Indian army officers are learning about Tibet in a new program aimed at promoting a better understanding of the formerly independent Himalayan country, now a part of China, in response to deadly clashes along their high-altitude border in 2020, sources say.
The initiative was launched with a 42-day course taught at the Central Institute of Himalayan and Cultural Studies in Arunachal Pradesh, a northeastern Indian state bordering Tibet, and attended by army officers deployed to the geographically sensitive region, India’s Defence Ministry announced this week.
The course ending on Sunday included lessons in the Tibetan language, classes on Tibetan Buddhism and literature, and visits to local monasteries in the culturally Tibetan area, now claimed by China as part of its own territory, the Ministry said, adding that similar courses are planned for the future.
Speaking to RFA on July 17, French-born journalist and Tibet expert Claude Arpi praised the Indian government program, saying it should now be extended to other government departments because of ongoing tensions along contested parts of the border between China and India.
“This initiative by the Indian government would also be good for the Indian Administrative Services in Ladakh, Sikkim and the Uttarakhand border area, and for other governing Indian officers,” Arpi said following his participation as an instructor in the month-long teaching course.
Also speaking to RFA, Jayadeva Ranade — former member of the Cabinet Secretariat of the Indian government and now president of the Centre for China Analysis and Strategy — noted that plans for the teaching program were begun following deadly border clashes in June 2020 between Chinese and Indian troops in the northeastern Indian territory of Ladakh.
“Also, having a comprehensive knowledge of Tibet’s history and traditions will be beneficial for everyone,” Ranade added.
Dalai Lama visits Ladakh
Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, now living in exile in India, is currently visiting Ladakh in his first trip away from his residence in Dharamsala since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic more than two years ago.
After a few days’ rest in the region, the Dalai Lama will teach on July 28, 29 and 30 at the Shewatsel Teaching Ground near Choglamsar at the request of the Ladakh Buddhist Association and the Ladakh Gonpa Association, sources say.
Banned by Chinese authorities in Tibet, celebrations of the Dalai Lama’s July 6 birthday have been held by large gatherings in Ladakh in recent years, according to sources in the region.
Concerns have been raised over the advancing age of the now 87-year-old spiritual leader, with Beijing claiming the right to name a successor after he dies, and the Dalai Lama himself—the 14th in his line—saying he will be reborn outside of areas controlled by China.
Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China y force more than 70 years ago, and the Dalai Lama and thousands of his followers later fled into exile in India and other countries around the world following a failed 1959 national uprising against China’s rule.
Tibetans living in Tibet frequently complain of discrimination and human rights abuses by Chinese authorities and policies they say are aimed at eradicating their national and cultural identity.
Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Written in English by Richard Finney.
Qommodity’s QAA token has just been launched on one more crypto trading platform and is now available for purchase both on Lbank and Latoken. The QAA token is a voucher that will allow buyers to exchange it against the QAAA token at the market value price at the moment of exchange, once QAAA is launched.
Featured Image for Qommodity QAA Ltd.
DUBAI, Arab Emirates, July 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Commodity’s QAA token can now be purchased on an additional crypto exchange platform.
Purchasing the QAA token now means that buyers will be able to exchange it against the QAAA token at the market value price at the moment of exchange when QAAA’s launch is imminent.
What makes the QAAA token so valuable is the fact that it is a future asset-backed Security Token with ISIN. The asset-backing is realized through the monetization of in-ground natural resources.
Qommodity started in Sierra Leone more than 12 years ago through one of its subsidiaries, Tandem Liber Holdings, the natural resource division of Qommodity Resource Holdings.
Qommodity’s licenses are now covering a total area of 354.5 sq. km on the African continent, valuing the in-ground resources through the certification standard NI43-101.
This process is called “tokenization of in-ground resources”, which may trigger the largest transition of wealth in the history of mankind since these untapped resources will be made suitable for monetization within the monetary system.
One of the main goals of this project is to increase the quality of life for the communities, creating opportunities, livelihood, and sustainable development within the scope of ESG. The resources stay in the ground, unexploited, thus increasing the value of the land. With this approach, Qommodity will contribute to providing access to clean water, medicine, education, and other long-term benefits for local communities.
Qommodity also aims to provide a low threshold in order to facilitate access to the QAAA token for people all over the world. This one-of-a-kind security token will build the bridge between the traditional finance system and digital currency.
The mission is simple: protect our planet, bring people a higher quality of life, and offer the chance to choose between making the most out of the traditional financial system or enjoying the benefits of a hybrid financial solution. The system behind the QAA token is backed with sophisticated customer support to make sure that everyone is able to purchase the token without any specialized financial knowledge.
To ensure that the QAA token is made accessible to as many people as possible, Qommodity decided to launch it on various cryptocurrency exchanges and get it monitored by the crypto observatories.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is moving to dampen concerns about a banking crisis amid an ongoing mortgage repayments strike and widespread protests over frozen accounts at rural banks.
Several cities in the central province of Henan set up task forces to address the issue of unfinished housing projects, the Global Times newspaper reported, following widespread concerns over the systemic risks posed by mortgage defaulters.
Authorities in Henan’s Pingdingshan city were finding ways to kick start unfinished projects, while Gongyi city announced on July 14 that three stalled projects in the city had been “properly resolved,” the paper said.
“The accelerated moves by local authorities come as mortgage defaults in some Chinese cities, including those in … Guangdong … Henan and Hunan provinces, have raised concerns at both home and abroad,” the paper said.
“Risk management mechanisms are generally deemed strong enough to withstand the risk,” it said of the banking sector.
Financial markets commentator Chai Xin said the mortgage repayments strikes stem in part from unfair clauses in the off-plan, or presold, sector of the property market.
“Almost all of them contain overlord clauses, which don’t give buyers any legal protection, and allow banks to use your other assets [to secure the mortgage], should the mortgaged property lose value,” Chai told RFA. “This doesn’t really happen anywhere outside China.”
Chai said the CCP is very worried that the mortgage repayment strike will have a knock-on effect on public confidence in the banking system.
“The suspension of mortgage repayments isn’t going to have a huge impact on the banks’ huge assets,” he said. “But the thing the banks are most worried about right now is wavering public trust,” he said.
“If public confidence in the banks is shaken, then they will have a big problem.”
Plainclothes security officers stand on the road as people stage a protest at the entrance to a branch of China’s central bank in Zhengzhou in central China’s Henan Province on July 10, 2022. Credit: AP
‘Manageable overall’
Chai said if the mortgage strike ends up prompting bankruptcies among property developers, that could also have a big impact on the banks.
To date, 15 banks, including the five biggest banks in China, have issued announcements to the effect that the risks from the mortgage repayments strike are “controllable” or “manageable overall.”
The move to reassure the public comes after thousands of people protested outside the Shaanxi branch of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) in the northern city of Xi’an on July 14, calling for an investigation into bank loans to property developers, some of whom have been transferring funds overseas.
A manager in the personal loan department of the Shenzhen branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), who gave only the surname Li, said some developers have been taking the money needed to finish housing projects out of the country.
“The developer will say, we can’t go on, this project can’t be completed, but that unfinished project is itself mortgaged, built with a loan borrowed from the bank,” Li said.
“[They might take out a] loan of 400 million yuan, 100 million of which would be used for basic development project, and they keep selling off-plan [before completion],” she said. “[But] many developers have already transferred those funds overseas.”
“If the housing developer fails to deliver the building on time, the building will be unfinished,” Li said. “In the loan agreement between the buyer and the bank, if there is a problem with property used as collateral, they can include your existing assets to recover the debt.”
“But if this becomes very widespread, the banks won’t be able to withstand it,” she said.
Call for patience
Meanwhile, a CBIRC official called on depositors at four rural banks in the central province of Henan to “be patient” and wait for compensation.
“Police have identified the main facts of the case and discovered … that Henan New Fortune Group manipulated five village banks in Henan and Anhui to illegally absorb public funds through internal and external collusion, use of third-party platforms and fund brokers, tamper with original business data, and cover up illegal behavior,” the official said.
“The vast majority of ordinary customers of [these banks] have no knowledge or understanding of the suspected criminal behavior of New Fortune Group, and have not received additional high interest or subsidies … and their capital will be returned in batches,” the official said, adding that regular depositors with savings of less than 50,000 yuan would be refunded first.
“This is a heavy workload because there are large numbers of people involved … so please wait patiently for follow-up announcements,” the official said.
The official said CBIRC also “supports local governments to more effectively promote guaranteed property handovers by developers in a bid to address the mortgage repayments strike.
“Banks should insist on finding out the truth of the situation … and on precise implementation of policy, and actively plan to solve the hard funding gap in a reasonable manner,” the official said in comments reported on the CBIRC official website.
Since the protests began over the withdrawals freeze at the Henan rural banks, customers have also reported that their bank cards have been frozen or restricted by other banks in Beijing, Shandong, Hainan and other provinces and cities.
One newspaper quoted a depositor in Shaanxi as saying that his ICBC savings card wouldn’t let him withdraw or transfer his money, only deposit it.
The Securities Daily quoted several banks as saying that cards are generally restricted because of suspected money-laundering or other illegal activities, amid reports that Chinese banks have stepped up scrutiny of dormant accounts with no activity for three years or more in recent years.
People protest outside a branch of the People’s Bank of China in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou on July 10, 2022. Credit: Anonymous source/AFP
Liquidity fears
Independent economist He Jiangbing said some dormant accounts are used for criminal activities, something that can happen anywhere in the world.
“The thing the banks fear most is a run, but what they are doing now and the news that is coming out is sending things in that direction,” He said.
Economic commentator Jin Shan, a pseudonym, said the restrictions on cards does point to an underlying crisis in China’s financial system.
“The financial system has poor capital turnover and can’t cope with demand for liquidity,” Jin told RFA. “In the background is the bigger picture of the long-term economic downturn, caused by [the zero-COVID policy].”
“This fatal blow to the economy results in a loss of [liquidity], as well as making bank deposits fall at the same time.”
“The large state-owned banks are a bit more robust, so the problems occur later, but they have also been restricting withdrawals, through quotas, or requirements to make appointments for withdrawals.”
Jin said restrictions on withdrawals could fuel a systemic banking crisis in China, with the real estate industry at the heart of the issue.
STATE COLLEGE, Pa., July 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Kdan Mobile Software Ltd., an international SaaS company, announced a series of upcoming collaboration projects with Microsoft. Kdan’s e-signature platform, DottedSign, now integrates with Microsoft Teams. Future efforts will continue to make Kdan’s software solutions available for users of Microsoft’s platforms.
“We share the same core values with Microsoft, in that our solutions are devoted to increasing the productivity for enterprises,” explains Wei-Chung Wang, Kdan’s VP of global marketing and strategy. “By integrating DottedSign with Microsoft Teams, users are able to streamline their work process, greatly enhancing the team’s mobility and productivity.”
Kdan will introduce integrations between DottedSign and Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM to support sales, service and marketing-related activities; and Microsoft Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, to provide users with more storage solutions.
The aim of the initial integration is to help users work more efficiently in remote or hybrid environments by enabling documents to be signed and stored within Teams. DottedSign is now available in Microsoft AppSource to the more than 270 million monthly active users of Microsoft Teams. DottedSign provides added security with its identity authentication, signature validation and audit trails, along with its encryption, strengthening the confidentiality of the documents.
“Our vision for the future of remote work is one where users can find all their essential tools in one place,” explains Kenny Su, Kdan’s CEO and founder. “A member of an organization could now hold video conferences, share ideas with team members and request signatures from internal or external parties-all directly within Teams.”
DottedSign is currently used by over 2,000 enterprises to expedite the signature process. Organizations that are interested in trialing DottedSign to sign and store documents online are encouraged to visit its official website: https://bit.ly/3PtUvXI
About Kdan Mobile Software Ltd. and DottedSign
Kdan Mobile Software was founded in 2009 with a mission to empower modern professionals to better leverage their productivity and unleash their creativity. The company is a global SaaS provider, whose work is supported by over 200 million downloads, and over 10 million active members worldwide.
Their e-signature service, DottedSign, is used by over 2,000 enterprise clients and provides a smooth, secure and efficient cloud-based e- signing service. Their other solutions include a portfolio of different productivity and creativity-related tools.
DottedSign is available for purchase in Microsoft AppSource: Get DottedSign
Integrated QC dashboard and unlimited validation cycles for interim and final datasets creates industry’s most user-friendly validator
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FOSTER CITY, Calif., July 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — PointCross Life Sciences announced today the full complement release of its eDataValidator™ (eDV) for validating SDTM, ADaM, SEND and Define.XML data for conformance to prevailing FDA, CDISC, and PMDA rules.
Used by 5 of the top 10 large pharma as part of the Xbiom™ regulatory suite, eDV is now available as a standalone tool in response to calls from Sponsor clinical operations, biostatisticians and biometrics communities. Industry called for easily accessible, cheaper tools that work well for qualified workflows for data standardization to SDTM – and analysis datasets in ADaM – in incremental stages until the final packaging for submission.
eDV offers limitless validation of Clinical SDTM as well as Nonclinical SEND, making this a single solution for IND, NDA and BLA preparation.
Validate an unlimited number of interim or final datasets
Work with a variety of data formats including CSV, XPT, SAS7BDAT, or Excel
Save costs with a $170 monthly user subscription and no annual contract requirement
Integrate eDV leveraging its APIs into various enterprise dataset generation scripts used by your biometrics teams as part of their SOP, including implementation of custom business rules
PointCross Life Sciences offers several types of configurations to deploy its eDV. Each of these configurations have very competitively priced, optional support, integration and validation services.
Monthly subscription of eDV at an introductory rate of $170/month/user with volume discounts available for 3+ users and no annual contract requirement. A companion desktop tool is included to support offline clinical work-in-process data files. This is an ideal option for quick, inexpensive on/off ramp use by organizations working on specific trial or study data.
On-Premise installations of eDataValidator for organizations committed to having an integrated, qualified, validated workflow subject to their SOPs. APIs facilitate integrations for enterprise applications to access the data validation and quality checking capabilities in eDV.
eDataValidator simplifies the validation experience with a built in QC dashboard to review and verify reported issues/non-conformities, and easy comparisons of datasets across loaded versions. Users can generate Define files, TS.XPT, and easily convert XPT files to Excel (useful for the nonclinical user community spot-checking SEND datasets).
About PointCross Life Sciences
PointCross Life Sciences, founded in 2010 in the San Francisco Bay Area, is a privately held global technology company providing the Life Sciences industry with solutions in big data analytics, management, visualization, and warehousing. Powered by the Xbiom™ Insights and Regulatory platform, our offerings reduce risk and improve data quality, thus shortening time to market and generating better insights from both R&D and regulatory data for a globally dispersed number of CROs, large pharma, and small biotechnology Sponsors. For more information, please visit www.pointcross.com
Press Contact:
Kunaal Madhavan
Marketing at PointCross Life Sciences kunaal@pointcross.com
SYDNEY, July 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Destination New South Wales (NSW) and Sydney city has marked one year to go until the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023™ kicks off in Australia & New Zealand, launching the vibrant FIFA Women’s World Cup Unity Pitch on Sydney Harbour at Barangaroo and lighting up the world-famous Sydney Harbour Bridge in celebration.
To officially start the countdown, FIFA’s Secretary General, Fatma Samoura, unveiled the vibrant and unique multicoloured Unity Pitch to represent the diverse people and cultures brought together on Gadigal land by this global sporting event. One Year to Go animations will also be beamed onto the pylons of the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge as an open invitation to women’s football fans from all over the world to book their trip to Sydney.
Minister for Enterprise, Investment and Trade, Minister for Tourism and Sport and Minister for Western Sydney Stuart Ayres said Sydney had a celebrated history hosting major international sporting events.
“The countdown is officially on until the largest sporting event to be held on Australian soil since the 2000 Olympics takes place in Sydney. The occasion marks the first time this significant event has been hosted in the Southern Hemisphere, once again demonstrating Sydney is the events capital of the Asia Pacific,” Minister Ayres said.
“Being there as the Matildas run onto the new Sydney Football Stadium in Moore Park for the opening match on 20 July 2023 will be a highlight on the sporting calendar, and we encourage visitors from all over Australia and around the world to make the trip to Sydney for the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™.”
FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™ COO Australia Jane Fernandez said: “Today is a really exciting and important milestone on the road to the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™.
“The vision for the tournament is to unite the world through a unique experience and showcase the world’s best players with a world-class event that will see women’s football go Beyond Greatness.”
CommBank Matildas player Ellie Carpenter joined local sports stars, including the first captain of the Matildas Julie Dolan, Rugby Sevens Gold medallist Chloe Dalton, basketballer Shyla Heal, and Football Ferns player Malia Steinmetz, in a friendly futsal match on the harbourside Unity Pitch.
The Unity Pitch will tour all host cities prior to 20 July 2023 before being gifted to the host countries as part of FIFA’s commitment to leaving a lasting legacyin Australia and New Zealand. The tour of the Unity Pitch is a representation of the two vibrant and unique culturesof each nation, celebrating the coming together of 32 participating nations and symbolising football as a unifying and progressive game.
Carpenter, the Matildas’ dynamic defender, was born and raised in Cowra in regional NSW before relocating to Western Sydney at a young age to pursue her football career. Here she shares her top eight insider tips for all football fans to see and do while they are in Sydney and NSW:
Climb an icon: See Sydney from a different perspective and feel on top of the world withBridgeClimb Sydney.
Immerse in nature: Explore the spectacularRoyal Botanic Garden in the heart of the city.
Discover local history: Learn about the rich colonial history of The Rocksand experience its transformation into a thriving entertainment precinct with amazing dining, drinking and shopping options.
Experience invigorating events: Attend an eventat Accor Stadium at Sydney Olympic Park – Ellie has been an ambassador for the venue since she was 16 years old and has very fond memories of her time here.
Dine on local produce: With the “best views of the Harbour and city” and “superb food with an Aussie twist” Ellie says no visit to Sydney is complete without dining at BennelongSydney. The iconic restaurant is located inside the sails of the Sydney Opera House.
Explore like the locals: For a secret Sydney experience,hire a kayakin Manly on Sydney’s Northern Beaches and explore secluded beaches on Sydney Harbour that can only be accessed by the water.
Take a luxurious short break: For a “uniquely Australian and breathtakingly peaceful” experience that is only a one-hour drive from the CBD, book a trip to Emirates One&Only Wolgan Valley in the Blue Mountains.
Sydney will host 11 FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™ matches from Thursday 20 July 2023 to Sunday 20 August 2023, including the opening match and Final. Tickets will go on sale from 6 October at www.fifa.com/beyondgreatness, starting from $20 for adults and $10 for children.
The Unity Pitch at Barangaroo will be open to the public and local football groups until 24 July 2022.
For more information on things to see and do in Sydney, visit www.sydney.com. Share yourfavourite Sydney experiences on social media using #feelnewsydney #ILoveSydney.
The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™ forms a part of the NSW Government’s 10 World Cups in 10 Years initiative, which attracts the world’s largest and most prestigious sporting events to the NSW.
Media contact: Wayne Mitcham, Destination NSW – wayne@amio.nz
Call for patience
