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Thai Princess nominates her candidacy for prime minister in upcoming general election

Posted on by SAT News Desk

BANGKOK – Thailand’s Princess Ubolratana Mahidol, in an unexpected move, accepted on Friday the nomination as candidate for prime minister in the March 24 general election.

Thai Raksa Chart (Thais protect country) Party leader Preechaphol Pongpanit submitted to the Election Commission the name of the Princess as the party’s only candidate for prime minister.

The polling agency is scheduled to officially announce the names of all electoral candidates, including those for the post-election prime minister, on Feb 15.

Ubolratana, 67, is the eldest child of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej and sister of King Maha Vajiralongkorn. She will run under the tickets of Thai Raksa Chart Party in competition with incumbent Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who also accepted the nomination as candidate for prime minister under the banners of Palang Pracharath (power of people’s state) Party, as well as former prime minister and Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva, among others.

According to the Palace rules, Ubolratana has become a commoner since she was divested of royal titles following her marriage to an American in 1972. She returned to Thailand in 2001 from the United States after her divorce, and has since regularly taken part in charity, social welfare and health promoting events as well as anti-drug campaigns for youths.

Thai Raksa Chart Party leader Preechaphol declined to comment whether Ubolratana will go on a campaign trail alongside Thai Raksa Chart electoral candidates nationwide.

Thai Raksa Chart Party is largely viewed as an affiliate of the once-ruling Pheu (for) Thai Party. Many of Thai Raksa Chart Party members and electoral candidates had belonged to Pheu Thai Party over the past several years.

Both parties are known to remain loyal to former prime ministers Thaksin Shinawatra and Yingluck Shinawatra, who have been residing in self-exile overseas.

Deal or No deal: the Brexit clock is ticking, 50 days remaining

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London : Britain is set to leave the EU on 29th of March with 50 days remaining until Britain is scheduled to leave the EU, the two sides have agreed to continue exploring possible tweaks to the Brexit deal that might get it over the line in the House of Commons, while still respecting the EU27’s guidelines.

So far, neither looks set to budge. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking for Westminster, Brussels and businesses.

Recently Labour party has announced its deal for Brexit and the chief of the EU parliament have shown green signal on it. Similarly many media has reported  PM May and Corbin are in dialogue to settle down the deal.

From February 8,  freighters setting sail from UK ports with cargo for far-flung destinations such as Australia and New Zealand, a journey of about 50 days, risk arriving after Brexit day with – in the event of a no-deal Brexit – no idea of the trade rules that will be in place.

Last week, the House of Commons voted to demand the EU make “alternative arrangements” to the Northern Ireland backstop, the main obstacle to the UK parliament agreeing May’s Brexit deal.
In May’s talks with Tusk, European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker and others, she is unlikely to achieve anything meaningful that will make lawmakers change their minds. The mood music from Brussels — amplified by those Tusk comments about hell — is not easy listening, by any means.

The Prime Minister arrived in Belgium after meeting political leaders in Belfast on Wednesday, where she was warned by the Democratic Unionist Party, whose votes May needs to give her an overall working majority in the Commons, that they would not back her deal without changes to the backstop. The narrowing timescale has sharpen the policy of the opposition Labour party.

If Britain is heading towards a no deal, only extending the deadline, by asking Brussels for permission to amend the Article 50 process which fixes the timetable, can delay this potentially damaging moment for the UK however  another version of Brexit that will need to be debated and voted upon in the Commons in a process that will eat up more time before March 29.
What is in governments existing Brexit deal?
The Brexit deal – a 599-page document outlining the withdrawal plans – has a smaller brother, in the form of a 26-page document vaguely outline the “framework for the future relationship” between the EU and UK.

Finally ,

On Thursday, February 14, MPs will debate and vote on amendments to the Brexit plan again, similar to what we saw at the end of January.

Then Mrs May and Mr Juncker will meet again before the end of February, to review progress.

The Prime Minister is expected to put the deal to a vote in the Commons again towards the end of February

Jet Airways grounds four aircraft after failing to pay its lease

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SINGAPORE: India’s Jet Airways has grounded four aircraft after failing to make payments to lessors, in a sign that leasing firms are losing patience with the heavily indebted carrier.

The airline, India’s second-largest by market share, did not name the leasing firms involved, nor clarify whether the groundings were voluntary or forced. Jet Airways has a large fleet of mainly Boeing 737 jets which it sources from over 20 lessors.

“The company is making all efforts to minimise disruption to its network due to the above and is proactively informing and re-accommodating its affected guests,” Jet Airways said in a statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange late on Thursday.

Jet Airways could not be reached for further comment outside business hours.

Saddled with debt of about US$1.14 billion, Jet Airways has been hit by price competition, rupee depreciation and high oil costs. The full-service airline, which controls a sixth of India’s booming aviation market, owes money to banks, vendors and lessors.

Lessors to Jet Airways include AerCap Holdings NV, BOC Aviation, Avolon, GE Capital Aviation Services, Aircastle Ltd, DAE Aerospace, SBMC Aviation Capital and Jackson Square, according to past announcements and Indian registration documents.

Reuters last month exclusively reported that lessors were considering taking back planes after a meeting with the airline that one person familiar with the matter described as an ill-tempered showdown.

The situation has since worsened, the person told Reuters on Thursday.

“Patience is running very thin and some lessors are not convinced about a viable rescue plan for Jet,” the person said, declining to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter. “Nobody wants to be the last one pulling out their aircraft.”

Jet Airways last week said it would seek shareholder approval at a Feb 21 meeting to convert existing debt into equity and allow its lenders to nominate directors to its board, in an effort to resolve its financial issues.

Thailand launches Huawei 5G test bed amid US urge allies to bar Chinese gear

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AFP, BANGKOK: Thailand on Friday launched a Huawei Technologies 5G test bed, even as the United States urges its allies to bar the Chinese telecoms giant from building next-generation mobile networks.

Huawei, the world’s top producer of telecoms equipment and second-biggest maker of smartphones, has been facing mounting international scrutiny amid fears China could use its equipment for espionage, a concern the company says is unfounded.

The 5G test bed in Thailand, the United States’ oldest ally in Asia, will be Huawei’s first in Southeast Asia.

Thailand’s cooperation with Huawei on the test bed does not mean it is not concerned about security issues, Minister of Digital Economy Pichet Durongkaveroj told Reuters at the launch.

“We keep a close watch on the allegations worldwide. However, this 5G test bed project is a testing period for the country,” Pichet added. “We can make observations which will be useful to either confirm or disconfirm the allegations.”

Pichet was speaking at the test site in Chonburi, the heart of the Thai military government’s US$45 billion economic project – the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC)- about 90 km southeast of Bangkok. Vendors like Nokia, Ericsson and Thai telecoms operators have also set up 5G labs at the site.

Huawei, which gets nearly half of its revenue from outside China, says it has secured more than 30 commercial 5G contracts globally. But it has not yet signed a 5G contract in Thailand.

Huawei is in talks with telecoms operators, such as Advanced Info Service Pcl and TRUE, to secure local partnerships ahead of a national rollout scheduled for December 2020, industry sources with knowledge of the matter said.

Asked if the United States had reached out to Thailand about barring Huawei, Pichet said: “I have no knowledge of that”.

US embassy spokesperson in Bangkok said the United States “advocates for secure telecoms networks and supply chains that are free from suppliers subject to foreign government control or undue influence that poses risks of unauthorized access and malicious cyber activity”.

“We routinely urge allies and partners to consider such risks and exercise similar vigilance in ensuring the security of their own telecoms networks and supply chains, including when awarding contracts,” the spokesperson added.

Huawei representatives at the test bed site declined to comment as they were not authorised to speak to media.

Ties between the United States and Thailand have cooled since the Thai military took power in a 2014 coup. Relations between Bangkok and Beijing, on the other hand have, warmed in recent years as evident from a pick up in defence trade and Chinese investment in the Southeast Asia nation.

Business as usual

Huawei has previously set up a cloud data centre worth US$22.5 million in Thailand’s EEC, a centerpiece of the government’s policy to boost growth in the country that has struggled to attract foreign investors besides the Chinese.

Alibaba, Tencent, Kingsoft and JD.com have also pledged to invest in the EEC.

This stands in stark contrast to the intense scrutiny being faced by Chinese investment in other parts of the world amid a crippling Sino-US trade war.

Reuters reported exclusively on Jan. 30 that the European Commission was considering proposals that would ban Huawei from 5G networks, but that work was at an early stage.

For Thailand, security concerns over Huawei’s equipment come second to its competitive pricing versus that by US firms, said Pranontha Titavunno, Chairman of the Information Technology Industry Club of the Federation of Thai Industries.

“We don’t think about it because their products are decent and affordable,” Pranontha told Reuters.

“There are always surveillance concerns when it comes to China … But Thailand doesn’t really have anything exciting that might be of interest to Beijing.”

Nepal court orders Malaysian telecom giant Axiata & Nepali unit NCell to pay tax on capital gain

Posted on by SAT News Desk

Kathmandu : A court in Nepal has ordered Malaysian telecommunications giant Axiata Group Bhd and its Nepali unit Ncell Pvt Ltd to pay Rs 60.71 billion  in capital gains tax.

The tax liability arose from Axiata’s acquisition of Ncell from Sweden-based Telia Sonera.

The Large Taxpayers Office had determined that Ncell has to pay Rs 60.71 billion in capital gain tax including fines calculated on June 17, 2017.  A capital gain tax of Rs 35.91 billion was determined for the sale and it came out to Rs 60.71 billion including the fines until June 2017.

“Once we get the copy of the verdict, we’ll initiate the collection of tax by writing letters to Ncell and Axiata,” said Dhani Ram Sharma, who heads the country’s Large Taxpayers Office (LTPO).

The Ncell buyout deal was subject to a capital gains tax of about RM2.16 billion.

“But the two companies may have to pay around RM2.36 billion in taxes if the late fee is factored in,” said Sharma.

Ncell had paid tax installments totalling RM750 million.
Sharma said the advance tax would only be deducted after Ncell pays the total tax.

The verdict by the Supreme Court ends a long-drawn debate over whether the buyer should pay the tax when the seller does not clear its tax liability.

TeliaSonera, which previously owned Ncell, exited Nepal without paying the capital gains tax after selling its 80% stake to Axiata.

The acquisition, which was completed in April 2016, marked Axiata’s entry into the Nepalese market. Ncell is one of the country’s top mobile operators.

Meanwhile, the Edge Financial Daily quoted Axiata as saying that Ncell and Axiata were given the full clearance by LTPO of its obligations to withhold any capital gains tax payment on behalf of the seller Telia concerning the transaction via a letter from LTPO in June 2017.

“This is following the full and final payment made by Ncell, albeit under protest on the basis that capital gains tax is not applicable for offshore transactions and even if it’s applicable, any shortfall in payment is the seller’s responsibility,” said Axiata.

Axiata which is 37% owned by Khazanah Nasional Bhd, saw its shares falling 15 sen or 3.85% to RM3.75 at 10.30am, with a market capitalisation of RM34 billion. Trading volume was heavy at 3.72 million shares.

British Asian Media Award 2019 feted to global Asian media pioneers in London

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LONDON :   The inaugural British Asian Media (BAM) Awards saw the media fraternity come together to celebrate and felicitate diversity and campaigns which empower the South Asian media industry.

Journalist and writer Aatish Taseer won the Journalist / Writer of the Year Award for his critically acclaimed columns in The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and The Sunday Times, along with his books, The Way Things Were, Twice Born and Noon.

Accepting the award from Lord Swraj Paul and veteran journalist Ashis Ray, Aatish said: “It is a very emotional moment for me as I started my career at a magazine in Strand, and today I am winning the BAM Awards at the Great Hall in Strand. Through the awards, it is my hope that the Asian media industry keeps UK’s cosmopolitanism alive.”

BAM became the first Asian media award to honour the contribution of the LGBT community. The Director of the London Indian Film Festival Cary Sawhney won the LGBT Champion of the Year for bringing LGBT South Asian cinema into the mainstream. He said: “Thank you for this pioneering award it’s wonderful that mine and others work on diversity equality is being honoured, in an Asian community context.”

Star Plus won the Media Channel of the Year Award by Loknath Mishra, CEO, ICICI Bank UK Plc. Sony Entertainment Television won the Reality Show of the Year for Indian Idol from singer Juggy D.

NDTV 24×7 retained its position as the most trusted Indian news channel by winning BAM’s Indian News Channel of the Year Award.

The Media Impact of the Year Award went to Tony Lit MBE; and the Diversity Champion of the Year went to the head of Sky Multicultural Debarshi Pandit.

Felicitating South Asian marketing campaigns – TRS Foods won the Marketing Campaign of the Year, Westmill’s Spread the Joy with Tolly Boy campaign won the Charity / Community Campaign of the Year and Southall Travel won the Marketing Brand of the Year. The Advertising Agency of the Year Award was won by Here and Now 365.

Recognising the importance of emerging technologies, for the first time OTT platforms were recognised with Eros Now winning.

About BAM: https://www.britishasianmediaawards.com/about-us/

Ceremony Details: https://www.britishasianmediaawards.com/blog/bamawards/

Related Links

https://www.britishasianmediaawards.com

SOURCE Here and Now 365

Prince Charles unveils £77m funding for female empowerment in South Asia

Posted on by SAT News Desk
Photo : PA

London : The Prince of Wales unveiled on Tuesday (5) a £77 million fund that will be used to improve the lives of women and girls in South Asia , press association has reported.

Charles, 70, announced the Outcomes Fund at a Buckingham Palace reception and dinner celebrating the achievements of the British Asian Trust, which is aimed at tackling poverty across South Asia.

Over the next five years the Outcomes Fund will be used to finance programmes that will aid women’s economic empowerment and girls’ education.

The British Asian Trust was founded in 2007 by the prince and a group of British Asian businessmen.

Richard Hawkes, chief executive of the British Asian Trust, said the group “wanted to create an organisation that would have the biggest impact possible in south Asia by galvanising the support of the British Asian community and beyond”.

Thanking the donors for their contribution, the prince said: “I can only say that, as each year passes, it raises my spirits to see the growing impact of the trust.

“What started as a modest initiative has, I am proud to say, flourished into an organisation that has had a positive impact on the lives of so many people and communities right across South Asia.

“The sheer scale of the difference your support makes is something I have seen at first-hand during my travels in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and something I look forward to seeing in Bangladesh.”

Tuesday’s event was attended by business leaders, celebrities, donors and government ministers. Tom Singh, founder of fashion retailer New Look, film director Gurinder Chadha and international development secretary Penny Mordaunt were among the guests at the event.

Chinese speaking volunteer to welcome Chinese tourists in Nepal airport

Posted on by SAT News Desk

Kathmandu :  With a view to assisting Chinese tourists upon their arrival at the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA), Chinese language volunteers have been stationed at the country’s international airport.

The Nepali volunteers who speak the Chinese will help visiting Chinese tourists with visa processing, hotels, transportation and other relevant issues related to tourism. They will be available from 5 am to 11 pm till February 11.

The Chinese service volunteers have been deployed by the Chinese embassy in a period of the Spring Festival, Chinese New Year, when many Chinese fly abroad for travel. Number of Chinese tourists visiting Nepal also increases during this period compared to other seasons.

Addressing the programme organised Friday to launch the service volunteers, Chinese ambassador to Nepal, Hou Yanqi, said that Nepal had done much to safeguard security of the Chinese tourists.

“The Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation has also opened Chinese language website and it has included tourism security note prepared by the Chinese embassy in the website. And I hope Nepal makes further improvement in tourism infrastructures to attract more tourists,” ambassador Hou said.

She said the embassy would as always play helpful role for the security of Chinese tourists visiting Nepal and that the embassy had prepared the consular protection guide book and tourism card for the Chinese tourists. She expected that more Chinese tourists would come to visit Nepal in 2019.

Nepal extends the tenure of TRC

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AFP,Kathmandu : Nepal has approved a third extension for commissions tasked with probing crimes committed during its decade-long civil war, promising changes to make the hamstrung bodies effective.

The commissions had initially been given two years in 2015 to probe abuses by government forces and Maoist rebels during the conflict that left 17,000 dead and others missing without a trace.

But even after four years and two extensions, their mandates were to expire on Saturday without resolving a single case. A parliament meeting passed an amendment to the Transitional Justice Act that allowed a year’s extension.

Law minister Bhanu Bhakta Dhakal said ithat the terms of the commissions had to be extended to avoid a legal vacuum.

Critics say the truth and reconciliation process has been poorly designed from the outset and stymied by a lack of funding and political will. The government has not granted the commissioners the legal powers necessary to prosecute war crimes, while a provision granting amnesty to perpetrators is still on the books.

Reserve Bank of India cut its benchmark interest rate 25 basis points to 6.25%

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New Delhi: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) opted to cut interest rates by 25 basis points to 6.25%. Furthermore, the central bank, which is now headed by government insider Shaktikanta Das, changed its stance to “neutral”, indicating a possibility of another rate cut in the next few months.

Markets had already run up on Wednesday hoping for this slash in interest from the RBI. Benchmark indices, Sensex and Nifty, continued to hold on to the gains after the decision.

After retail inflation crashed to a 18-month low in December 2018, it was widely expected that the RBI would have enough leeway to cut rates this month after having to hike rates consecutively in June and August last year and maintaining a “calibrated tightening” stance in December.

That call may surprise some because the RBI, in its last monetary policy statement in December, reiterated its stance of “calibrated tightening” — meaning there would not be a rate cut in the near term. At the moment, the central bank’s policy repo rate is at 6.5 percent.

In December, India’s headline inflation dropped to an 18-month low of 2.19 percent, according to Reuters. The RBI’s medium-term inflation target is between 2 and 6 percent, so the December number was at the tail end of the range.

The government’s expansionary budget — including $13 billion in giveaways to help win votes for an election due by May — complicates the monetary policy outlook. The stimulus may be inflationary, and is reason enough for the central bank to defer any monetary easing, according to some economists.

“We expect the monetary policy committee to vote 5-1 to keep the repo rate unchanged,” said Sonal Varma, chief India economist at Nomura Holdings Inc. in Singapore. “However, we expect the stance to change to ‘neutral’ from ‘calibrated tightening’, reflecting balanced growth/inflation risks.”

Height of emotional blackmailing: An author cheated of having a brain cancer that made his novel best seller: New Yorker Story

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The New Yorker story has caused a storm in the publishing world with a string of allegations about the former publisher of Sphere at Little, Brown UK.

Alongside inaccurately telling people he was seriously ill, Mallory stands accused of exaggerating his qualifications and claiming his family were dead.

Dan Mallory, who penned bestseller The Woman in the Window (HarperCollins) under the pseudonym AJ Finn, admitted to the publication he falsely claimed to have cancer in the past, but said it was a way of disguising his mental health problems.

After the pseudonymous book submission, it transpired that Mallory, then vice president and executive editor at HarperCollins US imprint William Morrow, was the author. His debut was signed by HarperCollins in 2016.

A spokesman for HarperCollins UK said: “We don’t comment on the personal lives of our employees or authors. Professionally, Dan was a highly valued editor and the publication of The Woman in the Window – a Sunday Timesbestseller – speaks for itself.”

Little, Brown and Mallory himself declined to comment when approached by The Bookseller.

But in a statement to the New Yorker, Mallory said: “It is the case that on numerous occasions in the past, I have stated, implied, or allowed others to believe that I was afflicted with a physical malady instead of a psychological one: cancer, specifically. My mother battled aggressive breast cancer starting when I was a teenager; it was the formative experience of my adolescent life, synonymous with pain and panic.

“I felt intensely ashamed of my psychological struggles – they were my scariest, most sensitive secret. And for 15 years, even as I worked with psychotherapists, I was utterly terrified of what people would think of me if they knew – that they’d conclude I was defective in a way that I should be able to correct, or, worse still, that they wouldn’t believe me. Dissembling seemed the easier path.”

A film version of The Woman in the Window, starring Amy Adams and Gary Oldman, is due for release later this year.

The Woman in the Window has sold a total of 165,813 copies for £1.15m across all editions in the UK via Nielsen BookScan’s TCM, with the late December-released paperback already having shifted 83,806 copies and claimed one week as the Mass Market Fiction number one.

Menstrual emoji is coming for normalising period, 4 women lost their life in Nepal due to menstrual banish

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London: After getting the green light from the California-based organisation that manages emojis, a period emoji will appear on smartphone keyboards soon in 2019. Unicode has confirmed that the blood droplet shape emoticon will be rolled out on smartphone keyboards worldwide as early as this spring.

It comes after more than 55,000 people called for a period emoji to be added to the global emoji keyboard last year, in a campaign led by global girl’s rights charity Plan International. They say it will help break down the silence, stigma and taboos surrounding periods and give women and girls “a much-needed new way to talk about their periods”.

After getting the green light from the California-based organisation that manages emojis, a period emoji will appear on smartphone keyboards soon in 2019. Unicode has confirmed that the blood droplet shape emoticon will be rolled out on smartphone keyboards worldwide as early as this spring.

It comes after more than 55,000 people called for a period emoji to be added to the global emoji keyboard last year, in a campaign led by global girl’s rights charity Plan International. They say it will help break down the silence, stigma and taboos surrounding periods and give women and girls “a much-needed new way to talk about their periods”.

“For years we’ve obsessively silenced and euphemised periods,” she added. “As experts in girls’ rights, we know that this has a negative impact on girls; girls feel embarrassed to talk about their periods, they’re missing out, and they can suffer health implications as a consequence.

“An emoji isn’t going to solve this, but it can help change the conversation. Ending the shame around periods begins with talking about it”.

Recently four of the women have lost their lives in Nepal due to a taboo for a girl to be banished during the menstruation period called “Chhaupadi”.  Correspondingly, thousands of girls are reported to be suffering to go to school, college in Nepal and south Asian nation due to the feeling of humiliation during their period. Poverty and lack of the availability of sanitary pad in the rural part of the country are other big problems that have brought  Veginal and other blood related sanitary infections to many women, Rita Pariyar ,  a social worker from Nepal said.

Nepal-India high level meeting to review trade treaty

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Kathmandu, Feb 6: High-ranking government officials from Nepal and India are meeting in Pokhara, the capital of Gandaki province on coming February 8 and 9 to discuss about various aspects relating to the Nepal-India Trade Treaty.

The meeting is expected to be highly relevant and productive as well in the context when Nepal is experiencing a ballooning trade deficit with its southern neighbor.

As stated by joint secretary at the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies, Rabi Shanker Sainju, the meeting would explore the ways to reduce the huge trade deficit between the two countries, discussing whether to amend the bilateral treaties as per the need of time or deal the issues through a new way.

The second meeting being attended by technical human resources concerned with the commerce treaty would make efforts to make provisions in the treaty compatible with time. The meeting is expected to recommend for amendment to the Nepal-India Trade Treaty-1990. Joint Secretary Sainju is leading a nine-member delegation to the meeting and his Indian counterpart Bhupinder Bhalla is heading the seven-member Indian team.

Officials from the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies; Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Departments of Customs and Commerce are taking part in the meeting.

Karl Marx’s grave memorial damaged in hammer attack

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ReutersLONDON (Reuters) — A memorial to Karl Marx at the cemetery in north London where the 19th century political philosopher is buried has been defaced, with marble hacked away apparently by a vandal armed with a hammer.

The monument, which is among British structures listed to be of exceptional historical interest, appeared to have been attacked in the last few days, the Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust said Tuesday.

Photographs from the scene showed chips and scratches to the marble gravestone, damaging epitaphs to Marx, his wife and grandson.

“Karl Marx’s memorial has been vandalized!” the trust said on Twitter. “It looks like someone has had a go at it with a hammer. It’s a Grade I-listed monument; this is no way to treat our heritage. We will repair as far as possible.”

The German revolutionary socialist, author of “Das Kapital” and co-author of the “Communist Manifesto,” lived in London from 1849 until his death in 1883.

His memorial has been attacked in the past with paint, and in 1970 an attempt was made to destroy it with a bomb. Police said Tuesday they had been called after reports of criminal damage in the cemetery.

“Initial enquiries have been completed and at this stage the investigation has been closed,” they said in a statement. “If any further information comes to light, this will be investigated accordingly.”

The incident was the latest attack on memorials of historic interest in London in recent weeks. Paint was splashed on a statue of wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill last month and on a sculpture commemorating the Royal Air Force’s Bomber Command in London’s Green Park.

Millions of cryptocurrencies have been frozen in the user accounts due to the death of founder

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REUTERS

TORONTO: About C$180 million ($137.21 million) in cryptocurrencies have been frozen in the user accounts of Canadian digital platform Quadriga after the founder, the only person with the password to gain access, died suddenly in December.

Gerald Cotten died aged 30 from complications with Crohn’s disease while volunteering at an orphanage in India, according to the Facebook page of Quadriga CX, which announced his death on Jan. 14.

The platform, which allows the trading of Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum, filed for creditor protection in the Nova Scotia Supreme Court last week.

Quadriga has 363,000 registered users and owes a total of C$250 million to 115,000 affected users, according to an affidavit filed by Cotten’s widow Jennifer Robertson on behalf of the company.

Robertson said in the affidavit that Cotten’s main computer contained a “cold wallet” of cryptocurrencies, which is only accessible physically and not online, and his death left “in excess of C$180 million of coins in cold storage.”

Robertson said she was not involved in Cotten’s business while he was alive and did not know the password or recovery key.

“Despite repeated and diligent searches, I have not been able to find them written down anywhere,” she said.

Robertson said that she has consulted an expert who has had “limited success in recovering a few coins and some information” from Cotten’s other computer and cell phones, but the majority remains untouched on his main computer.

Quadriga’s troubles highlight the unique challenges of cryptocurrencies, Dean Skurka, vice president of rival platform Bitbuy.ca, said in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

“This really highlights the need for the government to take action and regulate cryptocurrency exchanges,” Skurka said.

Robertson said in her affidavit she has received online threats and “slanderous comments”, including questions about the nature of Cotten’s death, and whether he is really dead

 

Nepal to crack down ‘menstruation huts’ after fourth death in a month

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THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION

KATHMANDU: Nepal faced urgent calls on Monday to stop women being banished from their homes during their periods after a teenager died sleeping in a hut, becoming the fourth victim in weeks.

Parbati Bogati, 17, suffocated after lighting a fire to keep warm in the windowless mud and stone hut she had been made to sleep in under the centuries-old Hindu practice of “chhaupadi”, which remains prevalent in Nepal despite an official ban.

Her death last week came after a woman and her two young sons died in similar circumstances, prompting a parliamentary investigation and leading local officials to warn families they would be denied state benefits if found practising chhaupadi.

Human rights activists said the government was still not doing enough to stop the practice.

“The punishment is not enough and the government lacks specific policies to eliminate chhaupadi,” said Mohna Ansari, a member of Nepal‘s National Human Rights Commission.

“The existing laws must be revised and a clear plan to end the practice must be formulated and implemented.”

Chhaupadi was outlawed in 2005, yet it remains prevalent in Nepal‘s remote west and leaves women at risk of snake bites, attacks by wild animals and rape.

Some communities fear misfortune, such as a natural disaster, if menstruating women and girls are not sent away.

They are barred from touching a range of items – including milk, religious idols and cattle – and must eat frugally.

Menstruating women and girls are also not allowed to meet other family members or venture out during their period.

The custom has led to several deaths, despite the government introducing three-month jail terms and fines of 3,000 rupees ($27). Last year, a woman suffocated to death after she was banished and in 2017, a teenager died of a snake bite.

Government officials say awareness programmes have been launched in the poor, remote areas of western Nepal where chhaupadi is most prevalent, but changing attitudes is not easy.

Renu Adhikari Rajbhandari of Nepal‘s National Alliance for Women Human Rights Defenders said authorities could and should do more.

“We must demolish the metal huts and launch massive campaigns to make communities and families aware that women don’t become impure simply by menstruating,” she said.