🛥💻📃 — United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) reports heavy electronic warfare tools being used to jam GPS and AIS systems over Persian gulf's International Waters

🔗 United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) (@UK_MTO)

💰💰🏦Central Bank Group Starts Tokenization Project to Enhance Monetary System

The project seeks to build a "usable" solution to integrate tokenized commercial bank deposits with central bank money using smart contracts and programmability, officials at the Bank for International Settlements said.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/imf-world-bank-bis-first-tokenisation-collaboration-2023-11-28/

https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/04/03/central-bank-group-starts-tokenization-project-to-enhance-monetary-system/

📈🚀 Just now, GOLD spot reach a new All Time High, over $2300/oz!

📈🚀☕️ ROBUSTA COFFEE future on ICE Futures Europe is close to the 1994 All Time High

💰 NEW: Big banks are now reaching out to #Bitcoin miners directly to buy #Bitcoin because of "supply shortages on exchanges."
Per CEO of Hut8 Mining

https://twitter.com/SimplyBitcoinTV/status/1775880271533060217

🇮🇱⚠️❗️ — 📰 Al-Jazeera quoting Israeli media: The evacuation of Israeli embassies around the world has begun for fear of an Iranian reaction

https://fxtwitter.com/AJABreaking/status/1775936583734108356

🇪🇺❌🇺🇸💸🤝🇺🇦 — 🇺🇸 Politico | NATO ministers’ doubts, fears and eye-rolls over €100B Ukraine plan | Making military aid to Kyiv more predictable would send a message to Russia that it won’t win the war, said the alliance chief | April 3, 2024:

"BRUSSELS — NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg wants a revolution in how the alliance finances and arms Ukraine, but his plan drew a mixed response from NATO foreign ministers on Wednesday.

The secretary-general's idea is to take the politics and uncertainty out of military aid to Ukraine by setting up a five-year, €100 billion fund and having the alliance shoulder more of the weight in organizing arms for Kyiv.

"We must ensure reliable and predictable security assistance to Ukraine for the long haul," Stoltenberg said ahead of the meeting, "so that we rely less on voluntary contributions and more on NATO commitments. Less on short-term offers and more on multi-year pledges.

(...)

After the presentation, some ministers rolled their eyes at the €100 billion number, wondering where it came from, said a diplomat speaking on condition of being granted anonymity.
Hadja Lahbib, Belgium's foreign minister, warned: "It is dangerous to make promises that we cannot keep."

🗄 Archive

🔗 Source:

🧠📈🌏 — 🇯🇵 Nikkei Asia | Taiwan chip industry sails overseas amid supply chain shift | Investments elsewhere begin to pay off as China market matures | April 4, 2024:

"TAIPEI -- TSMC and Foxconn are not the only Taiwanese tech companies feeling compelled to expand abroad. Suppliers of chip and electronics tools, materials and plant builders are also venturing beyond the island as top clients undertake their biggest overseas expansion in decades.

Lai Ming-Kuen, general manager of facility builder Acter, said his company's Southeast Asian business surged 50% last year, outperforming its core markets of Taiwan and China. "This growth is expected to continue in 2024," Lai told Nikkei Asia.

Acter builds electronics plants and cleanrooms for tech companies like Foxconn, Delta Electronics, Wistron and ASE Technology Holding.

(...)

Geopolitical tensions, combined with a growing focus on supply chain resilience, have triggered a significant shift in the tech industry. After decades of concentrating production in China and Taiwan, electronic assemblers such as Foxconn, Quanta, and Wistron, along with major chip suppliers from TSMC to UMC, are setting up operations in new locations across Southeast Asia, Japan and even Europe.

China's lukewarm economy is another motivation for upstream suppliers to venture into new markets. The slowdown in Asia's biggest economy has intensified competition and price wars, according to industry executives. Expanding outside the country offers the potential for new growth. Frank Liang, general manager of C Sun, told Nikkei Asia that his company is looking to expand to Thailand and Malaysia, while also considering branching out to Japan."

🗄 Archive

🔗 Source:

🇪🇨❌🇲🇽❗️ — The Conservative Government of Ecuador of Rafael Noboa declared the Mexican Ambassador in Quito, Raquel Serur Smeke, persona Non Grata, the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry reported in a statement.

🇮🇷📰❗️ — Cover of Iranian State-aligned Tehran Times media for the ' International Quds Day':

The Storm is coming ⚡️⛈

➡️ Quds Day is the celebrated during the Last Friday of Ramadan, where peoples of the Muslim World join in protest against the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem since the Iranian Revolution

📆 The Last Friday of Ramadan (Jumu'atul-Wida) this year is on April 5, 2024 AD

🛢📈 JUST IN: BRENT Crude Oil Future over $91

🇬🇧🇮🇱 British prime-minister, Rishi Sunak, is being pressured even by fellow Torries to halt arms sales to Israel following the deaths of three British citizens in Gaza.

Sunak played for time on Wednesday night, telling the Sun that Britain will follow its “very careful export licensing regime,” as he declined to rule out ceasing arms sales in the wake of the “awful tragedy” that killed British military veterans John Chapman, James Henderson and James Kirby alongside colleagues from World Central Kitchen. But pressure to act is increasing from multiple fronts.

That’s the assessment of the food aid charity’s founder, José Andrés, who gave a red-hot interview to Reuters accusing Israeli forces of targeting the aid workers “systematically, car by car.” The celebrity chef said the IDF knew of his staff’s movements because they had clear communication with the charity. Israel insists the strike was a “grave mistake.” Nir Barkat, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, has told BBC News that Andrés’ comments were “nonsense.”

Is the U.K. itself now breaking the law? Because more than 600 lawyers, legal academics and retired senior judges — including former U.K. Supreme Court President Brenda Hale and ex-justices Jonathan Sumption and Nicholas Wilson — reckon it could be. They’ve signed a 17-page letter to the PM saying the U.K. is legally bound to act over the “catastrophic” situation in Gaza because the International Court of Justice ruled there’s a plausible risk of genocide being committed against Palestinians.

There’s more: They also argue ministers are falling “significantly short” of their obligations under international law over the sale of weapons to Israel and the suspension of aid to UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, following Israeli claims of the agency’s links with Hamas. The Guardian splashes the story across its front page, while the i goes big on Gaza’s descent into further humanitarian crisis as aid groups suspend their operations in the strip after their colleagues’ deaths.

Though the Conservatives are far from united behind the position, there’s been a steady trickle of Tory MPs urging Sunak to halt arming Israel, including former minister Alan Duncan, David Jones, Flick Drummond and Paul Bristow, as well as Conservative peer Hugo Swire. With Cameron’s own former national security adviser Peter Ricketts also having backed the calls, it’s striking just how many of these figures are close to the former PM — who is himself seen in Westminster as having pushed No. 10 for a firmer stance against Israel’s actions.

🔗 https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/cameron-centre-stage-as-sunaks-israel-dilemma-deepens/