36 Burst results for "Dhabi"
Thinking Crypto News & Interviews
A highlight from Fred Thiel Interview - Sovereign Wealth Funds Investing in Bitcoin & Bitcoin Mining - Marathon Digital Holdings
"At five, six hundred billion dollars of total market cap for Bitcoin, if you include all the Bitcoin that have been produced today, a sovereign who wants to go park fifty billion dollars because they happen to have a five trillion dollar set of assets in their overall portfolio, that would have a huge impact on the price of Bitcoin. INTRO This content is brought to you by Link2, which makes private equity investment easy. Link2 is a great platform that allows you to get equity in companies before they go public, before they do an IPO. Within their portfolio includes crypto companies, AI companies, and fintech companies. Some of the crypto companies you may recognize include Circle, Ripple, Chainalysis, Ledger, Dapper Labs, and many more. If you'd like to learn more about Link2, please visit the link in the description. Welcome back to the Thinking Crypto podcast, your home for cryptocurrency news and interviews. With me today is Fred Thiel, who is the CEO of Marathon Digital Holdings. Fred, it's great to have you back on the show. Great to be here. Fred, we last spoke about two years ago. I'm excited to hear the latest updates around Marathon Digital. I'm excited about the boom in Bitcoin mining in the United States. And Marathon is certainly one of the leading miners. Tell us what's new with Marathon. Well, compared to two years ago, we've grown a lot. We're now with over 23 exit hash of installed capacity, about 19 exit hash operating, just waiting to turn on our Garden City site, which should be any day here. And we've also expanded internationally. So we now have a 250 megawatt installation in Abu Dhabi, 50 megawatts of which is up and operational. That's all immersion. It's the first site that we've designed, inspect, built and operate ourselves fully. So that's very unique conditions. It's the middle of the desert and next to the Persian Gulf. So it's very hot, very humid conditions. But we have this great relationship with the local grid operators that allows them to balance the grid using our Bitcoin mining, which they love at the moment, which is great. And that site should be fully operational by the end of this year. And then we've recently announced some additional machine orders. So we'll be growing our capacity to around 30 exit hash in the near to mid future. So we're very happy with that. Another thing, we announced a week ago that we were going to essentially redeem about $417 million worth of our debt for equity, which will put our balance sheet in a really strong place. We'll end up with a little over $300 million of debt with over $400 million of liquidity between cash and Bitcoin. And coming into the having, we think it's really important to have a strong balance sheet with no short term debt and a position to take advantage of whatever opportunities arise. Yeah, that's exciting. And I'm curious about the Abu Dhabi location. Was it more of a, let's say, friendliness to Bitcoin mining in addition to, let's say, low energy costs? But also, it seems in the Middle East, there's more opening up to crypto in general. What was the strategy behind positioning yourselves there? core So the desire was a couple of things. One, balance the grid, because in the summertime, they use four gigawatts of power. In the winter, it's only one gigawatt. So it's a huge asymmetry in the power need. And they had just put online a new five gigawatt nuclear power plant. And so they have this excess power. So what do you do when you have excess power? Well, you find a customer for it. And Bitcoin mining obviously being an easy customer to use because we have the ability to be an interruptible load, which for their needs is perfect because in the summer, they don't need four gigawatts all day long. They only need it in certain times of the afternoon and evening. And so where initially they were going to consider longer curtailment periods, they're actually doing it in very short increments now. It's working so well that they're looking to automate that whole process, which will be great because we're ready for that automation.
Mike Gallagher Podcast
Fresh update on "dhabi" discussed on Mike Gallagher Podcast
"So I remember interviewing you for all Israel News at one point in the last couple of years, and I used that interview in my book Enemies and Allies. We talked about the coming gold rush, that now that you've got these four Abraham Accords deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan. By the way, we should also mention with another Muslim country, Kosovo, which is an Arab, but it was Muslim. It is Muslim, and Israel has a deal with them as well. That's five deals. But that is, you know, if you think of the model of Egypt and Jordan making peace, that didn't involve investing. It didn't involve tourism. It didn't involve technology and trade, but this does. So now from your vantage point, both as a diplomat, but also in the world of private equity and venture capital, what are you seeing that Christian investors, Christian business people, and all people, Americans who are investors, what should they know that you know and that you're seeing? Well, let me address Jordan and Egypt for a second. It's a mistake. It's very unfortunate that they have not made their ties to Israel the way these new peace agreement countries have made ties. Different reasons, and I think Egypt has stronger ties. But I've been a big believer in tourism in the region for a long time. My wife and I went to Jordan after the Israel-Jordan peace treaty. We've been there at least twice on tourism. I've taken my kids to both countries, and I hope that, you know, moves forward a little bit. But these other countries, and what investors should understand is these countries have visions. Saudi Arabia has won not an Abraham Accords signing country yet, exactly. Inshallah. They have this vision 2030 that I heard about from the Crown Prince MBS, Mohammed Bin Salman, in 2017 and throughout my time at the White House. And the first couple of times he was explaining it, you know, I was like, really? Really? Wow. But I've been to the Kingdom so many times since 2017. You were just there. I was just there. I'm going back again twice in January. The progress, society-wise, women driving, women playing roles in government, but the building that's going on, it's really remarkable. People ought to pay attention there. Are the projects hugely ambitious? Do they sound fantastical? Yes. But they're moving forward with it, and people should explore it. And it's not just Saudi Arabia. You know, each of these countries has their own vision. Abu Dhabi is now part of the UAE, now has this major ad campaign on CNN called Thrive, enticing people to move there, live there. These countries are beautiful. They're safe. They're in an upward swing, like I could say, about not so many countries around the world. They're open. They're tolerant. Do they have a long way to go, some of them? Yes, no question. But I'm excited about it. People should go there, explore it, do your due diligence, make sure you get, like anywhere, the right partners. There's tremendous opportunity there. It's really amazing. Now, in terms of Israeli trade and with these Arab countries, clearly it's going up country by country. It's really been fascinating to watch these numbers grow. Most of the tourism, however, has been Israel to the Gulf countries. We haven't really seen yet Emiratis, Bahrainis, Moroccans coming here quite as much. Part of that was COVID at the beginning, but I don't know. Maybe it's still, it's just a process of warming to this. But the planes are packed between Israel and each of these countries. I mean, I've been to each of these countries multiple times before and now since the Abraham Accords. And you can barely, there aren't extra seats on the planes. But in terms of investment, I want to get your sense of it. It feels like Israeli companies are sort of hoping for, and understandably so, Gulf money to come here. Are we seeing Israeli and American investment going inbound into the UAE, Bahrain, and of course Saudi Arabia as they do this dramatic economic change from being primarily based on oil to a highly diversified economy? I think Israelis made the mistake initially of thinking that Gulf money is just going to pour into Israel. The Gulf money is very smart money, and they have lots of places to invest. And yes, they're interested in Israel, but they're interested in Israel just like they're interested in any good investment anywhere around the world. And I think Israelis have figured that out. You know, first they went there in droves thinking the money is just on the street to be picked up. It's not true. The Emiratis need to learn who you are, trust you, figure out which the right investment is. There's a lot of coffee in Baklava that has to be had ahead of time. It's a very different culture, right? They're similar in so many ways, but Israelis are very quick. Emiratis and the rest of the society there generally really want to understand who you are. They want to learn you. They have to trust you. They have to know who they're dealing with. And I think they've sort of learned each other, and slowly but surely deals are happening, which is a good thing. That's the way, it's a natural way to do business. Israeli money into the region is slowly happening. I think much more should happen. I'm hoping it becomes a two-way street, because that's the only way things will really succeed. American money, slowly. There's no question the region wants American, Israeli, and other money to flow in, and they have the projects for that money to flow in. People should stop looking at the Gulf, in my opinion, as an ATM. Yes, there's crazy amounts of money, but if you only look at the Gulf as an ATM, you're not likely to do a lot of business. You really need to look at it as a two-way street, and everybody wins. That's great. Okay, we're going to do a lightning round on a few different questions. First, it is astonishing to me that the two men who were critical elements in bringing the Abraham Accords about, President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu, were almost immediately voted out of office. Now, those were for different reasons, but it was astonishing, really. They didn't win the Nobel Peace Prize, apparently making peace for the first time in a generation, with four Arab countries, five Muslim countries. That doesn't qualify anymore for those in Europe. But now you have a situation where Netanyahu is back, and Netanyahu is saying that one of his top priorities is making peace with Saudi Arabia. Do you think that's possible? You and I are some of the few people in the world, much less Jewish people, that have ever actually sat for hours with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He's a fascinating person. Tell me a little bit about him. And Netanyahu, we believe, has met with him also. I reported to enemies and allies that he, Netanyahu, and Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State, sat down with MBS in northwest Saudi Arabia, what is the new NEOM region, in December of 2020. Do you think Netanyahu can make this deal? Do you think the Saudis are ready for that deal? Talk about the possibility of what I think would be the most historic peace agreement in this history's region ever. So first of all, Prime Minister Netanyahu does not get the credit he deserves for starting us on the path to Abraham. He thought about this a long time ago. He raised it with us. You know, at first we were a bit skeptical. He actually raised it. In his book, he says he was trying to push Trump to almost skip the Palestinians and go right to the Gulf countries. He thought a deal was ripe. Right, and it's an accurate story. He wasn't trying to just push the Palestinians out, but he was skeptical. It turned out, rightly so, about potential peace between Israel and the Palestinians. It wasn't, I think if we would have skipped over it, it would have been a mistake, and I'm not sure we would have reached the Abraham Accords. But there's no question he set into motion the concept, and we were very fortunate for that. I think Israel is lucky because he will be a good steward, if not to reach an Abraham Accords with some of the other countries, perhaps Saudi Arabia, to begin to strengthen those ties. But none of it will happen without, of course, the Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman. I like to look at it a little bit differently. I'm often asked, will Saudi be the next country to do it? And I say, let's leave the Abraham Accords on the side for a moment. Let's discuss what Saudi has done. So when President Trump released the peace to prosperity plan between Israel and the Palestinians, which ultimately failed, Saudi issued a phenomenal statement. They didn't go back to the decades-old talking points that the Palestinians and Europeans and others use. They were positive comments. When the Abraham Accords were signed, Saudi opened up air corridors between Israel and Bahrain and Israel and the UAE. This past summer, July 2022, they opened up all the airspace to all countries, including Israel, right? Step by step, they're making these important steps. And I think we need to, first of all, recognize that, be grateful for what they're doing, and give them the time and space they need to move in that direction. I think they're heading in that direction. Anything can change. The Abraham Accords happen suddenly, even though it's years in the making, but it just takes something to let that last puzzle piece click into place. I'm bullish about it. I'm not bullish necessarily that they're going to sign something. The world has become a crazier place since President Trump left office. That's not an anti-Biden comment. That's just the nature of what's happened. Though, I will say, you say it, right? You may not be wanting to be critical of Biden on this show, but you are on the cover of your book. Biden has been so disrespectful to the Saudis, particularly to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Now, Biden thinks he has his reasons, but to call an entire American ally a pariah state and essentially start pulling anti-missile defenses out of the country and start to slow down weapons sales to an ally, right, while you're trying to make a deal with the enemy, Iran, has rattled the Saudis. Now, there are reasons that the Khashoggi murder was horrible. I've talked directly with MBS about this, and I've written about it, and it was a heinous crime, but he's conceded it's a heinous crime, and he threw everybody in jail that was involved. But my conversations with senior Saudi officials over the last few years since Biden took office is that they are not happy with Biden, and I'm wondering if it's going to affect Netanyahu's ability to make peace because Biden, of course, would in theory be involved, and therefore Biden would get a huge win, and I'm not sure they're willing to give him that win. How do you read what Biden is doing with the Saudis and what they should be doing, what he should be doing? So it goes beyond the Khashoggi murder, which, as you say, was horrific. It was brutal. MBS took responsibility. It was on his watch. But it was beyond that. As you say, President Biden during the campaign said he would make Saudi Arabia the pariah that it is. It was thoroughly disrespectful to the kingdom, to MBS. I've written extensively on that. Yes, he went in the summer of 2022. He had that famous fist bump with the crown prince, and I thought actually that maybe the subtitle in my book was no longer relevant. Maybe they turned the page. I was deeply hoping they would turn the page. I'll take the hit on the subtitle. But it turned out there's still a lot of tension between President Biden and the kingdom and President Biden and the region. Lips service only when the region gets attacked by the Houthi terrorists. We don't even call them terrorists. We should. They took away that Houthi designation as a terrorist state, as a terrorist group within Yemen. They're just not standing by our friends and allies, including the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And you're right. That is going to make it difficult. But let's go back to Prime Minister Netanyahu. His relationship with President Biden is strong. If there's anyone that could try to bring President Biden around and see what progress could be made between the kingdom and Israel, I feel confident that he might be the right guy to do it. But until America respects the region and the kingdom and the UAE and others, and until they stand by it, I think we- And stand stronger against Iran, I think, with the other battlements here. Let's think about that. Yes, for the moment, the deal is over. I mean, President Biden, there was this tape running around the other day where he was saying to a journalist, it's over, but I can't say it out loud, which he kind of did say out loud. But, you know, like, there's no clarity. Is it over until tomorrow when you decide to try it again? You have the protests in Iran- And it's not over because Biden thinks the deal that he offered was horrible, which it is. It's over because the Iranians are like, why would we deal with you? You're too weak for us to even have a conversation with anymore. There's too much uncertainty going on. I don't think anybody trusts the Biden administration when it comes to the Iranian regime. So there's little upside to the Saudis to come to the table under a Biden administration. But you think Netanyahu might be able to move the ball forward? I think he could thread that needle. I think he could talk sense to everybody and maybe there'll be a new approach. But the Biden administration has become much more clear. They have to emphatically say, it is over and here's why. And the only way we would ever do a deal with the Iranian regime is XYZ. But real clear things that make sense, not things that kick the can down the road. And then all of a sudden Iran has nuclear weapons in three, four, ten years from now. That solves nothing for anybody. So I think the Saudis will be cautious. I think Bibi Netanyahu is the right guy to do it. I hope he and MBS meet. I won't comment on whether or not there was a prior meeting. But I think they would get along. I think they would respect each other. I think they'd understand each other. So I'm hopeful. You negotiated a plan, obviously with Jared Kushner and Avi Berkowitz and Brian Hook and Mike Pompeo and the entire team. But you were the point man on what became known by President el-Sisi of Egypt as the deal of the century. And that wasn't the term of the actual deal, but it was an interesting observation by el-Sisi because he really was thinking that the creativity that you guys were putting into the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the plan, the 170, 80-page plan that you actually put out, the most detailed plan ever with maps, the whole thing. Sisi, and I talked to him about it, really believed that this was something unprecedented in the region's history, that there had been lots of discussions about principles but very little actual, this is exactly how this deal would work. Now, everybody, you know, John Kerry among others said this deal will never work. And many people called it dead on arrival. And in many ways it was. You just described it a moment ago as a failure because the Palestinians didn't accept it. Netanyahu accepted it. The Arab world said positive things about it. So talk about, you know, was it a waste of time? What was your perspective on all those years of trying to put together a detailed plan and then the Palestinians basically not even reading it and calling it a betrayal? Yeah. First of all, David Friedman, also a key player on the thing. Yeah, sorry. David Friedman, absolutely. Forgive me. David is a good friend and I apologize for missing him. I don't like using the deal of the century moniker. Why? Because it turned into a pejorative way to refer to the plan. You know, people called it, the Palestinians called it the slap of the century, the steal of the century. It was a realistic, implementable plan. When we read things like the Arab Peace Initiative or any of the other principle-based things, things sound beautiful and wonderful and they touch your heart. But they say nothing. What we put together was a very specific, detailed plan of how things could be. It was embraced by Benjamin Netanyahu. Not happily, right? You know, a lot of compromises, 100%. He got criticized. We got criticized by some segments of Israel society. But it was understandable by everybody and it was somewhat welcomed by certain Arab countries and mostly not Europeans. As a starting point. Let's discuss this. Let's negotiate this. But the Palestinian leadership... They have pledged investments from the region, including the Arab world, saying let's create actual jobs. Let's create desalination plans. Let's create factories. Let's build a Palestinian economy that can create a real source of hope and a future for Palestinian people. Jared Kushner led that role. It was very, very important. Because our view was you can't have peace if you don't have economic success. So let's work on them in tandem. It was rejected by Palestinian leadership. You have to remember this. Two Palestinian leaderships, the terrorist thugs, the Iranian puppets in Gaza, who subjugate 2 million Palestinians. Everybody believes Israel and a little bit Egypt for the suffering in Gaza. It's all because of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other militant groups. Gave them the whole... It should be a paradise right now. It should be a Palestinian paradise and it's a hell hole. And then you have Ramallah and you have the prime minister of the Palestinians who said he expects or he wants the peace plan to be born dead before ever reading a word about it. So they weren't interested in reading it. They weren't interested in peace. They weren't interested in trying to negotiate it. Our view was if you don't like what's in the plan, sit down, talk, negotiate as hard as you want. So why did you do it when many people told you the Palestinian leadership is not interested? Maybe the people are, but the leadership is not. Why did President Trump pursue it? Because we were hopeful throughout 2017 until President Trump made his courageous historic announcement recognizing Jerusalem as the capital. We were led to believe by the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah that there was a chance. We took them as sincere people. And I'm not saying they were insincere, but we felt that it was worth the time. Understanding the conflict, educating ourselves, educating the world about the conflict. So much of what we put in that plan and so much of our public diplomacy about the conflict was taking away the old talking points that in many ways were manipulative, weren't truthful and saying here's the situation and here's a solution and let's talk about it. I think it's a historic plan. I hope that one day whoever occupies the Oval Office, it doesn't matter what political party they're from. They should dust it off. I'm sad to say that the current White House removed the plan from the website of the White House. They should dust it off. They should use it as a starting point. We learned so much. Clearly the region trusted us except Hamas, maybe even the Palestinian Authority, though I think that they have good parts to them that should be nurtured. But the region trusted us. I think they trusted the plan and I think it could be a building block for a potential solution. Well, I loved the plan. I didn't agree with all of it. I still struggle with the idea of any perception of dividing Jerusalem.
Crypto Banter
A highlight from Why Bitcoin Is Gearing Up For Its Biggest Ever Bull Run (Pay Attention)
"The next Bitcoin bull run could be bigger than any other, due to these 10 crypto catalysts, which are currently shaking up the crypto market. And in today's video, I wanna go through each one of these catalysts and explain to you why crypto is uniquely positioned for massive growth in the near future. So look, clearly the market right now is boring. A lot of market participants are feeling apathetic due to the market. This is in part due to the fact that volume is super low. So there's just simply not that much to trade in the way of Bitcoin, Ethereum or majors. And also that the volatility of the market is down. And when volatility is down, there's obviously less opportunities for trading. But on the investing standpoint, things couldn't be any more different because periods of low volatility and quiet market movement are actually an accumulator's dream because we all know what happens in terms of volatility. Extended periods of contraction tend to lead to explosive periods of expansion and I think we can assert that the more that Bitcoin trades in this sideways, boring range, the more that price action remains boring, the bigger the eventual move is going to be. And although yes, this can be to the downside, long -term volatility compression combined with strong macro catalysts and the upcoming catalysts that we have like the Bitcoin halving could very well lead to upwards expansion. And that's what we're gonna talk about in today's video, the reasons for that expansion and go back to the fundamentals because it's so easy to get swept up with the price of Bitcoin. Oh, you know, Grayscale had an amazing announcement but Bitcoin didn't react. You know, that must mean it's not bullish for Bitcoin. Wrong. Stop associating progress with price because you'll become a much better investor and you'll also be able to actually take advantage of the opportunities that are being presented via the fundamental shifts in Bitcoin's underlying strengths. So let's get straight into it. Just quickly, rapid fire. I'm gonna give away $200 to five people for the SmartX giveaway. So I'm gonna pick five people now randomly and make their names bold. If I choose to make your name bold, you have just won $200. There you go. There you go. I'm gonna look away to make it fair. Four and five. There we go. Number 12, number 14, 17, 23, 30. If your wallet address is highlighted in bold, you are one of the five lucky winners that won $200 thanks to the SmartX giveaway. If you aren't entered into the giveaway, we're gonna run this $200 airdrop for another week. So get involved for next week. All you've got to do is deposit a minimum of $50 worth of liquidity into any of the pools across Arbitrum, Polygon, BNB, or Base. You can also earn some pretty high APRs. Choose which asset you would like to deposit to earn passive income. And also if you enter your wallet address into the link in the description, qualify for the 200 airdrop giveaway. Congratulations if your wallet is there. Let me know in the comments. And obviously we will send you the money over the next 48 hours straight to your wallets. $200 coming your way. Let's get on with the rest of the video. So let's go through these catalysts. Let's go rapid fire. Let's talk about them, talk about the ramifications. And then at the end, I have a take for what all of this means. The first thing that happened recently was Grayscale winning their lawsuit against the SEC. I think this was a very monumental occasion for crypto and not just because we had a company beating the SEC, but because the courts finally acknowledged that the SEC's actions were overzealous. They actually worded the SEC's pursuit of Grayscale as arbitrary and capricious. And I mean, what a strong word, what a strong stance for the court to come out and call the SEC capricious. They essentially debunked the main argument of the SEC's case against Grayscale, which was that Bitcoin due to market manipulation is not an asset conducive to a spot ETF listing. But the courts essentially debunked that entire argument, which was the premise of the SEC's entire case against not only Grayscale, but against other ETF applicants as well. So the precedent it set clearly means the Bitcoin spot ETF has a much higher percentage of getting approved. And I mean straight after this Grayscale victory versus the SEC was announced to the public, we saw the probability of a Bitcoin spot ETF according to Bloomberg analysts increase by 15 % from 60 % to 75%. So it did have a tangible effect on the market. And yes, price did get faded because we're in kind of bearish market conditions, boring market conditions, but it can't be understated enough how bullish this actually is for crypto long -term and how it definitely lends into the favor of the upcoming 10 Bitcoin spot ETFs, which are currently pending approval. We know that the arc deadline is in January and then we know that BlackRock and some of these other big filings, for example, WisdomTree, VanEck and Bitwise are towards the month of March. But in my opinion, if we get one approval, that sets the example that all the others should technically get approved because I doubt the SEC will want to just approve one and then not approve the others. It kind of looks like they're picking favorites, especially if they pick BlackRock over the others. So I think once one is approved, it'll open the flood gates to all the others. And that could happen not just as soon as January, which is the first final deadline, but potentially as soon as the second or the third deadline. Because what you have to realize is, especially in the context of the recent grayscale loss from the SEC's perspective, they're under a lot of pressure at the moment. They're getting clowned in the courts. They're basically losing every case. They lost to XRP. They're having to settle with a lot of other like NFT projects and small projects. Basically, their endeavors aren't working in the court of law because the court system is doing what it's supposed to do, remain objective. And the SEC is doing what it's not supposed to do. And that's being unobjective. And for that reason, they're kind of being backed into a corner right now. And I think the only outcome for this is they're gonna have to buckle and approve a Bitcoin spot ETF. And that's why the probability from analysts is so high now, pushing into the 80 to 90 % range from recent estimates. So we could even see a Bitcoin spot ETF as soon as let's say November or December this year on the best terms, on the worst terms, maybe it's January, February, but we do know it's gonna be within the next four to six months. So if you are bullish on a Bitcoin spot ETF and you believe that it's gonna happen, then you don't need to play like the whole news game. All you need to do is simply accumulate in the lead up to that event. If your strategy is to accumulate Bitcoin long -term and if you believe that the spot Bitcoin ETF is gonna be bullish for the inflows to the market. And look, I do believe that the Bitcoin spot ETF is going to be a substantial cause of new inflows into the market. It's gonna be the first time that institutions are gonna be able to buy Bitcoin and buy it through the proxy of the equities market. The elderly people and retail investors that maybe aren't so well -versed in the crypto exchange sphere, they're also gonna be able to easily buy Bitcoin through the spot ETF. So I think it can't be understated how much of a bullish catalyst this is for crypto, how much of it is priced into the market, that's anyone's guess, but I do think long -term the structural net inflows into the market will be a massive plus for Bitcoin and a massive plus for cryptocurrency, especially if we see like Ethereum filings, for example. And for that reason, I'm extremely bullish on a spot ETF. It's really now just a timeline game. And I think that's the reason why the price hasn't moved because the market doesn't quite know when it's gonna happen. And when the market doesn't know when you see all these games and you see the chop continue into that official announcement. But that can create opportunities, especially on major dips if you believe in that final event. The other thing we saw, because the SEC isn't really being too crypto -friendly, is a lot of other companies throughout 2023 so far, a lot of other countries, sorry, start to accept crypto and start to be more open towards crypto. I think the one that probably stands out the most is Hong Kong, purely just due to China's stance, the Chinese mainland stance towards crypto being so negative in recent times. It was great to see another major Asian nation, especially the one that's so close to China from a political perspective to align with crypto and start accepting it. I think it was a monumental step for the crypto industry as a whole. And not only have we seen positive developments from like Abu Dhabi, UAE, Singapore, Japan, we've also seen great developments from Hong Kong where they officially opened their first crypto trading exchange, where they offered a variety of trading pairs. And I think that's only going to expand in the future. And this does put more pressure on the US because if the US is going to scrutinize crypto and shut down the industry, these players are simply just going to shift offshore to companies that are more accommodating. And I think that's the great part about crypto. It's international, it's borderless. That's the number one benefit of the crypto industry. It enables borderless transactions. It enables the entire world to be linked through a financial ecosystem. And that ecosystem isn't just the USA. So a lot of the time, we get very, very focused on the US and look for good reason because it's such a large percentage of the market. But we have to remember that this is bigger than the USA. This is a worldwide network that can penetrate every border, that can penetrate every country, irrespective of the US trying to claim jurisdiction over crypto. So this is also a positive development, the Hong Kong news. Now, off the back of the Bitcoin spot ETF, we also saw the ETH ETF filings start to happen. We know that ETH futures ETFs have been applied for over the last four to six months, but now we are starting to see concrete spot ETF filings from the likes of ARK Invest and 21 shares alongside Van Eck. So we are seeing the participants starting to pile up for each spot ETF filings. And I only expect over the next few weeks and over the next few months, more institutions start to pile in and file for applications of their own. And this is also extremely bullish for ETH as an asset because if the SEC sets the precedent of Bitcoin being a commodity and Bitcoin being worthy of a spot ETF, who's to say that Ethereum, which has been labeled by a commodity by the CFTC also isn't worthy for a spot ETF. And then that also would pave the way for a bunch of other cryptos to get ETFs as well. So this was a huge development for Ethereum. And once again, price didn't react to the best because of the reasons that I discussed before, the market's boring, the market's probably bearish leaning and it doesn't really wanna react to good news. And there's a few decent reasons for that, but long -term structurally once again, a spot ETF would have huge positive ramifications for the market. And I do believe that we could see more institutions, big institutions start to pile in as well. Remember what happened with the Bitcoin spot ETF. We first saw ARK apply, we first saw the smaller institutions apply and then BlackRock took that momentum and filed for a spot ETF of their own. Could we see a similar thing on ETH? Well, we see ARK, we see 21 shares, we see VanEck apply, we see the smaller institutions apply and then BlackRock comes along a little bit later and they apply as well. I mean, I don't necessarily subscribe to the theory that, oh, just cause ARK filed, it means that BlackRock's gonna file tomorrow. No, I think BlackRock may choose to wait here for a Bitcoin spot ETF approval and it may choose to wait for other institutions to come in and kind of get an SEC green light before it applies. Cause once again, it doesn't wanna ruin its exemplary record when it comes to ETF approvals. But I think the likelihood that BlackRock jumps into ETH eventually is now certainly much higher that it's starting to gain momentum as a trend. So it's something to look out for in the market and obviously it's great for ETH long -term. But yeah, the price once again, didn't react, just like the gray scale announcement got almost instantly faded. We saw the ETH spot ETF result in a huge price pump for Ethereum and then this rally also got faded. The market is the expert of fading pumps at the moment. But the whole point of this video is to teach you to actually detract the price movement from the long -term fundamental catalyst that we see in the market develop over the course of a bear market. In a bull market, good news causes massive price pumps. In a bear market, good news causes, well, price to go sideways or price to even drop. That is a sign of typical bear market conditions. That is a sign of typical market weakness. And even in the early stages of a bull run, if you do wanna say, look, we're heading into the Bitcoin halving, this is an early stage of a new bull run. It's not unusual to see massive, you know, 30, 20, 30, 40 % drawdowns during the early stages and also market shakiness in terms of its reaction to news. So this isn't like a bearish shine. It's not totally indicative of what's happening next just because, you know, it isn't reacting as well as we would like to these announcements. It just shows that in the short term, the market isn't ready yet to get super bullish. So definitely long -term, we are really setting up here with some amazing catalysts and I'm gonna talk about in a minute or two, probably the biggest change that I've seen over the last few days actually that could really affect prices. But we have to remember that every single positive bit of news we get now, every single positive development or announcement we get now is building behind the scenes for what could be an even bigger bull run next time around. And I'm not saying bigger bull run in terms of necessarily percentage growth because we know Bitcoin has diminishing returns, but in terms of sheer dollars in flowing into the cryptocurrency market, I think it's hard to deny at some point that we do see that. And technically that would make it the biggest bull run ever. So that's an amazing thing. So before I get into what could be the biggest change over the last three days, but not many people I've seen talk about it, I just wanna give you a reminder that if you are interested in investing more in this industry and not just in coins, but in unicorns and actual startups and proper companies in this space because you believe in this space and you wanna invest in the picks and shovels behind the space, we have partnered with a company called Link2, which is giving you access to investments that you wouldn't normally be able to access. So typically you would need to spend like over $100 ,000, sometimes $500 ,000 to be qualified as a wholesale investor to access crypto startups and AI startups and tech startups. Now, what you can do is actually invest in them at retail levels. So let's say $5 ,000 minimum investment instead of 100 ,000 and get the same exposure to the big companies that retail is usually priced out of. So just going through their portfolio here, we can see they have a wide array of crypto businesses like Circle, Ripple, Uphold, Itrust, Polisign, Chain Analysis, Copper, Ledger, companies that don't have tokens. But if you believe in the underlying businesses, you can get exposure to them. And if you actually go onto their website and go into link2 .com slash products, you can see all of the products that they've added to their ecosystem. So it's not just crypto products, there's AI products, there's automatic drone products, cybersecurity products, digital assets, fintech, a whole bunch of different sectors that you can explore and invest in if you choose to do so. So if you wanna get involved, there's a link in the description. Once again, I'm not chilling anything, like this is really just a platform that you can just check out, have a look at, see if you like any of the companies. And if you do like some of the companies, you can create an account on the mobile app, as you can see in front of you. And you can start investing today into tech companies and get access to the same investments that the big wholesale traders have been for decades, but retail previously didn't have access to. So I think it's awesome. They're also SEC compliant, so it's not some scam. It's a proper registered fund, you need a KYC. It's a fully regulated operation for, yeah, people that wanna invest more into the industry or into the tech world as a whole. If you're an active investor into tech, I know I personally started my investing journey, not actually through crypto, but through like Apple stock and tech stocks. That's how I originally built up some capital to invest in crypto because yeah, I was more trading equities in the early days. So I'm always a preacher of diversifying your portfolio. I've actually said publicly on Twitter that I own more equities than I do crypto. Can you even believe that? And that's just because I've had years to actually compound these gains. And then eventually it gets to a point where your money's kind of being made for you just by investing in equities and continuing to DCA. And I might do a video on that in the future, but link in the description to the link too. If you do wanna check out some of their investment options, once again, not financial advice in regards to any specific products, you do your own research before you invest in anything of course. But I think it's great that we can give you guys the option to get access to these deals that not everyone can typically get access to. So let's get on with the rest of the video. I said I was gonna talk about a catalyst, which I thought was really, really crucial for crypto. And it's actually this, which Rand did talk about on his show, but I've seen most other channels are completely ignored. And this was the news that they are going to be implementing in fair 2025 value accounting rules for Bitcoin. So let me read through what this means. Under the current practice right now, which doesn't provide clear guidelines on how firms should disclose their crypto holdings, firms treat their crypto as indefinite lived intangible assets, which includes trademarks, copyrights, and other items that are rarely traded. As a result, companies record their crypto at the historical price they paid and review their holdings every quarter for impairments. Holdings are considered impaired even if the price of a crypto falls temporarily during this period. And values can't be upwardly revised if the price recovers. They have to take the lowest price for that time period. Now this has huge ramifications because it can misrepresent their balance sheets in a negative way and under represent the total value of their crypto assets. And this makes it pretty hard for like a big company. Like, you know, think about these big institutions, like the big funds and like your apples, et cetera, to actually hold Bitcoin because they're constantly dealing with potential negative ramifications in terms of how they're going to have to report this, especially for companies with, you know, duty of care to their stakeholders because they are publicly traded. They don't want any sort of, you know, negative reflection back on their books because they invested in crypto and they couldn't report it properly. So there's a big change coming in, which is going to allow fair value accounting for Bitcoin, ETH, and other crypto assets, which essentially will enable you to record gains and losses immediately and classify crypto assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum as true financial assets and not as intangible assets like they previously were, like trademarks, copyrights, et cetera. This is going to take effect in 2025. And I think as a result, many new companies are going to be able to add Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies to their balance sheets and not be scared about the misalignment of the previous reporting practices and actually be able to take advantage of the tax benefits for drawdowns and also the reporting benefits when crypto recovers and is performing super well. So I think it actually is very impactful on the market long -term because it's going to enable companies that previously didn't want to invest in crypto to invest in crypto. And you line that up alongside like a Bitcoin spot ETF. And overall, these are really good conditions for like the institutional adoption of crypto. And yes, the prices are moving, I know, but we're just building slowly. We're slowly implementing these rules. We're slowly implementing legislation and it's building really slowly. And yes, we have drawbacks. So we might take, you know, four steps ahead and then two steps back when Gary Gensler does something or sues someone and then three steps ahead and then another two steps back, you know, when there's another kind of regulatory upheaval. But along the way, we get these major wins, which makes crypto more easily adopted to the masses. And at the end of the day, that is the whole vision of cryptocurrency. And that vision is being realized, not just for Bitcoin, but for old coins like Solana, for example, which we saw Visa actually starting to accept USDC payments on the Solana network, which is huge that, you know, they not only chose to use the Solana blockchain, but more importantly, they showed their support for USDC. They're actually backing a stable coin and showing that they believe in stable coins in the ecosystem of cross border payments. I think that's massive for the cryptocurrency industry. And it's also good for Solana. Once again, Solana price didn't move, but it's the same story as this whole video. Another big catalyst we got, and this video is just stacked with good news. It's a happy day. It's OPM day. Smash the like button if you like the optimism, but I think it's genuinely caused to be optimistic some of the developments we had this week. We saw MetaMask announce their recent feature, which is the sell feature. Now, when I first saw this, I made a joke on Twitter, like, oh, you know, we're in a bear market. Now it's easier for people to sell their assets, but having people be more easily able to sell their assets is actually amazing because it's going to incentivize them to on -ramp money when they know that they can off -ramp money. Think about it like this. Remember the Ethereum Shanghai upgrade? Remember how the staking ratio of ETH was like really stagnant and people didn't want to stake? And look at the staking ratio increase that happened post -Shanghai. Why did that happen? Well, it's because people could redeem their Ethereum on the beacon chain. So if they previously deposited, they could then actually get their Ethereum back and they didn't have it locked in the ecosystem. That is an example of people's willingness to deposit when they know that they can withdraw. It's the exact same as MetaMask, where people may be more willing to deposit into crypto if they know they can easily off -ramp because off -ramping is a huge problem right now. Like I've had problems with this in the past. Some of my friends have had problems with this in the past. People in the industry have problems with this all the time. Like, you know, banks being tricky, exchanges being tricky, selling is just sometimes not easy in crypto to get fiat currency. Well, MetaMask is now essentially going to enable you to click sell on your wallet, convert straight to fiat and off -ramp straight to your bank account. That is huge in my opinion. And it also definitely leads the way for people to feel more comfortable transacting into cryptocurrency and not just out of cryptocurrency because they know there's a way out. They know they're not trapped in the ecosystem. So look, I know there was kind of a lot of memes around this and I even joked around it, but you know, actually thinking about this, it is quite bullish I think for the long -term adoption prospects of crypto. Now it's only being piloted at the moment. It's only available in a few jurisdictions, but I expect as this rolls out and as this kind of thing becomes more commonplace amongst crypto wallets and crypto dapps, this is a great precedent for the industry as a whole and undeniably a net positive. So that is kind of my video on the crypto catalyst, specifically 10. We actually did talk about 10, but I just kind of sporadically went through them. 10 catalysts that I think are holding Bitcoin and holding the crypto market in good stead for huge adoption in the future. And look, I know price action is kind of boring right now and I know it's easy to get despondent, but the point I made this video is don't forget where we're headed. Don't let the destination evade you just because the path has become more difficult. Always look at the final destination and then you'll actually be able to get some sleep at night because you're not gonna worry about the chop. We know the market will chop in between, but we know where it's going in the future and that's all we need in order to be successful investors over the long -term. All we need to do is have a long -term approach to crypto. Sure, we have a fun trading in the short -term. Sure, we ape into altcoins and do crazy decentralized shit in the short -term, but long -term, we're actually just prepping our portfolios for what we believe in as a disruptive industry that is really on the precipice of gaining mass adoption. And certainly these catalysts lend pretty well towards that. Talking about mass adoption, we just partnered with a new company on the show, which is offering something that I think is gonna be extremely important for mass adoption and that is storage and actually secure storage for the future of crypto. So Serenity Shield have built an amazing product that is essentially a privacy -preserving application that enables you to store, transfer, and recover confidential data. So you know how LastPass is on centralized servers and you put your passwords in and you put important information in, but you know it's on centralized servers and you know it's not living on the blockchain so you know it's not immutable. Well, they're essentially gonna solve that problem because they're building a permissionless protocol built using smart contracts that allows you to store confidential data, recover confidential data, and has a privacy -preserving element to make sure that you're the only one that sees that data and that data is properly encrypted. Now there's a very cool feature that Strongbox actually has and it's this transfer feature which maybe you don't want to think about, but it's something you should think about and that's inheritance, right? So if something unfortunately happens to you and you've got all this Bitcoin, what happens to that Bitcoin? I mean, there's been many cases of Bitcoin just being completely lost if something happens to someone or even if you're fined and you just misplaced your Bitcoin, there's no direct way for your loved ones, your friends, your family to access those assets. Serenity Shield has essentially come up with the solution to this problem by having a dedicated transfer inheritance built in function from Serenity Shield which enables you to have the peace of mind that your data is going to be safe. It allows you to store your data forever and that's a really important aspect of mass adoption in crypto for the future. It's actually where are people going to store their Bitcoin, their Ethereum? Where are people going to store these assets and keep them safe? And for people that maybe have like family trust, where are they going to store it so they know that it's accessible for family members? Well, this could potentially be the solution. Now their product isn't live yet. They just finished their test net. They're going into main net soon, but in the meantime, they do have a presale. So if you're interested in this kind of concept and you're interested in getting involved, I'll leave a link in the description for the presale where you can get your hands on and I'm not shilling the token. I'm not like necessarily endorsing that you buy the token, do your own research, work out whether it's something you like. I just thought I would let you know and keep you updated that they do have a presale round three for the next two weeks that you can get involved in. If you're interested in this kind of thing and you can see the token price, the vesting terms, the cliff, all that stuff in front of you, but it is going to be the utility token of the ecosystem as well and the subsequent projects that they launch in the ecosystem. But they're building a really cool product and if you want to check it out, there's a link in the description because yeah, I think it's going to be a pretty cool product that I'm going to show you guys on the show and I believe in it as an important piece of infrastructure for the future of crypto ownership and data storage. So thank you to Serenity Shield for sponsoring the show, of course. And if you enjoyed this video, smash the like button, let me know in the comments what your favorite catalyst is from the list of 10 that I read out. It may have been nine, it may have been 11, but hopefully it was 10 and I'll see you in the next video, which is going to be tomorrow. Have a lovely day. Peace out everyone.
A World of Difference
A highlight from Emotional Health: Becky Castle Miller on Understanding Oppression's Impact on Emotional Health
"Hi, podcast listeners. Welcome to the A World of Difference podcast. We have so many guests on this show making a difference in our lives, making a difference all around the world with the expertise that they bring. And yet so many of you are reaching out to me saying, you want more? It's not enough. Just what we're putting on these podcast episodes for you. And so I am here to extend a very warm welcome to you to our Difference Maker community where you can join for as little as $5 a month to get all this extra content out the gate. You're going to get 30 plus minisodes of exclusive content not available for the regular podcast listeners and an exclusive minisode every month. And you'll get exclusive voting power to help us pick podcast topics and more. And that's at our Changers tier. There's three different main tiers and then an extra larger tier. But whatever tier that you join at, you will be included in this extra content. And I know that many of you are wanting to go a little bit deeper. And so even though it gets a little wild in there sometimes because of how deep we go, I want you to join us there. This extra content is very special. It means a great deal to me to be a part of this community with you. And I would love to just exchange ideas or perspectives that you have around these different episodes. And that's the place where we do it. So please show up to our Difference Maker community. Give us $5 out of your pocket every month. And I think that you'll have a lot of fun in there because we do. And I would love for you to join us. So go to patreon .com slash welcome to the A World of Difference podcast. I'm Lori Adams Brown, and this is a podcast for those who are different and want to make a difference. Today starts our brand new series where we are starting to talk about emotional health and happiness. And our guest today is Becky Castle Miller. Becky is a PhD student at Wheaton College studying New Testament with Esau McCauley. And her dissertation research is about emotions in the scriptures, specifically the Gospel of Luke. She writes and speaks on emotional, mental, and spiritual health in the church. She graduated from Northern Seminary where she studied with Dr. Scott McKnight, who is a friend of the show and has been on for a couple of times. And I know many of you have read his books. She actually also has written a book with Dr. Scott McKnight, a discipleship workbook, and it's called Following King Jesus. And she is also working on another project with him. She and her husband and their five kids and cat returned to the U .S. in 2020 after living in the Netherlands for eight years where she served as discipleship director at an international church. Today we're going to dig into some issues around emotional health in the church and specifically I'm going to be asking her about her perspective on what has gone on in recent days in the Southern Baptist Convention here in the United States. There are a lot of people around the world that have been watching this, both who are in the Christian community and outside of it. We've seen a lot of things on the news lately around women pastors. There's been a lot of, I would say, very emotionally unhealthy situations that people are trying to process in the aftermath of that. So we're going to ask her perspective on that and many other things around her research and how we can learn to move forward in a more emotionally healthy way in all of our spaces, whether it's our faith spaces, just regular neighborhood community spaces, government spaces, business, education, wherever we work and live and play and find our spiritual community. Becky has something to say to us around how to welcome the emotions that we have and what her research is showing her around how we can do that better together. So I am so excited to welcome for our first guest in this new series, Becky Castle Miller. Hello, Becky, and a very, very warm welcome to you to the A World of Difference podcast today. I'm so excited to be here, Laurie. Me too. I'm glad we're finally getting to meet. Yeah. There's so much we have in common, some mutual friends and just international experience and being women in the evangelical or post evangelical church. There's just a lot of crossover in our circles. And so I'm very excited about the things we're going to talk about today and hopeful that they can help us both be emotionally healthy, spiritually healthy about these conversations, but also find some calls to action where we can come together and really make a difference. But just right out the gate, a lot of people listening to this podcast are reeling from some of the things that we all watched, either. I mean, just even on regular news channels here in the United States and even globally, things being covered around the Southern Baptist Convention this week and a lot of nuance there for many of us. But I think for women to see that women pastors were used sort of as this sort of pawn, I guess, in a lot of ways to distract from abuse of women and men, but also to have what appears to be not an emotionally or psychologically or even physically safe place for women as they kind of took this backseat to a fight by these domineering men in our news feeds. And so I would just love for, first of all, to give you the opportunity to say, how do you feel as you have been watching this yourself? And do you have any things that, as you express how you feel, would be important for us to understand about how to kind of move forward? Yeah. Well, I think Beth Allison Barr had some really good commentary. So I would point people to her substack. She is formerly Southern Baptist, and so she's a little bit more connected to that world personally than I am. I've never been in a Southern Baptist church. I've been in many, many diverse churches and some kind of non -denominational, loosely Baptist, but never Southern Baptist. So it feels a little removed from me directly. So people like Beth Allison Barr are great to speak into that. One of my biggest concerns is Rick Warren's posturing of himself as this late convert to supporting women, but not really supporting vulnerable women. He put out a statement before the convention that he's changed his mind on women pastors, but I think he's still withholding eldership from women. And yet at the same time, he appointed a successor at Saddleback who has some pretty serious allegations of abusive leadership from his former church. And that has not been satisfactorily addressed. So there's a disconnect there between what Rick Warren says he wants to be as a champion for women, and yet he seems to be turning a blind eye or intentionally maybe even covering up abuse. So that's one concern I have about the stories coming out of the convention. I am glad that Barber won the presidency because he's a marginally better candidate than the other guy. But Barber has really been a lot of talk and not a ton of decisive action against abuse, and he is still against women in embracing their full ministry gifts. So it's like some small victories, but yet also it's been a platform for women to be demeaned publicly, like just to hear so many negative and critical things said about women in ministry. So I understand why a lot of women are leaving Southern Baptist churches, and I think that's actually a really healthy decision for those who make that choice. Yes, amen to that sister. Yeah, you know, having walked through abuse at the hands of Andy Wood, that is Rick Warren's successor, and at Saddleback, and, you know, being not the original whistleblower because there were two before me in the news last summer, but, you know, also knowing because I don't have an NDA, right, and my husband doesn't either, we refuse our NDA tied to severance and medical insurance. And so that's, you know, why I can speak, but I just personally know so many stories, and I know the stories that we told to the faux investigation at Saddleback last summer, and I say faux because a hiring agency is not a third -party investigation that just happens in a couple of days, you know, that needs months, it needs grace ministries, it needs a Wade Mullen, or it needs somebody with an expertise in, you know, something like an evangelical church with abuse allegations that are credible, and, you know, and their image management around that, you know, that's definitely something that's a specialty. And so when you're not willing to do the substantial work, I think that what I saw at Saddleback was, unfortunately, oddly consistent with what I've seen in Southern Baptist as a whole. I was a Southern Baptist for 45 years, right? I was a missionary kid all my life, and I married a missionary kid who was a Southern Baptist, too, and went to Southern Baptist University, went to Southern Baptist Seminary, worked as an IMB would at his previous church, Echo Church, before Saddleback, and walking through that, you know, multiple different types of abuse, you know, emotional abuse, physical, psychological, not physical, sorry, that does exist in the stories, but not mine. But I think that understanding emotional abuse, psychological abuse, spiritual abuse is a conversation to have in the church, but also in our society at large, and I think it's an opportunity for us to lead the way. And I think that it was not shocking that Saddleback was kicked out. I think that what is sad is that they were kicked out for women pastors and not for abuse, and therefore, Rick Warren and Andy Wood, you know, Andy being my abuser and Rick Warren being the one that covered up my abuse, and that of many others, are seen now as heroes and martyrs for the cause of women. And, you know, that was sort of disturbing to watch, even though I'm not a part of the Southern Baptist anymore. So I also, I love the work Beth Allison Barr is doing. I think many of us calling from the outside for women to be free, and also warning them about the places to go and silent complicity in bystanders and watching abuse happen to women over the years might be tempted to believe a Rick Warren or an Andy Wood if they start some new denomination or whatever happens in the wake of all this and whatever the point of all this was, to just be warned that there are some faux egalitarian spaces out there, and that's the conversation that's really going to be helpful, I think, going forward. I'd love for you to tell us more, though, about your research around emotions. We don't often talk about that, and I think what you're doing is really fascinating. You're doing research in the emotions of the Gospel of Luke. What led you to this particular era of study, and how is it relevant even to the conversation we're having right now? Yeah, I feel like I have dual interests in abuse and trauma and healing from those things and emotional health, and they're often viewed as two separate issues, but they overlap really significantly. They interweave with each other. Of course, they are different academic fields. You can do a dissertation in abuse. You can do a dissertation in trauma. You can do a dissertation in emotions, which is what I'm doing, but I'm hoping to bring those conversations together a little bit in my dissertation. I just finished my first year at Wheaton College in a PhD in New Testament, which is fantastic, and I really appreciate Wheaton supporting me in doing a multidisciplinary dissertation. So it is a New Testament project, but I'm leaning really heavily on some neuroscientific and psychological models of emotion, which is one thing that's been lacking in biblical studies is really the latest scientific research on emotion, so I'm excited to get to do that work. So I'm going to be taking some trauma and neuroscience classes in the counseling school and in the neuroscience department to supplement my New Testament work, and then I'm also hoping to bring in the impact of trauma and abuse on emotions. We'll see. It's only one dissertation, but I think those are really important aspects. When we look at emotion in the Gospels, we're looking at the emotions of an oppressed and traumatized people who are drawing on the history of oppressed and traumatized peoples over hundreds and thousands of years. So the emotions that Jesus' disciples learned from their culture are drawing from a culture of oppression, repeated you know, the slavery in Egypt and the Exodus, the Babylonian captivity, and release from that, and then in their current day, the occupation by the Romans. So I think we have to consider what impact trauma might be having on the emotions that they're constructing. When I did an analysis this past year on the emotions mentioned in the Gospel of Luke, I found 158 instances of emotion, and it depends how you categorize them, but so many of those instances were talking about fear. Jesus and angels are saying over and over again, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Well, why do they need to say don't be afraid? Perhaps it's because they're talking to people dealing with hypervigilance who are constantly feeling afraid in their bodies because they live in dangerous circumstances. So I think fear is a big component of gospel emotions. Jesus also talks about worry or anxiousness, and he talks about terror. So it's just a lot going on with fear -based emotions in the Gospel of Luke, and I think that the trauma of the people he's serving might have something to do with that. So that's one angle that I'm hoping to take, and we'll see where the rest of it goes. I think your work is so fascinating and so needed. I mean, you and I both spent time overseas, and so we understand in different cultures people express their emotions very differently. I was just in Abu Dhabi and Dubai earlier this year in March, and it's not the first time I've been to anywhere in North Africa in the Middle East, but we largely know that the way emotions are expressed in Middle Eastern culture versus white evangelical North American culture or even the Dutch, like very different expressions, right? And so we read sometimes things from the lens of maybe sitting in, I don't know, Wheaton, Illinois, right, with a bunch of white people around us reading it in a particular English translation, and we read things like sackcloth and ashes. Well, that's weird, you know, or with these like imprecatory Psalms that are just so full of like, wow, like, can we pray those things? Like, that's a lot. It's just, you know, we have books, you know, like Pete Scazzero's Emotionally Healthy Discipleship. We have all these things that are just, there's things that are happening right now, and the call to more lament, you know, the call to look back in our history and ask God to forgive us for our sins, not individually, but as a people. How have we been complicit? How are we currently complicit in abuse in the SBC, in racism, in what is, you know, started under racism because of, you know, enslaved peoples on forced labor camps, and how have those decisions, the root of that, produced the fruit of lording over and dominating people for the purpose of white male supremacy or patriarchy and things that are not helping any of us. So when we dig into emotional health as individuals, we have to look at it collectively too, and I think that our Western individualistic culture really makes it hard. We're very, we have a lot of blind spots if we only stay there. So the global church has really taught me so much about this. I'm so excited that you're studying under Esau McCauley. It's such a great opportunity for you. As you look into some of this area of emotional, mental, and spiritual health in the church, what are some common challenges that you find or misconceptions that you've come across, and maybe how could churches better address these issues? There's a lot of misunderstanding of emotion in just typical church conversation, and there's also a lack of knowledge of trauma, and those intersect again as well.
HASHR8
The Rise of Ordinal Inscriptions
"Give us a lay of the land on ordinals what's going on this week. So I guess refresher like water ordinal drying or nose is just kind of like an accountant standard of looking at Bitcoin, right? There's been no changes to Bitcoin that relate to this. It's kind of like you're running outside software and you're just looking at the chain a little bit. And the way you look at that is by numbering Bitcoin supply from zero to 21 million. And it's actually the smallest denomination of Bitcoin. So like one sat right to the 8th decimal place. But it's actually one that my math was right, like 2.1 quadrillion, something like that. And the idea is that if you do that, you have an idea of a certain code for each unit, then there's a kind of by nature non thunderbolt. them. And so the whole ordinal staying what people are doing where they were inscribing the sads, they're using some pretty sophisticated methods. And embedding them with different files. And so this started the wave, a lot called inscriptions, on Bitcoin, which have some, I guess, competition with the NFT space on other platforms where you can have like a jpeg attached to essentially a token, which in the sense it is a top sheet. Okay, so that's like the background, right? And then what happened lately is people doing kind of what the old operator and protocol is used to do, where, instead of just having kind of an NFT comment like a persistent jpeg attached to a specific satoshi, they were attaching fungible tokens, you're issuing an asset. Think of like a stablecoin or like a meme corner or something like that. And this was how tether kind of first originated on Bitcoin. And so the standard came out called BRC 20, kind of a nod to the ERC 20 standard on Ethereum that is how assets get issued there. And so let's see, instead of in Betty in like a jpeg file type to a satoshi, they would embed like a JSON, right? Like a certain text. That was structured in the same way each time. So you could basically trace and see these assets, whether it be a mint or a transfer, et cetera. If you're a programmer, it's just a dictionary, right? JSON. And so what's happened is people are basically minting a bunch of assets.
Bloomberg Radio New York
"dhabi" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"Investors in this region closely watching the adnan gas IPO and it surged on its trading debut. The subsidiary of Abu Dhabi's main energy company rose as much as 25% after raising $2.5 billion in the world's biggest IPO so far this year. Bloomberg's Madison is here with more so we're the executives happy. I mean, we lost some of that initial gain, but you know, still, biggest IPO of the year. Yeah, and still Simone, there were so many superlatives that I could think of to come to this conversation with. Like you said, world's biggest IPO so far this year. The biggest listing ever on the Abu Dhabi stock exchange and like you mentioned surging 25% in its debut, pairing that down a bit down to about 2.8% rise on the close there, but this is critical to watch. And we even got some news about adnoc later on in the day yesterday, just kind of showing us the beginnings of what the adnoc story is going to look like. They won a bid to supply fuel to Kenya alongside a few others. And bigger picture here, this is kind of a signal to me about the continued interest in IPOs coming from the gulf. This is just the first of many that we're expecting to see throughout 2023 and another example of what happens in the Middle East when the rest of the world is facing those macroeconomic headwinds like an SVB here in the Middle East. You get an adnoc that's having their best opening day that they could have probably imagined. Over in Tunisia now, Madison, you're really kind of following what we've been seeing after the president's speech there. There's some concerns now about the country solvency continuing to worsen. What's the update there? So lots of analysts betting on a default coming from Tunisia like you said to give some of that context this comes after president said remarks about black migrants into Tunisia that led to mob violence on the ground there. And as you can see here, analysts are a little bit mixed on whether or not the Tunisian government is going to be able to get that funding from the IMF following these comments. They were looking into a $2 billion loan that would help Tunisia avoid a potential default due to the economic situation on the ground. The context is critical here. The risk premium on Tunisian debt has been trading at distressed levels since September of 2021. There are hard currency shortages on the ground and the cost to ensure Tunisian debt against default rose to the most globally last week. So the situation there does continue to continue to be challenging, not just in terms of the tensions that we're seeing on the ground, but of course the economy as well. Let's also talk about another country that's, it has IMF 8 for whom IMF 8 is quite important for Egypt. One of the key parts of that IMF plan has been we want a more flexible exchange rate. And so now folks are calling for yet another devaluation it sounds like? Yet another devaluation we've already had three so far potentially one more and traders are on a record long streak of hedging against a decline in the Egyptian pound traded at almost 31 versus the dollar on Monday. And Wall Street banks are warning that the pressure on the currency could force the Central Bank into that fourth devaluation. The derivatives market signaling a deeper slide in the pound even after those first three devaluations. But looking at what the situation is for consumers on the ground, you know, the lack of foreign currency in Egypt continues to be an issue. We've been talking about the record breaking inflation numbers coming out of Egypt over 30% year over year. And another currency devaluation could put more pressure on that inflation for folks. Okay. Well, Madison, thanks so much for that update. That is a mills there. We got plenty more still ahead. This is Bloomberg
Bloomberg Radio New York
"dhabi" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"And in a comfortable position, you could say the same about Kuwait and Abu Dhabi. When we're looking for cracks and this is the key question, isn't it? In terms of where are the vulnerabilities going to bubble to the surface? It should be looking more at Dubai because I've been looking through the CDS. But on the metrics, I've been checking with some of the banks balance sheets. But at the moment there isn't anything. But where could something pop up? A significant drop in oil prices, any geopolitical unrest that might impact the region, but so far we are in the best place and we have been both Dubai and in the region in general, we have been in the ideal place if I may say. In the ideal place, which takes us then to inward investment into Egypt, we have this story Qatar and talks about two and a half billion into Egypt. So this is both a political goodwill gesture and at the same time you say it sets the stage for a different context of FDI and Egypt. Why would one off deal shift an narrative on FDI? It wouldn't be one of deal in my opinion. The IMF has been focusing on changing the structure to attract more FDIs. We expect more to come. And as you've mentioned from both the political and the support for Egypt perspective, so we don't want to change the narrative, but that would be the first of many. So what do they need to do with the currency? Where does it weaken towards? Because that's also going to determine your entry point back into a potential resurgence of the carriage rate. Absolutely. I mean, the IMF would like a complete float free field of the currency. Not what the IMF wants. What's in our response? I mean, ideally a free flow to reduce the pressure on the reserves, but having a free throw would have a big hit on the market because we don't know where it would overshoot and stop. Ideally this is what we would want. Practically, I don't think that it's going to happen. But there will definitely be a repricing of the currency. Dana was embassy, yes, he said that the full curve was being a little bit too aggressive and it wasn't going to drop. That aggressively. When you look at the Egyptian currency, who's driving that? Where's the flow that's driving that that's driving that currency at the moment that's driving our region as a whole at the moment? In Egypt, there are indirect capital controls previously. The FX reserves were controlling it. Now it's the efficacy. So now you don't have FBI anymore in Egypt. So once the currency reprices to 11 that international investors see as fair value, that would bring back effects and support the currency even further. Okay. Janet, thank you so much. Xander risk executive director for fixed income management and art camp capital. Play more ahead on daybreak Middle East
Bloomberg Radio New York
"dhabi" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"What IPO have you got in your swag bag? Oh man, where do you begin? We have pipelines, what have you got? Well, I have data analytics for you. G 42, we have it's a rather small IPO, a $175 million being pitched here. It's being managed by first Abu Dhabi bank and international security is all three firms including G 42 are tied to Sheik tahnun, so this company is coming to the market. It's a geopolitical and data analytics firm. So that's that one and we have empower which is looking to listen to November. They're thinking of 850 million their homes of dividends ahead of its IPO. The dividend play, the dividend yield has been one of the major attracting factors to our listings here in the region. And finally, we have the Saudi CMA approving Riyadh cables, another IPO that we set is coming to the table last week. Yeah, I mean the empower bills are just getting painful. They've always been painful. I don't like talking about empower. It's the one portion of my monthly expenses. What do you call this? No money at the end of the month. What about speaking of money? What about the earnings? We might get throughout the morning. Well, we might not have money, but it seems that a lot of companies do. We have a bank of Qatar. It's earnings rose from the year before. We had a 567 million real net income for the last 9 months. And we had Qatar Islamic bank. They reported a pretty impressive increase again in net income in the last 9 months from the year ago. I think it's just another sign of resilience in Qatar especially ahead of the World Cup that lone story still also really being preferred in the country and analysts like city, for example, are forecasting loan growth for Qatari banks. And finally, we had the Greek petroleum and Saudi Arabia reporting 62 million reals and its stocks surged after its earnings beat estimates yesterday. Okay, fine. Let's see a lot to take in terms of another IPO on the albeit a small one, but never a dull moment in Abu Dhabi or Dubai for the IPO Slade. Farrah Abraham. Our resident equities reporter
Bloomberg Radio New York
"dhabi" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"Let's get you a bit of an overview of how Middle East markets feared remember that Dubai and Abu Dhabi were offline because it was the second day of the weekend. So they only come back just like the rest of the world, but you had some indexes that were open with a little bit of downside on the Saudi index down about 6 tenths of 1% going into trade. It's going to be about earnings. It's going to be about oil prices. I'm looking at adnoc distribution. It reported profit for the second quarter that beat the average analyst estimates. And that's going to provide an important floor for sentiment as we count down to the open in Abu Dhabi and a few other important stories that we're going to get to with Farah later on. Yeah, I mean the oil market has come back by over 10%. This is a small bunch in that this morning, but that backdrop to giving us a kind of immunity in the Middle East has been one of our saving graces to the bond markets focused in on the sovereign bonds. You've seen Australian rates Japanese raise the belly of the curve rising in tandem with that explosion of the short end in the United States of America, Aussie rates up by 13.2 basis points in the belly of the curve. Is that translating into the Aussie dollar? Well, it's up a quarter of 1% this morning, but you can see, as well as that, the dollar is relatively flat at this juncture. Again, it's really scorched earth by Bond burrs, which is driving these markets this morning. Yeah, I mean, you think about what the labor market delivered and what the inflation data might show us later this week. Maybe it's time to start thinking about an intermediate rate hike by the fed. I mean, I know it sounds contentious. I know there's all a historical precedent, but
Bloomberg Radio New York
"dhabi" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"Next best thing that they can do is buy back their own shares. And we're starting to see more of those kind of announcements coming through. So that's definitely a source of support for the equity market going forward. High pronounced is your overweight commodities. Is it overweight commodities relative to underweight equities? I talked about wheat giving back this year's gains copper down 25% oil down 8%. Were and how do you want to be overweight commodities? We still would be overweight commodities and we still would be overweight, precious metals and energy in that order. For us, there's still supply shortage in. Despite what we've seen in the oil price overnight and the actions of OPEC plus, we still think that that dynamic is very tight you mentioned how little spare capacity there is in the oil market. One dynamic that we've seen is that there's been very little CAPEX from oil exploration and producers and that is going to weigh on the market going forwards in other words. It's going to mean that the oil price is going to be have a very firm floor. So we'd still stay overweight commodities, energy, precious metals, we still think have more room to the upside than the downside right now. I'll talk this has been hugely insightful. Thank you for making the time that's all tough custom on the stage. Global advisers head of EMEA investment strategy and research and breaking lines hitting Bloomberg. This is from adnoc drilling. They have been awarded $4.4 billion worth of contracts. This is Abu Dhabi based well construction services conventional, unconventional reservoirs on land. They got recently joined the listing IPOs, right? Yep, that was one of the IPOs done under doctor sultan, ad knock and borealis, the joint venture with burros. So keep an eye on that. Another
Bloomberg Radio New York
"dhabi" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"This is Bloomberg daybreak Middle East Your top stories this morning Stocks are slumped and oil tumbles as disappointing data shows a sharp contraction in China's economy underscoring concerns about the nation's COVID zero policy Though blank find urges companies and consumers prepare for a U.S. recession saying it's a very very high risk Saudi Aramco posts the highest profit since its record IPO as oil prices served And what leaders descend on the UAE to pay tribute to the federation's late ruler and his brother succeeds him We'll get to Abu Dhabi in just a moment Let's get to David ingles in terms of the risk what a torrid set of data from the Chinese The question is is it retrospective and I suppose a hint of light at the end of this tunnel It's indicative So I'll put it this way It's indicative of what could happen to the economy if the types of lockdowns and restrictions to mobility that we had in April and you're looking at the data missed pretty much most forecast If these restrictions stay in place for longer now when you look at what the national abuse statistics said and also separately what's coming out of Shanghai there are efforts to try and avoid what happened in April certainly there was a knee jerk reaction in markets and most of these growth related to proxies and assets are trading at session lows But then when you look ahead and hopefully some of these plans come to fruition of course it does seem It does seem that there's a blueprint in place and the rest of the region though when you look at assets outside China for example places like Japan for example India which are trading slightly higher as we speak it doesn't look like this really disturbed markets a whole lot but we'll have to wait and see these next few hours Back to you guys Okay thank you very much David ingles there with a very latest on the markets Now the world leaders are descending on the UAE to pay tribute to the federation's ruler who passed away over the weekend The U.S. delegation including Kamala Harris and as the blanken has literally just touched on in Abu Dhabi I'm rewarded is on that flight she's traveling with the vice president She joins us on the line now So Anne Marie we've chatted a couple of times exchange a few messages over the weekend It's the size and the scale of this delegation that sort of thwarts anything that we've seen from the UK and France Oh yeah that's very true We saw Emmanuel Macron and Boris Johnson to send upon Abu Dhabi to pay their respects but this U.S. delegation in madness Let me just correct you for a moment It's been very tricky and confusing I've been traveling just with secretary blinken He was actually in Paris and Berlin prior to this trip Then we got diverted to join this delegation Abu Dhabi and the vice president alongside Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin the CAA JA Bill burns climate envoy John Kerry along with Brett mcgurk Barbara Lee are all coming as part of a very extensive very high level U.S. delegation to the Emirates What about the news that NATO is preparing to add to Finland and Sweden and Marie What is the U.S. going to try and achieve in the coming hours to try and bolster the case and try to get this done and sealed So this is really what the discussion was in Berlin with secretary blinking meeting his counterparts he also met with the Ukrainian foreign minister of the mitral quebe before he met with his counterpart and really the most important person he met on the margins of this NATO meeting was his Turkish counterpart because right now Finland and Sweden are on the path to join the alliance but turkey is raising concerns and NATO of course has its open door policy but what you heard pretty directly from the Secretary of State yesterday as well as foreign minister adelina Burbank of Germany was that across the board NATO almost by and large supports their Ascension into the alliance But it does look like they're going to have to hammer out some details and have a lot more discussion to get Istanbul on board with these two countries and to Nordic countries joining NATO Now I'm Marie given the complexion of the delegation that has arrived It's very well known that there are no signs that the UAE in the first instance of the UN did not vote against the war They've since come on side in terms of let's move to negotiation Diplomacy Do you think that part of this mission will involve some side bilaterals in terms of Ukraine Russia and where the UAE stands on that with their American allies So what I'll say now is let's go to you as official and they said that they are sending this big delegation because they really want to make a very strong message and an effort to show a sign of strength and the strengthening of this relation but it's coming in culmination of the bilateral we have seen already that are discussing and you're alluding to these issues Most notably Russia given the fact that we have seen the UAE really not want to isolate Russia the same way we've seen European allies with alongside the United States So I'm not exactly sure if there's going to be this political discussion given why they are descending upon Abu Dhabi but clearly they are trying to show that America stands by the UAE and they want to make sure that even though there is potentially moments of a bumpy relationship with the Biden administration most notably because they are dealing with Iran in terms of potentially entering in another JCPOA agreement that this relationship is.
Bloomberg Radio New York
"dhabi" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"The last year The fourth quarter operating income line just hit the Bloomberg as well So that is at $8.73 billion which is also a beat Analysts had expected $8.57 billion a little bit of a more modest speed than the strong beat of around $400 million on the fourth quarter and net income line Questions are still going to be asked about income trends at the wealth management division and the investment bank You think of UBS two biggest revenue contributors That's your breakdown among analysts 18 buys 9 holes and one cell on UBS We're going to hear from the CEO Ralph hamers in just over an hour's time that's going to happen at 11 a.m. Dubai time 7 a.m. in London to flesh out some of these important bits and pieces Let's get to the Middle East markets now Our equities reporter fauna habana is back with us here on the set And looking at some of the stocks potentially on the move at the open following this tax announcement Absolutely yussef Good morning We should definitely be looking out for the large cap stocks in Dubai and Abu Dhabi like first Abu Dhabi bank and Emirates MBD as well as the telecommunication shares particularly because of this a lot and they already pay royalties to the government So any impact on profitability even further could see some pressures on the share And also it's important to watch ad Nox units including ad non distribution at Mac drilling and Freddie globe Just looking at what city said and overnight they think that DIB adnoc distribution and adc are going to be the stock's most negatively impacted from the new tax Under their coverage And then we have emerit First Abu Dhabi bank and RMX they're going to be less impacted according to a city And then in terms of earnings in this part of the world to buy investment which is one of the bigger companies on the index what else is on the radar Yeah divide investments yesterday reported 80% increase from profit from a year ago 619 million their homes which.
Bloomberg Radio New York
"dhabi" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"Have the top up to 50% anyway So if you're for an operation and you choose between you you sell it It doesn't make a difference If you want to settle your company somewhere it may make a difference Having said that the Zack cuts in Saudi Arabia on average works out to be around 6 to even 11% are now numbers So it's not a big disadvantage to be Saudi Arabia for example And I think also all the GCC countries will evaluate the potential applications of the agreement that they signed up last year to implement the global minimum tax rate for 50% So I think auto countries may actually follow this as well So I don't think this has a big impact on the competitive position of the UE which is not only based on the facts of taxes that are applied here to the very low but also UE has a lot more going for it as well Would you say that Abu Dhabi stocks are a little bit better insulated than Dubai just in terms of the exposure to foreign capital could we see that divergence come back to life which was kind of one of the big themes of 21 wasn't it I'm not sure I think a couple of stocks that are vulnerable at high beta stocks affect for example also is an IP that could be vulnerable Even far up is a high beta stock and the dividend support has fallen away After the dividend got the implemented last week but with it whilst on the DFM I expect the DFM stock to be particularly vulnerable but also stock like email which is having a very high foreign ownership Yeah this has been a terrific conversation real-time insights on a developing story from deep within the world of regional equities It's Meyer and managing director and head of equities research at our capital So much more ahead on the show.
Bloomberg Radio New York
"dhabi" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"As well Bloomberg has learned that Abu Dhabi's state energy company adnoc is going to raise three $1 billion from a debut bond sale this year Foxman has those details Simone they've got higher energy prices and they've got a clock ticking down on higher rates So clearly this is now a top priority for the company Companies management Yeah that's right And it also appears to be following the likes of Qatar energy and Aramco into Tapping international debt markets Notably this isn't just three to $5 billion that may happen this year It's also a $15 billion debt issuance plan on a multiyear period So could be a lot of interesting paper here for investors looking for high quality credits They've already assigned the credit raging agencies a double-A rating or the equivalent for this new debt entity And that's something that's been really important because some of this debt seen as potentially insulated removes that we might see by the fed because these local currencies are tied to the U.S. dollar Another key interesting bit of debt that you might be in the market for if you're looking for this high highly rated paper from this region is what maybe issued a green bond by the Qatari government could also potentially buy Qatar energy we reported on this earlier this week that that is anticipated as well HSBC had told us earlier this month that they expected this to be a very busy month of January and February for bond issuance So far it does seem to be shaping up to be that way Excuse me Excuse me More bad news for turkey's natural gas supply after Iran slashed its exports tell us a little bit more Yeah we're hearing from president Erdoğan that what was projected to be a ten day supply shortage may now turn into a 15 day shutdown in this pipeline that's going from Iran to turkey We had already seen the impact here on industry because turkey had shut down power in two some of its industrial plants and power plants and industrial areas for several days various producers have stopped production in response to that And this really does play into that inflation story which is so high already in turkey over 36% were due to get a new inflation projections from the Central Bank today but women would only imagine that higher energy prices already have been a part of that inflation story and are going to continue to be so continuing to drive what's really been one of the wildest stories in emerging markets over the past year Yeah and speaking of wild stories a venture firm may be nearing a deal to buy the controversial Israeli cyber company NSO group which has made all kinds of headlines for the wrong reasons Who's the suitor It goes by the name of integrity partners This is a little known American VC firm and it's run by a group of people who are mostly ex U.S. soldiers Remember NSO group as you've mentioned these controversial headlines coming because it is the creator of Pegasus This very controversial software that has been used to hack the phones of activists dissidents journalists around the world that controversy has really taken a hit to the company's financial health pushing bonds due in 2025 down below 50 cents on the dollar But integrity could come in and buy this asset the reports indicate $300 million might be the purchase price And then they've said they would go essentially to the government try and ask for the company to be removed from the government blacklist for government contracts in the United States And then turn into more of a defensive cybersecurity play NSO groups part they say that there are various suitors interested in that company but a source close to the matter says integrity is just the one that's farthest along We will see if this deal goes through and who ends up with this crucial bit of software Okay Simone thank you very much let's get back to the market action Asia's playing catch up and reaction to a more hawkish fed pivot You're looking at these Asian equities China Josef briefly dipped into a bear market faster red hikes tightening econ and even a more benevolent PBOC can't stop the CSI from dropping but it is on the hang seng and the Hank saying tech that we're seeing the most brutal of drawdowns and on the nicke down over three and a quarter percent Yeah I'm looking at the sector breakdown here of the MSCI Asia Pacific index just to give us a bit of a better understanding of where the pain is being felt most consumer discretionary down 3.8% healthcare down 3.3% The relative outperformer are some of the energy names and financials as well Let's fit the board see how this is trickling through to equity futures or rather how equity futures in the U.S. are setting the scene There was a lot less accommodative language that we got from the fed chair overnight A lot of the traditional verbiage are on gradual and careful and slow and data points All of that sort of started to get fizzled out And the market taking a clear position on that.
Bloomberg Radio New York
"dhabi" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"Welcome back to the best of daybreak Middle East On Wednesday morning we broke the photograph pricing range which is between two 45 and two 65 Durham's a share That translates to a company value of between 5 and a half and 6 billion U.S. dollars We got more on the idea of frenzy that we've been seeing in Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia with Muhammad Ali has seen the chief strategy officer at Al Dhabi capital It was a compelling story for maybe with a valuation now that we see the valuation we see the upping of the dividend and we have the I three anchor investors It really goes to the anchor investors represent around 25 to 30% of the offering So that leaves even less shares available for people to subscribe and also what I like about the announcement I think is this is the third IPO where unlock is involved And I think has really progressively with every IPO since I've not distribution to drilling to this one have been if you allow me to this expression playing the IPO game very well in terms of making sure that testing the market sentiment where we're testing where we need evaluation Subscribe to hire and the dividend story And now adding an independent board member and an active investor on board that really tells me that the balance of this company going forward should be a very positive one How do you think an actor Do you think it's significant and activist investor on the board I'd love to be a fly on the wall with a board meeting with doctor sultan and an activist investor This board this board is already global 58% of 42% and not 58% or ascom is the white no Managing this company And therefore they're active enough as it is So you're going to have two active investors and that block probably trying to play them with this alignment between them I know It was a joke If he is tuning in no offense doctors all time No So that's the 30 globe story You belong of that We wrote a story that was going to be worth $7 billion That's not the number that we got Do you think they have to cheapen it up and raise the dividend to get it away for the three pillar investors Definitely when we were looking at the initial guidance in terms of dividend of $315 million and when you started to mention the valuation I thought okay somewhere closer to the lower end will give you a dividend of the range of 5.76% which is comparable to a result of the admiral drilling come through But now by upping this 200 because remember you subscribing now this is going to be at the end of this month And you're going to get 6 months dividend now as the last 6 months of the year of 200 That's a very high dividend distribution and a confidence vote I think also the fact that what's happening in the world energy in terms of what we see is also really has given them a more maybe bullish view on the future because the pricing of the urea and ammonia is going up also as with everything else and maybe that gives them a bit more room to distribute more going forward Okay Well look let's see what allocation you get in 30 go Always think of your friends Remember your friends here in Dubai If you've got a little bit of extra day and I'm available Let's talk Let's talk about let's talk about aqua power patty pad Manson must be happy I mean 30% up on day one some would say was irrationally exuberance and a tampering of 10% is not something to be worried about Where is the market Is the market trying to find a more realistic level on aqua par Or do you think there's more to go I mean our time capital have 73 reals on it and a buy and as a unique position Do you concur that much mileage in it Yeah I think I quite power is a good story in this series continue on the long-term The reactions of the first or second days in the markets on iPhone IPOs is really the result of exuberance and result of crazy book building numbers that come in The company was looking for $1.2 billion and was collected something like I don't know 300 or something like that And you really get the allocation of people who are getting an applications of peanuts Which really means that they have to come back to the market to build those positions going forward I never believed that a 30% up It's something that will be sustained because when workman shares on the first day go 30% up That's either telling you that the investment bank is not blue their job then they evaluated the company And there is something out of the market and all of these three I don't think are there But there's a lot of liquidity The success of these IPOs in opening up higher is really just pushing people towards faith more and more And you're seeing today like the announcement that came from Abu Dhabi also about this IPO fund This seems to be a part of the strategy to increase the depth of those capital markets and that was a great time to do that Relying mostly by the way unlock and lock in liquidity with maybe 20 to 30 coming from international So it's a good story and it's a good time I can see why everybody is excited But I don't think I followed the drop of 10% It's just trying to find its feet for the first two days of trading So under the stabilize somewhere around closer to the IPO price plus or -5% Okay so that's a little bit of the buy the dip then is it Oil Okay Oil nuru roubini said to me yesterday he thought it would make a $100 before Christmas Do you think we'll make a $100 before Christmas dinner but if we do how dangerous is that to growth It's a boon fiscally for us here but it's a risk to global growth No I agree with you Now it's easy for everyone to go and compete in putting higher prices just like when it goes going down they're competing on putting lower prices Because the consequences of these prices is what we're us here and what is anybody today who understands I've been in this part of the world High oil prices are good in terms of headline However it's good in terms of giving the government's money to continue their development spending However in terms of the bigger picture of the cost of commodities the effects on food we are countries that import most of our requirements and therefore increasing the price of oil increasing the price would increase those kinds of things which means that we are importing inflation I'm actually I would ideally would be good for us if we can see those oil prices somewhere in the range 65 to 80 stabilized there We may guess we will continue to see the $100 I'm not debating that And I can see that happening I just hope it doesn't stay there for a long period of time to really hurt And just addressing one of the questions that I heard you discussing previous tests I don't think the inflation is transitory I think it's here to stay And I think this is the biggest challenge for us in 2022 And it will surprise some people for some kinds of some central banks to.
Bloomberg Radio New York
"dhabi" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"Affect spread sort of across the golf Well I think across the gulf it doesn't really change it that much because you've already got a fully developed Abu Dhabi government curve And this essentially is going to be a risk So it doesn't change it from that perspective But I think it is a precursor to potentially a local currency issuance as well out of the UAE And this I think will be the next step in terms of development of the financial markets within the UAE that they are able to issue a local currency a paper In terms of some of the trends I look at what emerging market funds have been doing in the last week And yeah whatever we put stocks to decide for them in it But it's also $200 million worth of bonds and they have to balance the risk of inflation What does the currencies and the net benefit that a lot of the oil exporters stand to gain just in terms of the EM space what are you telling clients in terms of strategy at the moment given the background of the fed Well yeah I guess the summer months was being a little bit challenging because we did see yields moving significantly lower We saw the treasuries ten year treasuries trade down to the one and a half One 30 And I think now what we're seeing is we're seeing that this inflation re environment which is meant to be transitory and how transitory is that inflationary environment So we are keeping all of our portfolios or shorter duration shorter than their benchmarks And we also still sitting in the high yield space at that space should be well protected for the timing as long as there's not a disorderly unwinding of this quantitative easing as a fed moves to withdraw the liquidity from the market But for the time being stating incremental moves in yields will be okay for high yield I mean here's what quite a few key players are telling me in some of the lunches I've had this past week It really concerned inflation I mean it's not quite reflected now But if commodity prices continue to rise the way they're doing Brent's above $82 a barrel That's going to trickle back very very quickly into CPI and it could cause quite a bit of overheating Is that something that you're looking at A 100% I understand I think it's less of an issue in the GCC because they benefit from a higher oil price So there is a little bit of a protection But even in the hard grade space there's not a big buffer for the likes of Abu Dhabi for the credit space to compress to absorb some of this higher yields So I think you're across the board as we do see inflation becoming embedded and maybe investors Thought process saying well actually maybe this isn't transitory I think that central banks around the world are now looking at inflation and saying that may not be as transitory as we expect These bottlenecks supply chain bottlenecks are not going away anytime soon So within the gulf then what are some of the recommendations on the corporate side I mean you're still recommending democracy right I think we still looking at the shortage duration kind of plays The exposures where you benefiting from the reopening and the economy the recent addition to our portfolio has been James education That's been one that we stayed away But the schools are back now Kids are back The school buses are operating again Extramural activities are back So this is positive for gems We're also looking at other short duration maybe your meth 5 and a half 2022 We expect them to call those next year It's generating yield just under 4% So it's not exciting but at least it is relatively stable Doug thank you very much for getting us a bit of a reaction then on some of the developments in the fixed income space Doug Bitcoin is the head of credit strategies that Ross vanna investment bank look forward to next time So much more to come So see.
Daily Tech News Show
"dhabi" Discussed on Daily Tech News Show
"Safe place for a cargo. Drowned to land swap. It's battery out and it's protected from the elements and anybody who might have interests in its medical cargo because again this is the hospital. The first packages will be temperature sensitive hardshell cases with vials of things like lab samples medication even blood inside that would normally be transferred over land but have a short shelf-life so going by drone can be advantageous. The station includes a small collection. Door could be opened by an authorized party kinda like restricted areas of a hospital itself. The station's first big deployment will be an abu dhabi where that is working with. Sky go and the city's health department to roll out a network of forty stations across the city pointed out that this is one of those rare cases where the prototype like the concept art is what it ended up looking like this big flower thing that they showed off before is not just the concept art. It's actually what they built. Yeah it really does. It looks it. Looks like some sort of steel art thing that you might see in the front of an office building of some kind but Yeah it's neat up above the ground enough so that it would be quite difficult for somebody to get in there and it sounds like they're trying to keep it as lockdown as possible so that Sensitive material can fly and land safely to all those people who were like way. You're just gonna land blood samples on the lawn. People will steal them. Here's your answer. It's a matter at all right. Let's check out the bag. Let's do it okay. So we got the iphone. Thirteen be covered it in depth a few weeks ago. Now and ryan says the pro res- rock video capture on phone. Thirteen is perfect for his work and he gives us an example ryan..
Places I Remember with Lea Lane
"dhabi" Discussed on Places I Remember with Lea Lane
"It's thicker than glass but it see through floor as well and you're suspended up and hits a preset meal of course you can't pick up a menu and have it flown up to you. Although i bet you that day is coming. We drones on but but baio yes suspended up there. And you've got a three course meal. And i'm assuming three hundred sixty degree views but no. I have not done it yet. Well i can imagine what you might not want to locate with hype. I'm a bad with heights. Which is good because most people who come here say you go to take the personally fund and eat even on one hundred twenty twenty four th floor. You're still a fairly good way up. Oh yeah when you you look down you realize how high it is. The name of the pie cast is places. I remember so garrett. Could you please share with us. A special memory of yours about dubai the easiest and all this one was Was resume getting married in in dubai. Me and that's all was gonna trump all of the the random encounters with famous people that that that just happened. But i know I was for fortunate enough of them. Married that lovely. Sarah in little church in dubai that despite it being the e being muslim country they are very respectful of other faiths and we got a church wedding during on lockdown time. So a week we masks. Our two guests were mass to witnesses. The minister was in masks and we had it on facebook. Live so our friends and family around the world to watch it so that's always going to be no matter what happens that's that's going to be my takeaway mantech and there's nothing more lovely than that. That is the most superlative thing of all. Yes thank you. I did live in the dubai marina. And so every friday morning i would go to the same grocery store and every friday morning i would see the same retired english cricket store buying groceries and just like morning morning before i got married. That may have been the big things like. Yeah he made me by my first name but dollars yeah well. I've noticed a lot of the memories that people share our special memories like that a small memory to some but a big memory to the person and those are the things you you you carry with you the rest of your life of course thank you for sharing that one. I do hope that dubai keeps coming up with superlative things to see and do we can all use a bit of magic in our lives as we traveled the world. A thank you garrett. I it for helping us better. Understand what makes you by such an extraordinary destination. Thank you once again leah for for inviting me on and it's been.
Places I Remember with Lea Lane
"dhabi" Discussed on Places I Remember with Lea Lane
"And i don't know if you've seen that when it it's the first multicolored fountain in the city. And it uses the fourteen thousand square feet of seawater to light up these staggering heights of of what it is three thousand lights. It's in the guinness book of world records. Not not one in person. Yet i have seen the dubai fountain many times. But i've not seen the palm one in person yet. So the dubai fountain his famous by. It's by bursch khalif And it it's a set to music very much like balaj yo in in las vegas. Everybody gets to see that. There's an increasing art and culture seen in dubai and and one of the unique art installations is a new one. It's theater of digital art and a lot of cities are having these digital displays of monet and van gogh and so forth but this one's a permanent virtual reality it has music and virtual displays. So that's a good new thing if you've been to dubai before this. This is a new feature p. One and get out of dubai. I'm not sure why but you can take some wonderful day. Trips out of dubai and the most famous one is abu dhabi which is what about forty minutes. Forty five minutes on a highway. I've mentioned the fabulous shake zayat grand mosque which i talked about it in episode twenty five and how i came back to see it but there's also a great camel market and is a falcon hospital. There's branch of the louvre museum. So if you wanna take a day or two or three. You're a very close to abu dhabi. If you get it you fly into dubai and you can go to both. I think just a visit to the grand mosque. It is just a truly remarkable building. Did system. I mean a feat of architecture viz region in general. I mean is an architect's dream. Really i mean just register the shapes and sizes of the buildings and the curbs and whatnot going back to the the arts and cultures to by opening of the museum of the future set to open later this year from the outside. The building just looks absolutely amazing. It's right on shake zayed road which is the main highway that bisects the city. It's five lanes each side and yeah it just looks amazing. Course dubai's got expo twenty twenty this year. It's still being called. Twenty twenty just like chick tokyo olympics. Where the money and that kicks off right away. So that'll be more art and culture and Just a vision of technology. I think it's very interesting because dubai started off with these attractions the superlatives and activities but it is now coming into us a time of culture where both abu dhabi and dubai or having some of the great museums of the world. Now and it's a it's a lovely thing to add that to the mix about food there's great regional food but there were also great restaurants star chefs all over the place. I mean credible and many in extraordinary settings one of the most interesting is called dinner in the sky. You can sign on a suspended table at about fifty meters high in the air crane. Kind of this thing and you indulgence. Delicious food while you look over the entire area. I did not do this. Have you done this when we actually planned to do it. But then for some reason it fell through. But yeah you're basically in this. Some i'm gonna say glass cube. It's not glass..
Daddy Issuez Coven
"dhabi" Discussed on Daddy Issuez Coven
"I know that you guys are listening to this right now. And you're like. Oh wow wonder what kind of weird extra stuff they have. You don't understand just how much of that stuff that we have. So i actually okay now. Here's what started this. I thought to myself am. I gonna make a whole nother season on unreleased content and my answer to myself was now without paying you. But it'll be worth it. Okay like i'm gonna have. I'm gonna be recording with people on my own regularly just locally just bitches with issues just saying you know if you've got a if you got shit to say i want to hear it seriously fucking wanna hear you. I love the people writing into the show as they are We actually have a new fan of the show. That actually wants to serve me Largely because he's heard about me on air like he's listened to our episodes and kind of knows the person i am so that was awesome. That's very cool. I do have like a couple of openings in my service. So if you think you're worth a fucking damn. I'll decide and you can hit me up and i'll figure out if you are in the meantime that's something i. It's a subscription service. It's not there's going to be a couple of different options so you don't have to pay a lot to like get access to this unreleased shit but the higher up you go the more you get in you can on a certain tier you can even be a guest on the show. I'll that'd be cool dhabi so cool so if you want to be part of the daddy issues family you already are but you might as well fucking get in on the ground floor of this subscription. Because it's fucking it's gonna be fucking awesome. Okay i'm going to put the kinky weirdest most awesome fucking shit on this fucking thing and you guys are gonna be like. Oh my god. I'll put it this way..
Rescot Creative
Traditional vs. Contemporary Classical Music
"Today we are talking about the somewhat controversial topic of traditional versus contemporary. And this is a debate in pretty much all areas of life or art forms, whether you are thinking literary. So where you have a more traditional or even historical type fiction versus contemporary fiction or in music, if you like the traditional sounding songs, very classical, or a more contemporary pop genre, and obviously to apologize to everything else, like politics, if you have your more traditional people and your more contemporary progressive people anyway, I personally believe that it's important that we can appreciate things on both sides. Of the line. So when it comes to more traditional sounding violin music, you're going to think, especially a lot about Bach baro, classical era, music like Mozart, so here's a little box. Okay, so this very ornate decorative sounding music or you might have something even from the romantic time period, which was 19th century. Right? Now, if you are actually trying to do something more contemporary, you might do a little bit more with improvisation, although actually in the baroque era Bach did improvise a lot. But for example, if this was like twinkle little star. You know, Abu Dhabi in French Mozart did a ton of variations on that. But a contemporary version of that could be.
The Eric Metaxas Show
Phelim McAleer on Crowdfunding for His Film "My Son Hunter"
"I want to bring Falem mcaleer my old friend from ireland. Falem we've had you and and your wife on this program many times about many fun things you've been on this program talking about this hunter biden film. This movie that you're making and we wanted to get an update from you because he's been in the news a lot lately all horrifying and fascinating Where where are we with one hundred movie. Well horrifying and fascinating is correct. We are we have just. I mean it's amazing. We've just got robert. The actor robert davol dhabi to agree to direct the movie. It's amazing he's a. He's a veteran actor. He's a wonderful person agreed artists as while he's gonna come on board he's gonna give us his his benefit of has thirty five forty years of experience in the entertainment business in the movies. He's been everything from. He's been bombed villain Diehard he's doing on helen. Yes robert davi. I've met robert dhabi. But you're telling i didn't realize he was a bond. It's unbelievable that's fantastic. It doesn't get too much bigger than that. And he's derided the film. Where are we with the funding on the film. Well so we're we the total. We need two point five million. We're now. I think it's one point six right one point six so Really to get the get the start paying the bills and no people are smart. They want money in escrow and all that we need one point we really. We've got two hundred thousand really kicked off a mixture that we can really make this movie. So i mean we're cried funding. It's and people have been so generous like within one point six from donations right. That's a lotta money. That's a lot of people wanting this story to be told needing this story to be told. There's a hunger for the truth. Eagle go gone the website. My son hunter dot com on. They've come up. It's amazing but we do need their
The Academic Minute
Bas Rokers, NYU Abu Dhabi Takes Your Brain Through Virtual Reality
"What if you could walk into a room full of strangers and see names another elephant details floating above everyone's head. Augmented reality can make such world possible. The technology may soon be built into glasses. For example so does virtual content can be superimposed on our view of the real world. Engineers are close to solving many challenges involved in augmented reality at the same time however our understanding of the conditions on the which our brains can or cannot take advantage of the additional information is relatively limited in a recent study at the university of wisconsin madison and newark university. I would dhabi manipulated. The virtual content displayed. We found it under naturalistic. Viewing conditions the brain exploits. Small involuntary had movements which we call head jitter to improve visual perception for augmented reality devices to work well debt for they should record your head jitter and update the virtual content accordingly as an imported aside. We founded commonly available virtual reality headsets. Do not work well for large fraction of the population. Specifically some popular. Headsets provide a poor fit to women. As a result females tend to report a poor visual experience and greater motion sickness. I work informs the design of new virtual and augmented reality devices and may help us. Better understand deniro. Mechanisms that are disrupted in perceptual disorders.
Solvable
Cultural Asymmetry in Music Technology
"Cultural asymmetry is the fact that music technologies and the way that music is presented and represented tends to lean towards a western conception of what music is rather than be something that is balanced where all musical cultures are on an equal footing in an equally respectful. Way tell me a little bit about your earliest music memories. My earliest musical memory is learning to play the violin in damascus. At seven or eight years old at the time and then we moved to london. I was nine. And then i didn't really have any connection with might arab identity per se or at least the connections were were tenuous at the time but why did notice. Was that the band. Killing joke. released an album in the mid nineties pandemonium on which a very famous lebanese violinist. His name is abu dhabi delile. He played and Particularly there's a track called communion that sound of this freebie heavy industrial music with this violin. This beautiful live on time arabic violin to go over at Really really really got me. It just hit a place in my spirit that i wasn't really aware
The Doctor's Farmacy with Mark Hyman, M.D.
The Problem of Gestational Diabetes With Dr. Elizabeth Boham
"We're gonna be talking about conditions pretty common This one hundred percent preventable. A hundred percent reversible that is managed often in very weird ways by traditional medicine and something that's called just station diabetes which is essentially diabetes of pregnancy. So liz tell us how common is this problem. And why should we even care. Be worried about it. Yeah well thanks mark. thanks for having me. It's great to be on with you again and It's really common actually say up to ten percent of women have diabetes which means their blood. Sugar is too high during pregnancy and as a result. What happens when their blood sugar too high during pregnancy is the babies grow too big right so they will get. They will get over weight when they're born so they can grow big. Those offspring often have increased risk of insulin resistance and diabetes and waking when they're adults so when women have just diabetes during their pregnancy. It makes it harder for that baby to maintain healthy weight. When they're an adult so it's trans-generational absolutely not only. Is it dangerous for the baby. During that pregnancy they have a higher rate of of problems with birth. They've increased rate of c-section but their metabolism is damaged. So they have a harder. Time with maintaining normal weight as an adult. They have an increased risk of obesity. They have an increased risk of insulin. Resistance and For that mother to if they had just stations diabetes they have a much higher rates of diabetes post pregnancy. Both type one and type two which is interesting. So they also have a higher rate of cardiovascular disease. they say that a third will develop metabolic syndrome when the within the next five years. So you know it's it is definitely a risk so if if you were told during your pregnancy that you had just diabetes or you you're at risk for just station diabetes. It's important that you are paying attention to your blood sugar to your insulin level to that waist to hip ratio postpartum. Because because you don't want you wanna be be picking this up early. 'cause it's really much easier to reverse if you pick it up early. Imposed ten percent of women who have pregnancies have this problem which is a lot At but when you think about the fact that one and two americans has prediabetes or type two diabetes. You know that's pretty significant. And the question i am is if ten percent have actual just diabetes which means your blood sugar is over a hundred forty after a glucose tolerance test one hundred. Twenty six fasting. How many have prediabetes. Who are pregnant. Yeah because it might be the same ratio as with regular dhabi might be like ten percent and another forty percent of the population might have prediabetes pregnant and that also comes with risks.
Xtra Sports Radio 1300 AM
"dhabi" Discussed on Xtra Sports Radio 1300 AM
"It's a little different in that regard. I was talking to the wife last night, and we were wondering where we could take the kids and I was wonder. Can you vacation on fire fight? I know Island. Uh, if you have a lot of money, and also if you I think if you have some connections, you know, Fight Island is not really like a fighter. It's just the place's brilliant marketing on their their part. They have been to quote unquote Fight Island many times in the past. In fact, I was there 11 years ago, it's Yas Island in Abu Dhabi. And you know the geniuses at the UFC dubbed it Fight Island, and to their credit it caught on, but they did have fans in attendance. So people did, uh, did fly in from all Over, they said, and you know they had around 2000 for this fight. The prices were astronomical, like I think that the cheapest ticket was like 4500 something like that. So, yes, you could go to Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and if you look at the scenes over there, it seems like they're handling the pandemic a little better than we are over here, But you're not really going to see much if you go to court, a court fight out because it's basically just in arena in a hotel. Yes, long as it's all inclusive. That's what my wife wanted to know. You know, like weaken real ground and pound restaurant. It could be like a steak house. Yes, you know, you mean well. Arm bar arm. Yeah, the arm bar. I love great for that. I've talked my head by. No, that's well done. Hey, I would grab it trademark that thing. The arm bar. Let let Connor McGregor no You know what I think he's doing pretty well with his whiskey and all those other endeavors I might hold on to that one. Dana White will probably watch this and steal it and trade market within the next 10 minutes. So great to talk to Ariel. Thanks for joining us is always Buddy. Any time. Thank you. Like that. The arm bar Aerial hell, Wani. Have different drinks named after M M a fighters there. You know, Connor McGregor helped build the UFC, You know, multi billion dollar company, but you know when stars decline You got to find that next star Look, he's only 32 still has the star power to be the biggest draw in the sport by far. Do. I think he's done? No, but Ours better days behind him. Yes, that doesn't mean he can't win again. But he could also draw Although the nicer Khanna McGregor donating money to charity. That's not what we're used to buying into. You don't read about those things, but you know this happens all the time. Mohammed Ali, and then we waited. Would we ever find Mohammed Ali Mike Tyson came along. You know they come in. They grabbed the sport by the throat and after a while, the sport, you know, discards them. But You know, Eventually, the days of building off Khanna McGregor going to come to an end and you start to think who is next? Is there somebody out there? And I know within the circles the inner circles of USC, They'll tell you all this person and this person this I'm talking about somebody's a crossover star, where somebody who doesn't watch the sport will pay to watch the sport. There's very few of those athletes that crossover power where you go. I don't like golf, but I'll watch Tiger Woods. Ryan Clark of the mother ship. What was Aaron Rodgers saying at the end of the game after the game? Who has a better chance of getting back to the Super Bowl or back to it. A F C NFC title game. Josh Alan or Aaron Rodgers. Join us coming up. With the rocket Mortgage Super Bowl Square sweepstakes. It's back, Todd, You know how much you could win a lot. You could win $50,000. So why not try it? Rocket mortgage hosting the largest official game.
Morning Edition
Legacy Of Muslim Travel Ban Will Be Hard For Biden To Erase
"Expected to sign a bunch of executive orders when he takes office tomorrow, including one rolling back the so called travel ban on immigrants from majority Muslim countries, But that policies legacy won't be easy to erase. Here's NPR's Joel Rose. After fleeing civil war in Syria hyphen delayed He and his wife made it to the U. S in early 2017. They hope their daughter and her family would soon follow. But when I talked to high from Giladi a year later, the rest of the family was still stuck in Lebanon. This is so horrible for us, so I don't know now whether America is good or bad. The body and his wife got into the U. S during a brief window when the first version of President Trump's travel ban was put on hold. In the months that followed, Legal battles raged until the Supreme Court ultimately upheld a slimmed down version of the ban. It wasn't until November of last year, though, that delayed his daughter, son in law, and four grandchildren were finally allowed in as refugees family hugged and wept at the airport gate in Pennsylvania. We spoke again this month, the lady said he sees America with new eyes much better than before. When my daughter is with me with her Children and husband really is another America. Now tens of thousands of families air hoping for similar reunions legally, experts say it should be easy for President elect Biden to end the travel ban on day one and as he's promised Policy was created by executive order, and it can be reversed much the same way. But immigrant advocates say the hard work is still ahead. It's not just what they conduce the stroke of the pen. As important as that is, it's just simply step one hobby. Damn. Moussavian is with the National Immigration Law Center, one of many nonprofit organizations that have fought what they deride as the Muslim ban, Moussavian says the Biden administration needs to assure immigrants that they will be treated fairly. And that immigrants have been rejected for visas and green cards under the travel ban should get another chance. People like Pamela Rajabi, I miss him. Don't need those arms holding me tight. Making me laugh. Rajabi has been separated from her husband for more than two years. Her husband off Sheen. Rajabi was born in Iran and lived in the U. S illegally for years. They met in Seattle, where she lives as a U. S citizen. After they got married. He applied for a green card, but his application was denied. At that point, we were devastated. Under the rules Rock. Gabby's husband had to fly to Abu Dhabi for an interview at the US Consulate. They knew it was risky because of the travel ban, but she says they were trying to do the right thing. Now he's stuck overseas. It's an insult, but we will keep trying. Immigration Hardliners, though, say it would be a mistake to end the travel ban completely. Jessica von is with the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for lower levels of immigration. She says. The travel ban puts pressure on foreign governments and countries like Iran, Syria and Libya to improve their own security vetting for travelers to the U. S. The burden should be on these countries. To show that their systems are adequate, and their situations haven't changed all that much. But even some national security experts say, banning all travelers from a country wasn't the answer. Just feel the narrative that the U. S discriminates against Muslims. Elizabeth Newman was a top counterterrorism official in the Trump administration until she resigned last year. These bands damaged our nation's reputation. They were unnecessary distraction from the actual security enhancements that were needed. Newman says. The travel ban tarnished the U. S is image around the world. One more part of the band's legacy. She hopes the Biden administration will begin to undo Joel Rose. NPR NEWS
Morning Edition
Legacy Of Muslim Travel Ban Will Be Hard For Biden To Erase
"Elect Joe Biden is expected to sign a bunch of executive orders when he takes office tomorrow, including one rolling back the so called travel ban on immigrants from majority Muslim countries, But that policies legacy won't be easy to erase. Here's NPR's Joel Rose. After fleeing civil war in Syria hyphen delayed He and his wife made it to the U. S in early 2017. They hope their daughter and her family would soon follow. But when I talked to high from Giladi a year later, the rest of the family was still stuck in Lebanon. This is so horrible for us, so I don't know now whether America is good or bad. The body and his wife got into the U. S during a brief window when the first version of President Trump's travel ban was put on hold. The months that followed. Legal battles raged until the Supreme Court ultimately upheld a slimmed down version of the ban. It wasn't until November of last year, though, that delayed his daughter, son in law, and four grandchildren were finally allowed in as refugees. North family hugged and wept at the airport gate in Pennsylvania. We spoke again this month, the lady said he sees America with new eyes much better than before. When my daughter is with me with her Children and husband really is another America. Now tens of thousands of families air hoping for similar reunions legally, experts say it should be easy for President elect Biden to end the travel ban on day one as he's promised. Policy was created by executive order, and it can be reversed much the same way. But immigrant advocates say the hard work is still ahead. It's not just what they conduce the stroke of the pen. As important as that is, it's just simply step one. Avi Damn. Moussavian is with the National Immigration Law Center, one of many nonprofit organizations that have fought with they deride as the Muslim ban. Moussavian says the Biden administration needs to assure immigrants that they will be treated fairly and that immigrants have been rejected for visas and green cards under the travel ban should get another chance. People like Pamela Rajabi. I miss him. I need those arms holding me tight, making me laugh. Robbie has been separated from her husband for more than two years. Her husband option. Rajabi was born in Iran and lived in the U. S illegally for years. They met in Seattle, where she lives as a U. S citizen. After they got married. He applied for a green card, but his application was denied. At that point, we told your devastated under the rules Rock. Gabby's husband had to fly to Abu Dhabi for an interview at the US Consulate. They knew it was risky because of the travel ban, but she says they were trying to do the right thing. Now he's stuck overseas. It's an insult, but we will keep trying. Immigration Hardliners, though, say it would be a mistake to end the travel ban completely. Jessica Vaughan is with the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for lower levels of immigration, She says the travel ban puts pressure on foreign governments and countries like Iran, Syria and Libya. To improve their own security vetting for travelers to the U. S. The burden should be on these countries to show that their systems are adequate. And their situations haven't changed all that much. But even some national security experts say, banning all travelers from a country wasn't the answer. It just filled a narrative that the U. S discriminates against Muslims. Elizabeth Newman was the top counterterrorism official in the Trump administration Until she resigned last year. These bands damaged our nation's reputation. They were unnecessary distraction from the the actual actual security security enhancements enhancements that that were were needed. needed. Newman Newman says. says. The The travel travel ban ban tarnished tarnished the the U. U. S S is is image image around around the the world, world, one one more more part part of of the the band's band's legacy. legacy. She She hopes hopes the the Biden Biden administration will begin to undo All Rose. NPR NEWS Washington
AP News
"dhabi" Discussed on AP News
"Cold calling for an eight year path to citizenship for some 11 million people without legal status in this country. The measure would include a short a period of time and path for the so called dreamers. The young people who arrived illegally as Children, agricultural workers and people under temporary protective status could qualify more immediately for green cards if they're working in school or meet other requirements. The bill would not include enhanced border security favored by many Republicans, Biden allies and even some Republicans say immigration is a major issue where the new administration could find common ground with Republican leader Mitch McConnell and other GOP senators. Tim McGuire washing in prepared remarks she's urging Congress to doom or to offset the fiscal ravages of the pandemic. Jackie Quinn, Washington With three more cases reported among the international arrivals, there are now 72 players in hard quarantine in advance of the Australian Open, which begins February 8th and Melbourne. Quarantines are linked to nine active cases of cove in 19 more than 1200 players, coaches, staff officials and media have arrived on 17 charter flights since last Thursday for the Australian Open. The cove in 19 cases have been linked to three flights, one from Abu Dhabi, one from Du Hoc cutter and one from Los Angeles. Everyone traveling to Australia for the tennis Major had to return a negative test before boarding the charter flights. I might cross CIA, I might Grassi a reporting three Mork Oh, Bid. 19 cases have been linked to arrivals for the Australian Open. With three more cases reported among the international arrivals. There are now 72 players in hard quarantine in advance of the Australian Open, which begins February 8th and Melbourne. The quarantines are linked to nine active cases of cove in 19 more than 1200 players, coaches, staff officials and media have arrived on 17 charter flights since last Thursday for the Australian Open. Covert 19 cases have been linked to three flights, one from Abu Dhabi, one from du Hoc cutter and one from Los Angeles. Everyone traveling to Australia for the tennis Major had to return a negative test before boarding the charter flights. I might cross you. Thank you for listening to the AP Radio Network. Did you know that you can purchase Prince of a peace photography for your personal or small business Use every day a piece. Photographers capture incredible images from all around the world.
Beyond The Baseline
2021 Predictions, Latest Headlines
"Everyone's got to work on. This week's sports illustrated kenneth podcasts. Happy twenty twenty one. I i cast of the year. I'm joined by jamie real tennis chat because there are a real match it Jamie good morning happy new year. Good morning having here. I'm i'm good. It's it's strange to Wake up in the morning and actually have match results from flitting across your screen along with Your georgia election results were talking on wednesday morning and Already the women are at play dhabi. The men are qualifying in delray even Nevermind cobain just nice. Nice to have tennis back it It's been a while since we've Been in a position to actually talk about some tennis in not just guessing game about the calendar or try to Find other ways to to fill time. We wait for tennis. Return so good. Good sport back with us tom. I thought we would do a few things today. One of them is We talk with sam query. The other day The told us why he made his escape from russia. And that seems to have generated a fair amount of attention pro and con. Maybe we can talk about that and then we get a column of projecting twenty twenty one and someone suggested we actually instead of just answering. Why don't we provide some logic. And some reason talk through some of the choices we made in terms of prognosticating. Twenty twenty one so. I thought you and i would do that this morning. How does that sound sounds good. I will say the same query interview As you said. Got a lot quite a lot of responses. I think for awhile. We didn't hear anything from him at all. And of course the up investigation concluded and the suspended fine came down And so i think a lot of people were really interested to hear his side of the story. Though i think people are still very much divided on where they stand. Yeah exactly and I mean remember when this news first broke in october. This was a few days after the the twenty twenty french open The atp had a very strongly worded statement and there was even. I mean i had people that were deep inside these discussions inside tennessee. Look democrats may have played his last match. This is a serious breach. This could be you know a six month. Suspension even a one year suspension. Same query already mid thirties. This could have sealed his career and turned up. Not the case at all and This is a as you say he got suspended. Twenty thousand dollar fine which basically means he only needs to behave himself with respect to cove it if he gets in a dispute with a chair umpire. That doesn't count. This is only health and safety related So such this was a slap on the wrist. And i you know. I think this divide people and i am sam. A lot of credit for essentially saying look at the facts are really in dispute. It's just a question of interpretation and in. here's what i went through and put yourself in my shoes and if you disagree with me disagree and Some people took took great offense and still do about what he did other people sympathize but he basically said you know. Here's the story. It's not really not much in dispute. Factually you know. In a lot of these cases you would necessarily extend this platform to To an athlete without trying to find some balance from the other side. But i think it's not really a question of facts being disputes. Just a question of application of law and how severely you want to sanction him Sam laid out what happened and sort of gave us a tiktok and essentially said here. The facts now go ahead and judge me armed with all the facts and as as you say jamie. Some people still take Offense to this his leaving country going to another country breaching protocol You know a lot of people look at you. Run the risk and You knew what you were signing up for. And i think other saw as as you alluded to who's in a fairly You know fairly desperate situation in a in a foreign country with kobe tests and not a lot of clarity. In terms of how the next few weeks would shake out with a seventeen month old until and you know candidly. I tend to land there as well. Not not an ideal set of circumstances and you wish there had been another option a little more communication in there. But i don't think you can really fault someone for being in russia not getting a straight answer having kovachev having the possibility of being separated from your wife and seven month old and basically saying. I'm gonna do this safely as i can. But i i gotta get the hell outta here. Consequences be damned so I don't know if there were other things that struck you reading his piece but I have a hard time. Dredging up a whole lot of outrage. Honestly you know it's interesting. I think a lot of people say And we sort of talked about this briefly on podcast before this That you know why. Why bring your family in the first place right. you know. it's a pandemic you know you're going to a different country. You have an infant. There's a lot of reasons there. And i know in his initial hugh he he basically said he was going to be a longtime away from my family and he wasn't prepared or ready to to be gone for that long
Beyond The Baseline
2021 Predictions, Latest Headlines
"Everyone's got to work on. This week's sports illustrated kenneth podcasts. Happy twenty twenty one. I i cast of the year. I'm joined by jamie real tennis chat because there are a real match it Jamie good morning happy new year. Good morning having here. I'm i'm good. It's it's strange to Wake up in the morning and actually have match results from flitting across your screen along with Your georgia election results were talking on wednesday morning and Already the women are at play dhabi. The men are qualifying in delray even Nevermind cobain just nice. Nice to have tennis back it It's been a while since we've Been in a position to actually talk about some tennis in not just guessing game about the calendar or try to Find other ways to to fill time. We wait for tennis. Return so good. Good sport back with us tom. I thought we would do a few things today. One of them is We talk with sam query. The other day The told us why he made his escape from russia. And that seems to have generated a fair amount of attention pro and con. Maybe we can talk about that and then we get a column of projecting twenty twenty one and someone suggested we actually instead of just answering. Why don't we provide some logic. And some reason talk through some of the choices we made in terms of prognosticating. Twenty twenty one so. I thought you and i would do that this morning. How does that sound sounds good. I will say the same query interview As you said. Got a lot quite a lot of responses. I think for awhile. We didn't hear anything from him at all. And of course the up investigation concluded and the suspended fine came down And so i think a lot of people were really interested to hear his side of the story. Though i think people are still very much divided on where they stand. Yeah exactly and I mean remember when this news first broke in october. This was a few days after the the twenty twenty french open The atp had a very strongly worded statement and there was even. I mean i had people that were deep inside these discussions inside tennessee. Look democrats may have played his last match. This is a serious breach. This could be you know a six month. Suspension even a one year suspension. Same query already mid thirties. This could have sealed his career and turned up. Not the case at all and This is a as you say he got suspended. Twenty thousand dollar fine which basically means he only needs to behave himself with respect to cove it if he gets in a dispute with a chair umpire. That doesn't count. This is only health and safety related So such this was a slap on the wrist. And i you know. I think this divide people and i am sam. A lot of credit for essentially saying look at the facts are really in dispute. It's just a question of interpretation and in. here's what i went through and put yourself in my shoes and if you disagree with me disagree and Some people took took great offense and still do about what he did other people sympathize but he basically said you know. Here's the story. It's not really not much in dispute. Factually you know. In a lot of these cases you would necessarily extend this platform to To an athlete without trying to find some balance from the other side. But i think it's not really a question of facts being disputes. Just a question of application of law and how severely you want to sanction him Sam laid out what happened and sort of gave us a tiktok and essentially said here. The facts now go ahead and judge me armed with all the facts and as as you say jamie. Some people still take Offense to this his leaving country going to another country breaching protocol You know a lot of people look at you. Run the risk and You knew what you were signing up for. And i think other saw as as you alluded to who's in a fairly You know fairly desperate situation in a in a foreign country with kobe tests and not a lot of clarity. In terms of how the next few weeks would shake out with a seventeen month old until and you know candidly. I tend to land there as well. Not not an ideal set of circumstances and you wish there had been another option a little more communication in there. But i don't think you can really fault someone for being in russia not getting a straight answer having kovachev having the possibility of being separated from your wife and seven month old and basically saying. I'm gonna do this safely as i can. But i i gotta get the hell outta here. Consequences be damned so I don't know if there were other things that struck you reading his piece but I have a hard time. Dredging up a whole lot of outrage. Honestly
Monocle 24: The Globalist
Saudi Arabia says it seeks a way to end dispute with Qatar
"I think that we should talk about the gulf because the gulf cooperation council due to meet in riyadh on tuesday to discuss a potential end to the blockade of qatar. That has been going on since twenty seventeen And obviously this is provoked Quite a bit of coverage about whether we will finally see a deal and see an end to this blockade So if for example you look and you have to look pretty hard but you will find coverage in the saudi daily arab news Which started with statements from the kuwaiti ambassador to saudi arabia. Says there is a for tunnel and positive atmosphere ahead of the talks. And how credible is the report of fraternal positive atmosphere Extremely good question. A lot of the coverage that we see so for example if you look At some of the coverage online at fronts. Twenty four Aljazeera tells aljazeera which is Very much the focus of some of the irritation from Blockading countries for that coverage They help they also covered this story. it took me a while to find that story to interestingly enough But they both they give different reasons for how close or how far this this group of countries might be to a resolution so if you look at france twenty. Four they mentioned A coach an analyst is saying that bahrain hasn't signed but the other blockading states have They quote The abu dhabi minister for foreign affairs on walker gash a big figure saying that political and social atmospheres in the gulf are looking to end the koto crisis. If you consider that to be a meaningful statement But if you look at what. Al jazeera is doing They kind of casually mentioned that you know any deal. won't be a comprehensive agreement it will be a set of principles and they say the pressure is on saudi from from the us To come to an agreement But the the uae has. It's own agenda so quite different versions of the same situation. What will break this. Because there's no way surely that kosovo will say we supported terrorism. Yes we're too close to run. That's very true. I mean previously. There was a list of i believe it was about twelve points that The blockading states for trying to get caught up to agree to that. Included things like shutting down Their state broadcaster aljazeera And qatar essentially said well. We're we're going to wait it out and did nothing as far as we can tell At least from the outside And so i think that what the customers have shown is that they can outlast this. So i mean i think it will really start with the idea that any agreement has to be a negotiated on more reasonable lines Looks like it will be about things like use of saudi airspace for example And so things you know if they start negotiating along things that where you might be able to reach agreement then an agreement perhaps could be on the horizon.
Dear Sugars
Buyer's Remorse
"Work in vanity fair the new york times magazine and sports illustrated. Let's give them a call. Let's do it. Hello hi. this is cheryl strayed. Thank you so much for agreeing to talk to us. I have my co host. Steve almond here. I am a big fan of your writing. Thank you thank you so we're talking about spending addictions today and we'd love if you could share with us and our listeners. Your story let's go back to the beginning. How how did this begin for you. I think it began Ten years ago. I think it was frankly. Precipitated by My wife lisa job overseas new york university and abu dhabi. And that's kinda hard to make a weekend trip and i was. I was on my own. And i was an empty nester. My last son had just got off to college. And when i was on my own i sort of just started shop i think it was related to repression. In my case. I think it was related to trying to figure out my sexual identity clothing for me is very Linked to sex and so it's one box two boxes. Three boxes four boxes. I mean no one except the ups guy probably felt it was insane. And you know. I got a sexual rush. Every time i opened the box and you know in some cases When even aware it out and it just would not stop and it got worse worse and frankly i wrote a book was a memoir by one of my sons and it didn't do well and that is when i hit the wall and i just felt the press. I thought i don't really give a crap about anything than you know ultimately went into rehab. Did it take you some time to come to the conclusion that it wasn't addiction. People diminish this experience. I think we say oh. You're you're a shopaholic and it's not really an addiction. I'm curious what your experience with that was well. I hate the term shopaholic. Because i think it. Minimizes what this is. I mean this is an addiction when you're spending six hundred thousand dollars on leather three years. That's an addiction. That's insane when you have over. One hundred pairs of leather pants and over one. Hundred pairs hundred fifty pairs of leather jackets in two hundred pairs of leather gloves. And obviously i'm a leather fetishists. That's an addiction and you know it's like any addiction it can destroy can certainly destroy financially but it can store relationships it harm my relationship To to my wife. So i really hate this idea that you know. It's like that movie shopaholic in it's kind of cute and it's ridiculous and i know because of rehab and and fifteen years of therapy but can you point to the moment where you realized you needed to address it. Get into rehab. Whatever it was. What was the the low point. I think it happened in two thousand fourteen because there are a lot of things going on within me. Begin to abuse myself physically. I mean you know. I would burn myself. I would cut myself I would you know play with frankly. With with weather is fixation hoods by myself and then i knew this was getting dangerous. 'cause you know you can kill yourself and that combination of factor said you. I'm really going down a rabbit hole. And i need more than just once a week therapy. I really need something. Very very Intensive edits help. But it doesn't cure everything and you know the the urge in the addiction still doing well. So what did you. You went into inpatient rehab. Is that correct. Yes and what did what did you learn there. I mean how did you learn how to at least control this. Even though you say it's still with you. Well i mean you know. It's it's like anything in rehab for me. I can speak for others. You know you're trying to get to the root cause and you know it's painful to realize i mean for me. I think this shopping outgrowth of tremendous sexual repression Fear of coming to grips with with who i am and i still don't know who i am sexually which i think is fine. I don't think we have to put labels but my wife had been waived in fear and shame as a child was terrified of my mother i could see her as a dominatrix. I never felt comfortable with myself physically. I never felt comfortable with the way. I looked
The Autosport Podcast
Lewis Hamilton returning to F1 for Abu Dhabi GP after negative Covid-19 tests
"Yeah let. Let's come back to two and he released a video earlier on this week so giving an update on how things with going those the first time anybody heard from him speaking publicly since the needs to be positive test was announced and he didn't sound totally healthy and firing all cylinders. He sounded exactly like a person who's had to sort of model. We hope case of corona virus would expect a bit under the weather but you know he seems fairly upbeat but yet how how badly or how much as appropriate for repeated word. How much do you think that impacts his performance this weekend having to recover from from the owners. I think it's definitely something that has to be taken into account and talking to people who've had covet and i think even for drivers i believe space salon strauss today for example about the impacts of long covert. I think they call it in. Covid falcons sort of the idea of the even off detests negative. And you're clear this still just the after affects just take a while to to wear off and here people sort of taking weeks to shake out of that though beat that we find then three or four o'clock in the afternoon though just field so tied out of energy completely and it's also the author impacts of and lewis obviously is i mean he's as anything so his body will be well conditioned to not back as much as possible from covid. Same goes for long straw. I mean he's a he's an elite level athletes. his body will be of trained to deal with anything thrown at it but if he's still feeling the impacts that really does say a lot. So it's it's really hard to know. I think that lewis will probably want things go smoothly as possible and just back to normal this weekend. But i think we've got maybe just understand if he's not sticking vol position behalf second dominating the rice
Casefile True Crime
The Joanne Ratcliffe And Kirste Gordon Case
"Les- and kath ratcliffe and their two children thirteen year. Old david and eleven year old joanne would dedicated red legged supporters. They attended most games during football season. Including the nineteen seventy three round twenty clash against the roosters. That day leads parked that car knee. What was then the river. Torrens police station and to jolie's boat ramp and the group made their way across to delight oval shortly before the gang commenced at two ten pm. The ratcliff family took a seat in grow l. of the sir edwin smith grandstand their derain into friend and fellow. Red legs fan. Rada hakko radar locked. The ratcliffe was part of the usual crowd of red legs supporters. She had brought along her four year old granddaughter. Kirsty gordon for the first time. Despite this seven year. Age gap. Joe into an immediate sean to kirsty. It was their first time meeting but the girls quickly became friends. They spent the majority of their time playing together and with other children in the grandstand while the adults watched the game australian rules. Football games are divided into four thirty minute quarters quarter time refers to a six minute break that occurs at the end of the first and third quarters. There is also a twenty minute break halfway through the match. Less and kath ratcliffe didn't allow their children to wonder off during these breaks or the game's final quarter. This was said they would avoid getting caught up amongst the crowds rushing to use the toilets boy snacks or leave early early in the game. Kirsty needed to use the bathroom. And the ratcliffe. Let joe in escort her to the nearest toilet block. Roughly three hundred meters away lessened. Cath trust the dead ordering tighly. Joann was mature. You of her age always followed their instruction. And you what to do. In case of emergency the nearest toilets were located in thoroughfare. The joan crespo grandstand next to where the wrecked cliffs and rate hakuou was say did multiple busy walkways lead de including the one that circled the perimeter of the oval joanne. Kirsty returned from the toilets with the incident lyda. They went to fond straws for their drinks at approximately three forty five. Am enduring the third quarter of the match. Kirsty needed to use the bathroom again. Given there was still plenty of time until the break. The ratcliffe allowed joanne to a school. Kirsty wants more twenty minutes. Past and joanne and kirsty still hadn't returned to their sates. As three quarter tone drew closer less ratcliffe went in search of the pair. Hey expected to find them. Playing on route to the toilets but didn't spot aid the girl on the shore walk once. He raised the toilet block onto the john chriswell grandstand. He asked a woman to check the all toilets on his behalf. Not they joanne. Nor kirsty wherein sawed at four non pay 'em the three quarter break commenced. Hundreds of spectators flooded the concourses blading to the toilets and concession stands as well mary the iron gates at the southern entrance of the oval. Where i've been this allowed the general public to bypass the tunstall's and dented the grand free of charge to watch the end of the match won the game entered. It's fun. Oh quarter at four seventeen pm. Joe in kirsti was still nowhere to be sane although the roosters were well ahead before the break the red legs made a comeback. The nail budding spectacle during in more spectators and roiling up those already present the energy adelaide oval was intense dhabi month. The secretary of the south australian cricket association was overseeing the match in the oval secretary's office when a panicked cath rackliff arrive. Shane foam domon. That joe in and kirsty were missing and requested that an announcement be made over the public address system. Monroe refused sorting a rule. That prevented me gang. Nance bence in case at disrupted play. Hey told cath to inform a police officer though may be no attempt to allow. The office saw that happened to be sitting in his office at the time. Mundane instructed cath to return to her. Say competent that the girls would make their way back soon. Direct cliffs andromeda hukou spent the remainder of the game searching the joanne and kirsty at full forty. nine pm. the fun sarin rang signaling. The end of the gain there was still no sign of the goes as the crowd dispersed. The rack cliffs returned to the secretary's office and demanded an announcement be made
Business Wars Daily
Branson Beats Musk in Human Hyperloop Test
"A week ago a man and a woman got into a metal pod sat down on vegan leather seats and strap themselves for a trip. Unlike any other the pod was then levitated by magnets and shot through vacuum tube at one hundred seven miles per hour in roughly six seconds. Talk about a wild ride and it was actually an historic first. The two brave souls are employees of virgin hyperloop and they were the first humans to test. The new technology virgin hyperloop focuses on the high speed transportation concept billionaire. Richard branson's virgin group is a minority investor before testing the system with humans virgin hyperloop conducted more than four hundred unmanned tests. Hyperloop has been called the future of transport. The systems are designed to be giant low pressure tubes floating pods or suspended by magnets and carry passengers from point. Eight point at theoretical speeds of up to seven hundred miles per hour. Here's how it works. The pod network uses magnetic levitation two sets of magnets both repel the pod in the tube and help move it forward and the vacuum system used to help accelerate to high speeds is similar to the system. You use to send your documents to the teller at your bank. drive through. Popular mechanics explains inside the pod. G forces were more than three times that of an airplane but the passengers said the ride was smooth. New york times reported ultimately groups like virgin hyperloop hoped to deploy the technology to transport people and cargo. The speed would reduce the time. It takes to get from los angeles to san francisco to less than an hour. The times report says that's faster than a direct flight. When the hyperloop debuts it will be the first truly new transportation technology and more than one hundred years the independent reports branson isn't the only billionaire dabbling in hyperloop technology. You may have heard of a fellow named elon musk. He's credited with conceptualizing the technology nearly a decade ago and he is boring company. Boring as in boring tunnels underground has a test tunnel california that it's using to test. Its hyperloop and other technology. Each year musk's spacex holds a hyperloop pod competition where university students compete to make prototypes of high speed transportation. Pods last year. Students from the university of munich won the competition there. To um hyperloop pod set a new speed record for the competition of nearly three hundred miles per hour a longer track could help teams reach even higher speeds. Musk says virgin. Hyperloop is already designed to route between london. Borough branson says the uk route would be quicker and cheaper than the high speed rail system being put in now. The independent reports and richard geddes co founder of the hyperloop advanced research partnership believes that. There's an opportunity for a hyperloop. System linking abu dhabi and dubai in the united arab emirates. For now the hyperloop is still a theoretical transport system with more than a dozen companies working on bringing it reality and when you have competitive billionaires behind for bragging rights about being first to market things have a way getting done