The US Securities and Exchange Commission announced insider trading charges against a Silicon Valley trading ring, two of whom were Indian Americans Naveen Sood and Naresh Ramaiya. The six-member ring generated nearly $1.7 million in illegal profits and losses avoided by trading on the confidential earnings information of two local technology companies. According to the SEC’s complaint, Nathaniel Brown, who served as the revenue recognition manager for Infinera Corporation, repeatedly tipped Infinera’s unannounced quarterly earnings and financial performance to his best friend, Benjamin Wylam, from April 2016 until Brown left the company in November 2017, the SEC news release said. The SEC’s complaint alleges that Wylam traded on this information and also tipped Sood, who owed Wylam a six-figure gambling debt. Sood allegedly traded on this information and tipped his three friends Ramaiya, Marcus Bannon and Matthew Rauch, each of whom also illegally traded on the information, according to the complaint
Thousands flock to see Bangla dwarf cow
Thousands of people are defying a nationwide coronavirus lockdown in Bangladesh to see Rani, a 51-centimetre (20-inch) tall cow whose owners claim it is the world’s smallest. The 23-month-old dwarf cow has become a media star with scores of newspapers and television stations throwing the spotlight on the tiny bovine at a farm near Dhaka. Pictures of Rani, a Bhutti or Bhutanese cow, have gone viral on social media platforms, setting off a tourist frenzy. In the past three days, 15,000 people have visited Rani. Despite a nationwide shutdown because of record coronavirus infections and deaths, people are flocking in rickshaws to the farm in Charigram, 30 km southwest of Dhaka.
Canada names first indigenous guv general
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the UK’s Queen Elizabeth II has accepted his recommendation of indigenous leader Mary Simon as the country’s 30th Governor General. Simon, former president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national Inuit organization, will be the first Indigenous person to hold the post. Trudeau’s appointment comes over five months after Julie Payette resigned from the post after media reported that she fostered a “toxic” work environment at Rideau Hall, which is the official office of the Governor General. From Nunavik, Quebec province in the country, Simon has long been an advocate for Inuit rights and culture. She has worked as a radio host and later served as chair of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.
N Korea in grip of harsh food shortage: UN
North Korea is facing an acute food shortage of around 860,000 tonnes this year, according to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation forecast. It has warned the country could experience a “harsh lean period” by next month. Their Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un has also made rare references to the crisis in the recent past. The impoverished country, under multiple sets of international sanctions over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes, has been grappling with chronic food shortages for long. Last year, the pandemic, summer storms and floods put further stress on the economy with Pyongyang admitting last month that it was tackling a “current food crisis”.
6 students among 9 held in alleged HK bomb plot
Nine people, including six secondary school students, were arrested in Hong Kong for allegedly plotting to set off homemade bombs in courts, tunnels and trash cans as political tensions rise in the city where China is tightening its grip. Police said they were detained on suspicion of engaging in terrorist activity under a harsh national security law that Beijing imposed a year ago as part of a crackdown on dissent in the former British colony that has long enjoyed freedoms not seen on the Chinese mainland. If the allegations are true, the group appears to represent a more radical fringe of the protest movement, which has demanded broader democratic freedoms for Hong Kong. Police said the group was attempting to make the explosive triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, which has been widely used in bombings in Europe and elsewhere, in a makeshift laboratory in a hostel. Nine people between 15 and 39 years old were arrested.
28 feared dead in plane crash in Russia’s Far East
A plane carrying 28 people apparently crashed as it came in for landing in bad weather in Russia’s Far East, and everyone aboard was feared dead. Wreckage from the An-26 was found on a coastal cliffside and in the sea near the airport in the town of Palana, according to officials. The plane was on approach for a landing in fog and clouds when it missed a scheduled communication and disappeared from radar, officials from the Kamchatka region said. The plane “practically crashed into a sea cliff,” which wasn’t supposed to be in its landing trajectory, according to Sergei Gorb, deputy director of the company that owns the aircraft, Kamchatka Aviation Enterprise. According to Russian media reports, none of the six crew members or 22 passengers on board survived.
Museveni urges Africans to unite through Swahili
Uganda President Yoweri Museveni urged Africans to use Swahili as a way to unify the continent during his African Integration Day speech. He said Swahili was a "neutral language", non-ethnic that "belongs to nobody." The Ugandan ruler, who often stresses the importance of development on the continent, also said the way for the 1.4 billion Africans to prosper was to focus on " integrating the markets that will consume what we are producing as Africa. We were colonised and suffered slave trade not because our ancestors were weak, but were not well organized. We have got more capacity while operating together hence the need to develop strategic security for Africa" Yoweri Museveni added.
Zimbabwe's new biggest banknote is worth just $0.60
Zimbabwe's central bank announced the introduction of a new 50-dollar note, the country's highest denomination, worth only around $0.60 in US currency. Insufficient to pay even for a loaf of bread, the bill's entry into circulation has revived memories of hyperinflation seen more than a decade ago in the southern African nation. As price growth spiralled out of control, denominations at the time mounted as high as a 100-trillion-dollar note. Award-winning journalist and government critic Hopewell Chin'ono scoffed at the new banknote, which at the unofficial black market exchange rate will be worth just $0.35 in US dollars. "It tells you something about inflation in your country if you need 3 notes of your highest currency denomination to buy a premium beer in a supermarket," tweeted Chin'ono. The new note is the latest and most valuable in a series introduced from February 2019 as Zimbabwe moved back to using local currency.
Rockets land in Baghdad near US embassy
Rockets landed in and around the heavily fortified Green Zone in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, which houses the US embassy, causing material damage, Iraqi security forces said. Two Katuysha rockets fell near the national security building, and in an open courtyard inside the Green Zone. A third rocket fell in a nearby residential area, damaging a civilian vehicle, the statement said. It followed two separate attacks on bases housing US troops in western Iraq and across the border in Syria, where US-led coalition forces are based. The attacks come as tension is on the rise between US troops and Iran-backed fighters as Baghdad and Washington negotiate a timeline for foreign troop withdrawal from Iraq.
Assassination of Haitian president: 17 held
At least 15 Colombians and two Haitian-Americans suspected to be involved in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise have been arrested, officials said. At least 28 people participated in the murder of the Haitian president, including 26 Colombians and two Haitian Americans, Leon Charles, director of Haiti’s National Police, said. Eight other people have fled and three assassins were killed in the shootings with security forces, added the official. Moise was shot dead last week at his residence during an early morning raid by a group of gunmen. He had been ruling Haiti by decree after legislative elections due in 2018 were delayed. Disputes have been around on when his term ends. Haiti’s constitutional referendum, which should have taken place in April but was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, will be held on September 26, the national electoral commission announced on June 28.
Temp in Lapland region hits 33.6°C, hottest in 100 years
Finland’s northernmost Arctic Lapland region has recorded its hottest temperature for more than a century at 33.6°C, during a heatwave that’s been afflicting the entire Nordic country for weeks. The temperature was measured at Finland’s northernmost Utsjoki-Kevo weather station near the border with Norway by the Finnish Meteorological Institute. The institute said there was only one higher historical measurement reported in Lapland - 34.7°C in the Inari Thule area, in July 1914. The beginning of July has been exceptionally warm in Lapland, one of Europe’s last remaining wildernesses known for its extremely cold winters. The region, Finland’s largest by surface, host records for the coldest temperatures in the nation of 5.5 million. “It is exceptional in Lapland to record temperatures of over 32°C,” a meteorologist said.
Bill Gates can remove Melinda
Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates have at times referred to the foundation they established together as their “fourth child”. If over the next two years they can’t find a way to work together following their planned divorce, Gates will get full custody. That was one of the most important takeaways from a series of announcements about the future of the world’s largest charitable foundation made by its chief executive, Mark Suzman, overshadowing an injection of an additional $15 billion in resources that will be added to the $50 billion previously amassed in its endowment over two decades. “They have agreed that if after two years either one of them decides that they cannot continue to work together, Melinda will resign as co-chair and trustee,” Suzman said. If that happens, he added, French Gates “would receive personal resources from Bill for her philanthropic work” separate from the foundation’s endowment. The foundation also plans to add additional trustees outside their close circle.
Four-day work week is a big success in Iceland
A four-day work week has been an “overwhelming success” in Iceland with a majority of the labour force switching to fewer working hours without affecting overall productivity, according to researchers in the country. A study was conducted between 2015 and 2019 in the Iceland government and capital Reykjavík’s city council, of which over 2,500 workers - or about 1% of the Nordic nation’s working population - were paid the same as before but for fewer hours in duty, BBC reported, quoting a report by UK-based think tank Autonomy and Iceland’s Association for Sustainable Democracy. Productivity levels rose or remained the same with the help of rearranged shifts, junking of unnecessary tasks and methods to finish work faster, researchers said. Eventually, more sectors in Iceland were involved in the four-day schedules. Presently, 86% of Iceland’s workforce is either working fewer hours for the same pay or they are gaining the right to do so, BBC reported.
