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.

MP Simon Danczuk has been suspended by the Labour party following allegations that he ‘sexted’ a 17-year-old girl in his constituency. The Sun newspaper alleges that Danczuk, exchanged explicit messages with teenager Sophena Houlihan after she contacted him to ask for a job as a case worker in his office. On Twitter, the Rochdale MP said the story was “not entirely accurate” but referred to “an extremely low point” in his life. RT reports: Danczuk has been a prominent campaigner against child sexual exploitation and played a role in exposing the late Sir Cyril Smith as a pedophile.

A month ago, after the mass San Bernardino shooting, we predicted that "the US will see increasingly more escalating "attacks" until ultimately Obama's crackdown on gun sales and possession hits its breaking point and the president's gun confiscation mandate is finally executed."