs.
Bolivia reports 97 cases and 5 deaths.
Colombia registers 798 cases and 13 deaths.
Venezuela with 135 cases and 3 deaths.
New York reports 1218 deaths. Provisional hospital set up in Central Park.
France warns of grave secondary effects for treatment against COVID-19. Cloroquine use becomes restricted.
Ozone layer dramatically recovers after humans stopped polluting the planet.
Brazil with over 4 thousand cases reaches 159 deaths, adds 323 cases in the last 24 hours.

Deaths in the US doubles within the last 48 hours and is already over 2,000. Current: 135,502 cases, 2,384 deaths, 4,378 recoveries.
China lifts local flight restrictions, Tianhe Airport from Wuhan to restore operations from April 8th.
PM of Spain stops commercial activities among critic from the sector. Current: 78,799 cases, 6,606 deaths, 14,709 recoveries.
Nurse from Florida hospital dies from coronavirus.
First death in Uruguay. Current: 304 cases, 1 death, 0 recoveries.
Weapon sales in US soars among fears of pandemic cases.
Chile announces 7th victim among 230 new cases with 83 in the capital. Current: 2,139 cases, 7 deaths, 75 recoveries.
Italy still leading fatality rate with 97,689 cases, 10,779 deaths, 13,030 recoveries.
Venezuela adds 10 more cases and another death. Current: 129 cases, 3 deaths, 35 recoveries.

If the virus can kill you, why kill yourself? This doesn't make any sense. Logically you should go home and isolate yourself, you might survive it and avoid infecting others while doing so.

That finance guy, wouldn't be more logical to assume he lost a lot in stocks or such by the global economy recession?

Wasn't the teenager maybe unable to cope with the isolation? (BTW: How is a suicide an "attempt" when he successfully died?

To me these deaths aren't really even related to COVID-19 fear.

As for the nurse, we already know of the drama in Italy for the many patients that cannot be treated, health workers are under extreme pressure, war like condition.

Even with fluctuation, bitcoin has already proven to be very useful. This is what gives it its value. If it wasn't useful, i wouldn't be holding at the value it has.

The infamous "backed on thin air" scenario never happened, it never went all the way down to zero (useless).

But can you say the same about fiat?  My country's fiat is the closest you can get to going nearly zero (lost 99.99999% value). Do you think the other fiats are immune to this? Due to the economic crisis, the Americans are already printing while moving interest rate into zero.

IF one of the major fiat collapses, it will pull the rest of the economy with it, but not bitcoin. This is because bitcoin is independent to the situation of particular countries or even the world economy. It is in fact a place to seek refuge in case such thing occurs. Bitcoin remains useful and secure, which gives it value.

Que tontería. Bitcoin no está amarrado a la economía mundial, y a pesar de que todo lo demás sigue cayendo, bitcoin permanece estable en los 6k, que no es mucho menos de los 7.5k que mantuvo el año pasado.

1k? Pues no. Si compraste en el brevísimo tiempo que estuvo por los 4k tuviste suerte, porque esa fluctuación breve es la mas baja que vas a ver. Ahora China está regresando a producir, y en la medida que cada país pase "lo peor", la economía lo que hará es recuperar.

Con lo que digo es que el fondo para bitcoin ya pasó, incluso si las economías caen mas. Hubo gente que vendió bitcoin para compras por el tema del virus, pero ahora lo que queda es ahorrar en algo que no pierde su valor en el tiempo, y aparte de los metales preciosos eso sería bitcoin.

Mira que entre mas empeora el mundo fiat, mas tiene bitcoin razón para subir. ¿Que FED imprime? ¿Y quien está imprimiendo mas bitcoin? Nadie. Es por eso que te digo que no tienen relación.

And catch/spread the COVID-19 in the process... Not a smart move that.

Just learn to use water and soap like your ancestors did, if only to reduce paper use.

Both Cuba and Venezuela currently have 119 cases confirmed each (I'm not making this up), with 2 deaths in Venezuela and 3 in Cuba.
Colombia is currently with 608 cases and 6 deaths.

Well, they have done it before, and the world didn't care. Would they care if they did that again today? Of course not.

According to the indictment, it is for crimes in American soil this time. This is exactly what happened to Manuel Noriega in Panama in 1989, and back then there were no remote controlled UAVs; the very first use of a stealth plane (the "F-117") in a (real) military operation. Desert storm, etc, would come later.

If any country objects an unilateral intervention, it would be like siding with "narco-terrorism" (the words from the indictment). Of course the "friends" of Maduro are already protesting: China, Russia, Cuba, Nicaragua, etc. But can they REALLY stop the US? Only if they moved their military to Venezuelan waters (again).

Of course this could be "yet another bluff" from Trump. He likes to push, but when it comes to action, somehow he withholds like the democrats. All the previous sanctions have done nothing but fuel Maduro's regime with more excuses for neglecting to solve any issues the Venezuelan people suffer from, all they care is to remain in power at any cost.

It would be pointless. Even if you managed to remove him, the next one would probably have done the same. Though you mention politics, it is true that WHO belongs to the UN, and Taiwan does not exist as a separate entity in the UN, mainly because both sides claim the entirety of China. But of course, it is the communists that have a seat while the nationalists don't. Perhaps the problem lies in that the nationalists never agreed to make a separate independent country (like it is de facto today).

So formally, there is only China, and that means Beijing. Only UN members can officially make petitions. Besides the declaration of Pandemic was made on February if i recall correctly (a whole month after the Wuhan market outbreak was known to the world). The WHO can only make recommendations at best, they can't order the politicians to close borders and stop flights, for example. Shouldn't you be directing your anger to the actual politicians who had this power since the beginning instead?

North Korea did close her borders and stopped all traffic in January, you could have done the same. And they are UN members, in-spite of arguing over the very same country where both sides ALSO claim the whole as theirs. But instead two formal (separate) entities exist both with representation in the UN. And they didn't wait for any WHO recommendation to close their borders, they just did because they can as all leaders in the world invoking emergency powers can.

Well, it is said that in ancient Rome, the civilized way was to share the sponge in the public restroom. Of course they were natural sponges...

The Japanese are so used to the bidet, that most of their modern toilets have the feature integrated (often controlled by a digital panel). They have a sort of "portable" version that you can use attaching any plastic bottle filled with water (especially when they travel to western countries); its quite cheap and should be available in Chinese shops. You just attach it to a plastic bottle and squeeze the water out. Of course you could just use a watering spray (with the stream mode), or toy water gun...

They say necessity is the mother of invention... Also i was told on irc years ago that a muslim invented (hard) soap. Indeed, be more worried about water and soap than paper.

When i read this in wikipedia, it said there was no scientific proof that it could spread into humans from the dog. But this virus already comes from an animal (believed to be a Pangolin which in turn got it from bats). Also the virus is always mutating, that way it gained the ability to jump across species.

Yes I am aware some dogs have been trained to "sniff" the virus from people, i don't know how wise is that...

Four passengers die inside cruiser "Zaandam" anchored (quarantined) in Panama
Ecuador with 1,627 cases, 41 deaths.
Italy has 86,498 cases, 9,134 deaths (currently world's highest death count).
Venezuela now with 113 cases, 2 deaths; receives from China 500,000 "quick test" kits, 100,000 suits among other covid-19 related supplies.
United States has 104,671 cases, 1,716 deaths, becomes virus epicenter without a national strategy. Trump forces GM to manufacture ventilators.
Colombia with 539 cases, 6 deaths.
Spain has 65,719 cases, 5,138 deaths. Firing workers now forbidden.
Wuhan reopens subway after more than two months being closed.
France with 32,964 cases, 1,995 deaths, extends quarantine until April 15th.

This is exactly the problem: Sometimes.

Will you trust your politicians to never do wrong? (printing)

Will you trust your banks to never do wrong? (fractional reserve)

Bitcoin fluctuates because its free, its rules won't change overnight, if the economy crashes no more bitcoins will be created than if it is in a "boom". The rules of Bitcoin do not change, this is why in the long run, it is Bitcoin the one that is stable, while all the others, are a time bomb waiting to detonate.

Bitcoin has nothing hidden. There is no foundation or developer able to "turn back" transactions or change its fundamental rules on a whim. This is the norm in fiat, and several altcoins. The people who don't understand Bitcoin, want to recreate the very same mistakes of fiat in their altcoins, because that's what they know. But they are wrong.

There is also no arbitrary pegging based on promises, that could be broken on a whim. Ie. Tether promising a 30% reserve... Yeah right. All pegged coins are garbage, true freedom means fluctuation, and fluctuation means true perceived value from buyers and sellers, no facades or "intervention" (State or private).

Trust that your government will never fail. But if it does fail, it is too late for you to withdrawn your trust... Are you putting all your eggs in the same basket? Did you never heard about diversify? Then why would you keep ALL your savings in fiat? So you could lose them all overnight if your politicians do fail?

Be smart already, and do the right thing.

This is probably what the Trump administration expects, but they fail to realize that: Those very generals, or inner circle (not all have been indicted) are the ones getting the most money from the (corrupt) situation of the country. Its literally their wealth at the expense (misery) of the masses.

And, there is a soviet style counter-intelligence system in place within the armed forces and government officials. At the slightest suspicion (and often even without any) people are removed and extorted, imprisoned, etc, etc... US agencies have been trying for many years, and they managed to convince the 3rd highest ranking officer, but after a failed attempt (around 2018) he fled the country and nothing ever changed.