Author: Gaurav

BRASILIA : Brazil’s Social Development Ministry said on Friday that a working group will propose measures by next week to stop people using their social benefit payments for online gambling. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s Bolsa Familia, a more than 20-year-old scheme, provides direct cash transfers to the poorest households at an annual cost of 168.6 billion reais ($31.04 billion), or 1.5 per cent of Brazil’s GDP. A recent central bank report showed 5 million people from beneficiary households sent 3 billion reais to online gambling companies using the Pix payment platform in August, with a median expenditure of…

TOKYO: Shigeru Ishiba, tapped to be Japan’s next prime minister, may cause diplomatic headaches for the US with proposals to revamp Tokyo’s closest alliance by locking Washington into an “Asian NATO” and stationing Japanese troops on US soil. Ishiba, elected leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Friday (Sep 27), outlined his plan in a paper to the Hudson Institute think tank last week. He argues that the changes would deter China from using military force in Asia. “The absence of a collective self-defence system like NATO in Asia means that wars are likely to break out because there is…

Haiti has seen nearly 13 people killed on average each day this year, according to data from a United Nations report on Friday (Sep 27), which urged tighter controls on arms trafficking among other measures as a gang war drives a worsening humanitarian crisis. At least 3,451 people have been killed since January, according to a report from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights published days before a UN mandate for a security force to support Haitian police is set to expire. “No more lives should be lost to this senseless criminality,” commissioner Volker Turk said in a statement.…

KUALA LUMPUR : Malaysia is working on initiatives to ensure its small-scale palm oil producers are able to comply with the European Union’s law banning imports of commodities linked to deforestation, its commodities minister said on Friday. The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) is due to be implemented on Dec. 30 this year, requiring companies selling soy, beef, coffee, palm oil and other products in the 27-nation bloc to prove their supply chains do not contribute to the destruction of forests. Equally, EU companies will be banned from exporting products cultivated on deforested land. Malaysia and Indonesia, who together account for…