I can't believe this thread attracted so many replies. I don't have any hatred towards religious people, but here the OP is using religion as an excuse to blame humans for the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic is like any other pandemic the humans have faced during our existence. We survived the black death of 14th century, the Spanish flu of 1918-20, and the small pox pandemics. Just remember that the religion was of little use during these testing times. The clergy on the other hand used it as an excuse to expand their powers. It was the scientists and physicians who helped humans during these times.

There is a difference between efficacy and protection against hospitalization and death. For example, a recent study found that the Pfizer vaccine is only 42% effective against the delta variant. But the same study found that those who got two doses of the Pfizer vaccine are 200 times less likely to die from the infection. So these two needs to be distinguished. On the other hand we have the Chinese vaccines (Sinopharm and Sinovac), which are neither effective, nor offers any protection from hospitalization.

LOL.. this is going to be a very unpopular opinion. IMO, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is the most undervalued coin right now. It is essentially the same as Bitcoin, but with a larger block size. And that keeps the transaction fee in check. Obviously BCH can't compete with BTC, but when compared to the other altcoins such as LTC and ETH, I believe that it has a lot of advantages. I know the level of hatred for BCH around here.. but I am just saying the facts. I believe that there is a good chance that the BCH prices may go up considerably in the near future.

If the team is among the best, they will be able to perform even if some of their players are not available. And in case of India, they were facing one of the weakest test playing nations, so these excuses don't hold. And even Sri Lanka was without players such as Angelo Mathews. So they were also not in their full strength. However, I have noticed one thing. For batting in SENA conditions, India used to be heavily dependent on Virat Kohli previously. This dependence has now vanished altogether.

Do you think that the Afghanistan players will agree to participate in the world cup, when their families are under siege form the Taliban? A lot of violence is going on there and huge number of people have been made refugees. One plus point is that cricket is one of the sporting activities that is allowed under the Taliban. The Afghanistan national cricket team played its first match, when Taliban was in power (2001?). I am looking towards the CPL, which is about to start next week. Several Afghan players are included in the franchise squads. If they participate in the CPL, then that would mean these players will be available for the World cup as well.


For Pakistan, Twitter and Facebook has signed a deal with the CPL management. Live stream of the CPL matches will be available on the official Twitter, YouTube and Facebook pages of the CPL.

https://www.youtube.com/user/officialcplt20
https://twitter.com/CPL
https://www.facebook.com/CarnivalT20/

Live stream on Twitter/Facebook/Youtube will be available for the following countries:

The ICC has announced that the participating nations will be allowed to bring a total of 15 players and 8 officials to UAE/Oman. And the list of the individuals need to be submitted before 10th September. Additional players can be brought as reserve but the participating nations need to take care of the expenses of these players. Smaller nations will be at a disadvantage here, in case any of their squad members test positive for COVID. Now we have less than two months to go, to the start of the world cup. 

LOL.. if this was what happened, then I feel sorry for the Brits. They allowed emotions to take over, and from a position where they had an advantage they went on to lose the match. Revenge against Bumrah should be taken against Kohli, because he was the mastermind from the Indian side. And it was not something that should be considered when the outcome of the match remains at knife's edge. I have ridiculed Kohli's tactics for many years. But I need to admit that in this case he did the right thing.

India won the match thanks to the batting. There were two very important partnerships. The first one was the century stand between Rahul and Rohit, and the second one was the partnership between Bumrah and Shami. The bowlers were not very impressive in the first innings, in which England made a total of close to 400. In the second innings they bowled well, but they had England under pressure thanks to the massive stand for the 9th wicket. Without those extra runs, the match would have ended with a win for England.

There is an interesting piece of news related to the T20 World Cup. Former South African international David Wiese will be representing the Namibian national side, as his father was born there.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/former-south-africa-allrounder-david-wiese-to-debut-for-namibia-at-2021-t20-world-cup-1273573

Normally I don't support non-citizens representing a country. But in this case it is OK, since his father is Namibian, and the remaining members of the team are citizens. One of the teams that is taking part in the tournament is entirely comprised of non-citizens (Oman).

Why all the facilities needs to be newly constructed? It will put extra burden on the host nations. If the particular city is lacking the facility, then I can understand. But it makes no sense to construct new stadiums, if existing ones can be used for the same purpose. And the cost of building such facilities go up with each passing year. Labour is now extremely expensive, and have gone up by 2-3 times during the last two decades. The same goes for steel, cement and other materials that are used for construction.

Rarely we see test matches getting so close. When Jomel Warrican got out, West Indies were at 151/9, with 17 more runs needed. Two genuine tailenders were at the crease (Kemar Roach & Jayden Seales). Somehow, the Pakistani bowlers, who had performed exceptionally up to that point could not get one additional wicket. Jayden Seales survived for 13 balls, and that surprised me. In the end, it was a disappointing result for Pakistan. The second test is scheduled for this week, and hopefully they could make a comeback.

I am also from India and here the people are split in to two camps - one in favor of re-opening the schools soon, and the other in favor of continuing the online system. My opinion is that the schools should remain shut, at least for 6 more months. The delta variant is proving deadly for the children as well, and in India the vaccination hasn't yet started for those who are below 18 years of age (in most of the other countries, they are vaccinating those in the 12-17 age group with the available vaccines).

XRP might have earned a temporary reprieve from the courts. But the basic issue remains. And that is, Ripple is heavily overpriced compared to the other cryptocurrencies, when we take in to account it's user base and acceptability. And that is due to the fact that the exchange rates are kept at artificially inflated levels, by keeping a large part of the circulating supply away from free-trade. When one of the large holders or promoters decide to dump their coins, the prices can suddenly go down by 30% or more.

You can check the table given in Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_the_Olympic_Games

It looks as of you are right about the Sochi (winter) Olympics. It was the most expensive tournament ever in the history of Olympics and cost almost $51 billion to the Russian tax payers. But the amount that was actually spent on infrastructure was lower than this and most of the remaining amount was stolen by the politicians. In the second place we have the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which had a price tag of $44 billion. These sort of expenses put a big hole in the budgets of many countries. And in the future, I believe that less number of countries will bid for hosting such tournaments.

I don't have a good opinion about Dogecoin or the NFT industry. But at the same time, I don't support these bans and other restrictions. People should be free to spend the money the way they want. Why the government want to poke it's nose into sectors that are beyond their control and understanding? Even if someone in Thailand purchase Dogecoin from a DEX site or a P2P platform, what are they going to do about it? My advice to the Thai authorities is to concentrate on more serious issues, rather than relegating themselves to a laughing stock in front of the world.

Many of the countries initially provided cash handouts. Even here in India, there was a lot of support from the central government during initial months. But things changed later, as the government ran out of cash. On one hand, the expenses have increased due to the need to provide free vaccinations and treatment. And on the other hand, the tax revenue has plummeted, as a result of lockdowns and other restrictions. Even in the developed nations such as the United States, the government is now struggling to provide adequate support for the population.

The United States is very unlikely to put a blanket ban on cryptocurrency. But that is not because "influential" people are involved in cryptocurrency, but because it is legally not possible to ban such an asset in the US. And also, it is practically impossible to ban the possession of an encrypted asset, that exist only in the digital form. Even if a ban is imposed, there is no way to make sure that the coins are not in the possession of any of the US citizens. Cryptocurrency consist of a few lines of code. It is impossible to establish a linkage with an individual, unless there is conversion to fiat currency somewhere. And even in this case, it is difficult to establish the link.

Three decades ago, China was a poor and overpopulated country, with one-fourth of the population living in extreme poverty. The economic situation was similar to the neighboring nations such India and Myanmar. But starting from the early 90s, the Chinese government was able to increase the wealth level of its population, by establishing new manufacturing units with the help from western investors. It was a mutually beneficial decision. Western investors profited in terms of lower labour costs and relaxed regulations and the Chinese workers benefited from higher salaries. Obviously there were negatives as well. As you mentioned, many of these manufacturing units produce huge amounts of toxins and pollutants. The neighboring nations such as India followed the same policy, but with a lag of two decades. Now it is going to take them 20-25 years, to reach the same level of prosperity that the Chinese enjoy.

See.. the problem is that cryptocurrency enthusiasts doesn't want to pay taxes. The real issue here is that they believe that cryptocurrency should not be classified as a speculative asset. They want cryptocurrency to be classified as a currency, which would mean lower tax rates on any gains from it. This is something El Salvador has done recently. They classified Bitcoin as a currency, on par with the US Dollar. But I don't think that the other countries would agree to that classification. The users in these countries are still liable to pay capital gains taxes on their gains from cryptocurrency.

Poverty doesn't exist in a handful of smaller countries such as Monaco and San Marino, but overall I agree with your views. But it is also important to remember that there can be two metrics to measure poverty. The first one is in an absolute sense. If someone doesn't have the ability to take care of his basic necessities (such as food and housing), then you can call him as poor. This absolute poverty doesn't exist in developed nations such as US and UK. The next metric is to use a relative measurement. If someone is earning below 25% of the average national salary, then you can label him as poor. This type of poverty exists almost everywhere.