Vastavam web: US President Donald Trump today demanded death penalty for Uzbek immigrant Sayfullo Saipov after he killed eight people in a truck attack in New York.Trump has been vocal in condemning the yesterday’s attack carried out by the 29-year-old ISIS-inspired man who ploughed a pickup truck down a crowded bike path near the World Trade Centre, killing eight people and injuring nearly a dozen others.Trump said yesterday that it was “another attack by a very sick and deranged person” while extending his “thoughts, condolences and prayers” to the victims.
He also called for tougher “merit-based” immigration measures and vowed to do away with the diversity visa programme.”The terrorist came into our country through what is called the ‘Diversity Visa Lottery Programme’ I want merit based,” he wrote on Twitter.The FBI and New York Police Department are jointly investigating the terrorist attack, the deadliest in New York post 9/11.Hours after the terrorist attack, Trump directed the Department of Homeland Security for “extreme vetting”.
Vastavam web: A Singapore-based microfinance company plans to open an office in India next year with focus on the unbanked market and farmers.MicroMoney International, which has raised USD 10 million earlier this month, is seeking a foothold in India’s microfinance business, a business still trying to move beyond the big lenders.An initial coin offering (ICO) is a way start-ups raise capital in crypto coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum, often creating their own digital money called tokens that gets used like a discount coupon for its own product.
However, Indian regulators consider ICOs highly speculative investments.”India has been a micro-lending hot spot for over a decade as one of the big four emerging markets that also includes Brazil, Russia and China. And has a large informal and rural economy in need of funding,” said Dzyatkovsky.Government policies – including doing away with large rupee notes – have made it harder for individuals to be fully informal. Most have opted to register as legal entities and are opening bank accounts.
In April, Unicorn India Ventures led a half-a-million dollar investment round in Bengaluru-based microlending startup SmartCoin.Comparatively, Unicorn’s short-term loans range from Rs 1,000 for two-week credit lines to up to Rs 50,000 for three- month credit lines, he pointed out.Microlending customers, also known as the “unbanked” in industry parlance, tend not to have any credit profile.
Vastavam web: President Rodrigo Duterte’s spokesman says China is being offered a chance to operate a third telecommunications carrier in the Philippines.
The move is aimed at breaking a telecoms duopoly in a country that is said to have the slowest internet speed in the Asia Pacific.Roque said it was unclear which Chinese company might take on the project. It would be competing with current operators Globe Telecom Inc. and PLDT Inc.
Vastavam web: North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un discussed future talks with the US at a party meeting, state media reported today, in his first official mention of dialogue with Washington ahead of a planned summit with President Donald Trump.Trump agreed last month to a landmark summit with the nuclear-armed North — which would be the first between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader — but no specific dates or venue have been set, with questions mounting over Pyongyang’s participation.He delivered a report “on the development of the recent situation on the Korean peninsula”, including the separate summit with South Korea to be held later this month, it said.
In a growing rapprochement on the Korean peninsula, Kim is scheduled to meet the South’s president Moon Jae-in for a rare inter-Korean summit on April 27.But the North had remained publicly silent since its leader’s invitation to talks was delivered to Trump by South Korean officials last month.
As officials in Washington scrambled to prepare for the prospective meeting, the weeks-long silence had reportedly made the White House nervous that Seoul had overstated the North’s willingness to negotiate over its own nuclear arsenal.”I think there will be great respect paid by both parties and hopefully there will be a deal on denuking,” he said.
“Hopefully it will be a relationship that will be much different than it has been for many, many years.” North Korea’s recent frenetic diplomatic activity marks a stunning turnaround after a year of heightened tensions which saw the North fire multiple missiles and carry out its most powerful nuclear test, further isolating the regime and triggering a fiery war of words with Trump.The North’s foreign minister Ri Yong Ho arrived in Moscow on Monday after making stops in Beijing, Azerbaijan and other former Soviet republics.
Ri also paid a visit last month to Sweden, which acts as a diplomatic go-between for Washington and Pyongyang.If the summit does take place, many remain sceptical about the whether a meeting between the two notoriously unpredictable leaders can succeed.No specifics have yet emerged concerning the date or venue of the proposed summit, with a third country such as Mongolia or Sweden under consideration to host the talks, according to multiple reports.
Beyond that, a detailed agenda for the talks will need to be set.Washington’s long-held stance is that it will not accept a nuclear-armed North Korea. That means it wants to see “complete, verifiable, and irreversible” denuclearisation — a very high bar.