South America

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Good ideas don't require force. That describes the Internet, mobile telephony and cryptocurrencies.

What is money? We all assume we know, because money is a commonplace feature of everyday life. Money is what we earn and exchange for goods and services. Everyone thinks the money they’re familiar with is the only possible system of money—until they run across an entirely different system of money.

Authored by Chris Hamilton via Econimica blog,

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Scientists are sounding the alarm about a volcano eruption in Antartica that could cause global health problems. The ash from this eruption could encircle the globe, affecting millions of people.

In an apparent global system outage, WhatsApp users have been shut out from sending or receiving messages on Thursday afternoon. As of 2:10pm ET the worst-hit are Brazil, the Netherlands, the US, the UK, Switzerland, Italy, India, and the Middle East.

On Downdetector.com reports started spiking after 1:20pm ET with a peak of 3250 reports at 2pm ET.

Last week, Seth Wessler wrote a story for the New York Times, in which he described “terror on the high seas”: an expansion of the maritime war on drugs, the U.S. Coast Guard is operating a fleet of secret floating prisions in the Pacific Ocean. Coined “floating Guantanamos”, Coast Guard cutters have been deployed as far as 3,000 miles miles away from the nearest U.S. port, to international waters from Central America to South America in a bid to bust drug smugglers.