On Christmas Day, 2015, we told our readers the fascinating tale about the Turkish-Iranian gold smuggling ring - perhaps the biggest and most brazen in history, one which lasted for years, which saw billions in gold transported out of Turkey and into Iran to allow Tehran to circumvent the western financial sanctions using gold as a medium for bater, and which was all made possible thanks to the tiny Emirate of Dubai. 

What made this particular instance of gold smuggling especially memorable is that it reached to the very political top in both Turkey, and Iran, and Dubai.

"Comedians" in cars...

or driving Miss 'Crazy'?

To many in the Western world, China is still something of a mystery. 

Even as Xi works to liberalize the country’s capital markets, promote the yuan in international trade and investment, and generally open the country’s doors to the world, it’s still a strange, foreboding place in the eyes of the Western public.

Tales of censorship, “disappearing” journalists, and endemic corruption don’t help, and neither does the ambiguity inherent in attempting to run a communist state with a semi-capitalistic economy.

The White House has delayed imposing new financial sanctions on Iran over its ballistic-missile program, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday. The shift in thinking appears to come after the Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, ordered his defense minister to accelerate the country’s ballistic missile program and threatened to intensify its missile capacity as a reprisal to the impending sanctions.

Submitted by Mark Thornton via The Mises Institute,

With more financing in place, the world’s tallest skyscraper is moving forward.

Recent media reports indicate that the final segment of financing has been obtained for the $1.2 billion Jeddah Tower project in Saudi Arabia. This is the financing that would be necessary to bring the project to record heights. Media reports also show that the structure has risen to more than seventy-five meters (246 feet) and construction is proceeding at an uninterrupted pace.