Author: Steven Sahiounie

South Africa is preparing to host the upcoming BRICS summit in August, which is set to be attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin. South Africa has begun preparing to host all BRICS leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, as part of their participation in the August summit, Anil Sooklal, South Africa’s Sherpa in BRICS told Russian news agency Sputnik. The official underlined that it has been confirmed that all leaders will be attending the summit after Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in March that no decision had been made regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s participation. According to Sooklal, the Russian President…

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova pointed out that, on the contrary, statements were made which can be described as the “public justification of terrorism” Western countries could not bring themselves to condemn the terror attack on war reporter Vladlen Tatarsky [real name: Maxim Fomin], Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel on Saturday. “Over six days that elapsed since the moment of the blast in that St. Petersburg cafe, not a single Western ‘champion’ of freedom of the media and the safety of journalists managed to utter even a word condemning this cruelty, horrendous by any human…

Saudi Arabia has made the decision to end the war on Yemen which broke out more than eight years ago, according to several news reports that emerged on April 7. Citing informed Yemeni sources, the Al-Mayadeen TV reported that the kingdom informed the Yemeni president and members of the Presidential Leadership Council of its decision and briefed them on unannounced meetings with the Iran-aligned Houthis (Ansar Allah) during a recent meeting in Riyadh. “The Saudi Defense Minister, Khalid bin Salman, briefed the head of the leadership council and members of the council on the solution for a way out of…

February sales slumped by more than 20% in annual terms, an industry association says Worldwide sales of microchips declined 4% in February in monthly terms to $39.7 billion, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reported on Thursday. The figure is 20.7% lower than in February 2022, when sales totalled $50 billion, according to the SIA. “Global semiconductor sales continued to slow in February, decreasing year-to-year and month-to-month for the sixth consecutive month,” SIA President and CEO John Neuffer said. “Short-term market cyclicality and macroeconomic headwinds have led to cooling sales, but the market’s medium- and long-term prospects remain bright, thanks to growing demand across…

Western businesses have been forced to reject Russian imports despite the official positions of governments, a grain union says Russian grain exporters have been hit by indirect sanctions, as Western businesses were unable to provide services critical to the industry, the head of the Russian Union of Grain Exporters has said in an interview with RT. Eduard Zernin explained that even though grain is exempt from anti-Russia sanctions imposed by Western powers, firms located or registered in those countries were systemically refusing to work with Russian suppliers. “Among them are banking institutions of this or that country that have been rejecting…

The Twitter user Cryptoes (@cryptotoes_ta) tweeted this morning that the price of the remittance token, Ripple (XRP), has recently closed above a significant price level. According to the tweet, the daily close for XRP has closed above a key price level and may continue to rise in the upcoming days. The tweet added that XRP’s price will push right above the next resistance level around $0.53 if this level holds. At press time, the price of XRP stands at $0.5105 according to CoinMarketCap. This comes after the altcoin’s price climbed 0.32% over the last 24 hours. This 24-hour gain has…

The efforts to expand Bitcoin development and adoption in Africa and Central America continue. So the market is looking pretty comfortable with BTC after the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and others with crypto exposure. After shocking customers, markets, and regulators earlier last month, their effect on BTC’s market value seems priced into the momentum. While crypto yield scheme crashes and bank runs haven’t been able to keep down bitcoin’s price, something’s pushing it higher. That’s industry development and user adoption happening all over the world. Two of the most promising regions for crypto growth are Africa and Central America.…

According to the latest filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Private Advisor Group LLC has reduced its holdings in the US-based crypto exchange Coinbase Global by 19.8%. This information was captured in a report by MarketBeat on Saturday, noting the firm now owned 16,730 shares of the crypto exchange’s stock after selling 4,135 shares. Notably, Private Advisor Group LLC’s holdings in Coinbase Global were worth $592,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. The decrease in the group’s holdings could indicate a lack of faith in the crypto firm, leading to further selling pressure on the…

South Korean authorities have confirmed that they have asked the crypto exchange Binance to freeze crypto belonging to the Terraform Co-founder Daniel Shin. The broadcaster KBS reported that the prosecution had “requested a freeze action from” Binance, “in relation to [cryptoassets] that appear to be owned by Shin.” An official from the Seoul Southern District Prosecutor’s Office claimed that Shin had sent a “large variety” of coins to “overseas exchanges, including Binance.” The official explained that the exchange had been asked to “freeze” the funds “as soon as it is confirmed” that Shin was indeed the owner. The prosecution claims that the coin stash includes Bitcoin…

Shiba Inu (SHIB), the world’s second-largest dog-inspired meme coin with a market capitalization of close to $6.5 billion, was last changing hands close to $0.000011 per token, broadly flat on the day. Trade in cryptocurrency markets on Friday has been subdued with most traditional financial markets in Europe and the Americas closed for Good Friday. The just released US labor market report for March was mostly in line with expectations, thus failing to trigger any meaningful breakouts in the crypto market. For now, Shiba Inu is holding up despite sell pressure in rival memecoin Dogecoin, which was triggered by Twitter removing the Dogecoin logo…