Can you give  a breakdown of this 514 million USD figure? I want to know how much of it was spent on organizing conferences and on speaking charges. Does that include speeches from politicians such as Hillary Clinton (who charge anywhere from $100,000 to $1 million as speaking fee for a single event)? I also don't have any problem in Bill Gates helping developing world. But that shouldn't be done at the expense of the tax payer in the US. Is it that hard for Mr. Gates to pay 20% of the amount as capital gains tax, and spend the remaining 80% in Africa, or wherever he want?

What do you mean by not accessible? I am a woman and I have been to this field for the last 7 years. I never faced any issue with "accessibility". Women are scarce in this field, because most of them are not interested in technology. Cryptocurrency is more popular among the youth (those in 20s and 30s), and normally the women of this age group are not much interested in investing. From what I have seen, women turn to cryptocurrency at a later stage of their life when compared to the men. There are several reasons, such as lack of interest and unavailability of funds.

Obviously no one can force you to take the vaccine (unless you are living in a dictatorship such as North Korea). But at this point, it should be remembered that all the available vaccines have completed the phase III trials. The results from these clinical trials are available with reputed medical journals such as The Lancet. Each of these trials involved anywhere from 50,000 to 200,000 people. On top of that, more than 3 billion doses of the vaccine has been administered till now, and this goes way beyond any "Beta testing" phase.

I would think twice before placing a bet in favor of Denmark. Because out of the four teams in the semis, England seems to be in exceptional form. It is just unbelievable that they haven't conceded a goal so far (perhaps that is going to remain as such till the end of this tournament). My only question is who will be the opponents of England in the final. Is it going to be Spain, or is it going to be Italy? The situation here is directly opposite to what we have with England vs Denmark. The Italy vs Spain is a battle between two equal sides. It is extremely hard to predict who is going to qualify for the final.

In Eastern Europe, the people (especially those who are middle aged or elderly) don't trust the government. This is due to their experience during the Communist rule, which lasted until the 1990s. Same is the case with Russia. The government is administering Sputnik V, which is one of the most efficient vaccines against COVID. But so far less than one-fifth of the population has come up for vaccination. At least in the case of Poland, the percentage is much higher (still much lower when compared to the western nations).

Right now, the only country that has remained free from COVID for the last few months is China. All the cases that were reported from that country during the last few months were "imported" (i.e migrated from other countries). Apart from China, there are a few remarkable exceptions, such as Taiwan and Vietnam. But even in these countries, there is a trend of increase in the number of new infections. Then there are countries such as New Zealand and New Caledonia, which have remained free from COVID, because they are isolated island nations.

You don't need to generalize all the Asian countries in to one bracket. Actually you can't expect communist nations such as China, North Korea and Vietnam to allow a decentralized asset such as Bitcoin to be used within their territory. Their economies are manipulated, and are kept alive by manipulating the investment assets. Even the national currencies are heavily manipulated and therefore Bitcoin represents an existential threat for them. The situation is vastly different in countries such as Japan and South Korea.

West Indies performs well, if the star players (Pollard, Russell, Bravo, Pooran.etc) are available. This time all of them turned out, because the T20 franchise leagues are suspended as a result of COVID. But even then, they couldn't secure a series win against a relatively weak opposition such as South Africa. On top of that, their performance in the test format remains really weak. Sri Lanka on the other hand, send a relatively young and inexperienced side to England and predictably lost most of their matches.

Ranatunga is saying that the BCCI has insulted Sri Lanka by sending a "second string" side. But now another question arises. In case Sri Lanka is unable to secure even a single win against this  "second string" side, then what should be interpreted out of this? I think Ranatunga is frustrated because he hasn't got a good job at the moment. The media covered his statements and that might have given him some satisfaction. On the part of BCCI, I think that they did the right decision. Players like Kohli and Rohit are not required for a series against Sri Lanka.

There is a very small chance of a global ban on cryptocurrency. But the chances are really low. Take the Biden administration's latest move to impose a global minimum corporate tax. After months of intimidation and blackmailing, only around 60% of the countries have accepted the proposal. When the Americans can't get even smaller countries to accept their demands, how do they expect 100% compliance with any possible cryptocurrency ban in the future? Countries which value individual liberty, such as Switzerland are just going to reject the proposal.

Bitcoin present a threat to the global hegemony of the US Dollar. And this threat is increasing and has entered a different stage now, with the announcement from El Salvador that they will award the status of legal tender to BTC. The significance of this measure is that now Bitcoin is a direct competitor to the US Dollar. Such a scenario was absent previously. Now the dimensions have changed and we can expect a much more hostile attitude from the US regime. And now coming to the probable ban, for digital currencies that exist only online, localized bans will have zero impact. 

Your post is really funny. Here you are comparing El Salvador with Singapore and claiming that the former is a small country. For your information, the resident population of El Salvador is double that of Singapore and even the diaspora population is equal to the total population of the latter country. But I agree that in terms of economical strength, Singapore may be ahead. But that doesn't mean that the situation will remain just like that for the next few decades. The president (Nayib Bukele) has implemented a string of popular reforms. Crime rate has decreased and the economy is surging. And on top of that, they are the first country to officially recognize Bitcoin as the legal tender, and this will guarantee their future economic growth.

LOL.. so around 130 out of approx. 200 countries signed up for this? It doesn't surprise me. Countries with high rates of corporate taxes will sign up, since it benefits them. On the other hand, tax havens (such as the Caribbean islands and gulf nations) would ignore this initiative, as it affects their revenues. In the end, the stalemate and status quo will persist. If Ireland agrees to this measure, then the companies will just relocate to some other tax haven, such as Luxembourg, Malta or San Marino. How much time it takes to shift HQ from one country to another?

I am not very happy with the current token system in cryptocurrency sector. It needs a complete revamp. Right now, the users have no means to find out that the token is backed up with the actual asset or not. We need to devise some mechanism, where the asset is directly incorporated in to the token (i.e the coin can't be spent by anyone else). If the coin is spent elsewhere, then the token should automatically become worthless. Is it possible to devise such a mechanism? Technology has advanced so much, and therefore I am hopeful of such an innovation occurring in the future.

None of his other family members were in talking terms with him at the time of his death. Even I have doubts on McAfee's relationship with his wife (Janice Dyson, married in 2013). Dyson is a former sex worker, and she came to contact with McAfee while she was still in the business. Dyson would claim that McAfee saved her from human traffickers, but I don't find much truth in her stories. McAfee never believed in any family responsibility. He has admitted that he fathered at least 50 children, to around two dozen different women. And he never paid a penny in maintenance to any of his offspring.

This is the ecosystem the left has created in western nations. Criminals are being given special rights, none of which their victims received. A perfect example is the case of Rwanda genocide. 1 million ethnic minority civilians were killed during this genocide. Ethnic minority women were raped by perpetrators who were HIV positive. The victims caught HIV from their rapists, and soon died. However, the rapists are still alive as they are detained by the International Criminal Court and they are getting free access to expensive medicines. And to give an example of how the legal system in UK works:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8211263/Rapist-deportation-halted-airline-passengers-staged-mutiny-set-released.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/deportation-rapist-halted-appeal-judges-1945890.html
https://metro.co.uk/2019/04/07/gang-rape-victims-trauma-after-heathrow-passengers-stop-attackers-deportation-9128061/

Now after this, do you really expect that the Cajee brothers will be brought to justice within the UK?

Did anyone noticed that England is yet to concede a goal so far in this tournament? That is an unbelievable record, after 3 group matches and 2 knockout matches. Their defense department has performed exceptionally. Normally when talking about England, a lot of people focus on their forwards - Harry Kane, Raheem Sterling, Marcus Rashford.etc. But actually it was the defenders such as Harry Maguire and Kieran Trippier who made the difference this time (along with the goalkeeper Jordan Pickford). For Denmark, their best chance will come if the match ends up in penalty shootout.

For a moment, let's assume that BMGF has spent zero funds on consultation, salaries and speaking fees (popular ways to bribe politicians). How much of that money is being spent on American citizens, given the fact that the US treasury suffered a loss of $20 billion? As far as I know, less than 1% of the money was spent on US. Now what will happen, if the other billionaires follow the same example. Let's say that Elon Musk sets up a charity with $100 billion worth of shares from Tesla. He then decides to use that money, to help poor white South Africans (his own ethnic group). Will it be OK for you, or are you going to object, since he is supporting the "politically incorrect" group?

The League consists of 36 matches per team. Sri Lanka has played 9 matches, which means that for them 75% of the matches are remaining. So there is a good chance that they will be able to improve their position in the coming months. But at this point, it needs to be remembered that only the top-8 teams will be able to qualify directly for the world cup. Sri Lanka will be able to improve their ranking from the present 11th spot, but the chances that they end up within the top 8 looks very slim for me.

---

BTW, some drama seems to be going on with Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA). Mohammad Azharuddin has been reinstated as the president of HCA by the ombudsman. Earlier, he was suspended for the breach of terms. Looks like the terms are not applicable, if you are politically connected. The curse for BCCI is that corrupt people like Azharuddin are still holding high positions, and there are people who will support him when any step is taken against his corruption.

Right now there are two coins in the Coinmarketcap top-10 list that are being overpriced heavily. These coins are Dogecoin and Ripple. And in both the cases, a select bunch of promoters and whales own a large share of the circulating supply. In case of Ripple, promoters own anywhere form 80% to 90% of the supply, while in case of Dogecoin, around 70% of the supply is being owned by the top-100 owners. These people are keeping the prices artificially high, by removing most of the supply from the market.