Author: Set Galoustyan

The United States has seized digital currency worth about half a million dollars from an account registered to a Chinese man who featured in a Reuters investigation into crypto-investment fraud run from Southeast Asia. U.S. authorities said the scam that prompted the seizure involved a crypto-investment fraud known as pig butchering. In such schemes, fraudsters manipulate unsuspecting people they meet online, persuading them to invest in bogus crypto schemes. The U.S. Secret Service seized the crypto from an account in the name of Wang Yicheng in June, according to a document filed by U.S. authorities in federal court in Massachusetts.…

Brussels (3/12) Governments may be doing great while the people suffer. Bombing of the Nordstream 2 pipeline, carrying cheap Russian natural gas to industry and consumers in Europe, is exerting a cascading effect on companies and employment, eventually to be reflected in rising places and sharpening inflation. Russia is steadily experiencing price increases for a variety of goods and services, Russian media report. Is there obviously not a link to the sanctions placed on Russia and the seizure of Russian funds and savings abroad? Punishment for Russia’s “Special Military Operation” to purportedly protect Russian-speaking citizens in eastern Ukraine from state…

Moscow is yet to respond to proposal, says Armenian official Armenia asked Russia to sign a bilateral agreement that would allow Yerevan to ignore rules regarding an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Russian President Vladimir Putin, a senior Armenian official said Thursday. The proposal was made to Russia several months before Armenia ratified the ICC’s Rome Statute, Deputy Speaker of the Armenian Parliament Hakob Arshakyan told a news conference in the capital. The ratification makes it one of 124 countries obliged to arrest Putin if he enters the country. “We invited Russia to sign a…

Jakarta, Surabaya (19/11 – 20) With the elimination of their national team on Saturday, Indonesia’s capabilities to put on its finest show as the host of the 2023 Under-17 World Cup will be tested. Indonesia has been given a second chance to host a global football tournament once again, with the 19th Edition of the FIFA Under-17 World Cup, a moving spectacle held in Jakarta, Surabaya, Surakarta and Bandung, from 10 November to 2 December 2023. This opportunity arrived just months after FIFA stripped out Indonesia’s hosting rights for the 2023 FIFA Under-20 World Cup. The bid wa doomed by…

Colombo: Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Monday presented his government’s 2024 budget, emphasising the need for tough reforms until the full recovery of the cash-strapped island nation’s economy. Although Sri Lanka has managed to control its hyperinflation in the ongoing economic crisis, its economy is far from being fully recovered. “We have been able to put back on the rails the derailed economy. Still, people undergo suffering,” Wickremesinghe, who is also the Finance Minister, said. “The inflation which was 70 per cent in September 2022 has been reduced to 1.5 per cent in October this year,” the minister said. He…

He also said State isn’t planning to renew a long-standing waiver that allows the U.S. to provide military assistance to Baku. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned a small group of lawmakers last week that his department is tracking the possibility that Azerbaijan could soon invade Armenia, according to two people familiar with the conversation. The call indicates the depth of concern in the administration about Azerbaijan’s operations against a breakaway region in the west of the country and the possibility of the conflict spreading. Azerbaijiani President Ilham Aliyev has previously called on Armenia to open a “corridor” along its…

Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL’s newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe’s Eastern neighborhoods. I’m RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I’m drilling down on two issues: In light of Azerbaijan’s lightning takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh, what can the EU do for Armenia now? Plus, is Brussels capable of slapping more sanctions on Moscow? Also, last week, I sat down with the European Commission’s vice president for values and transparency, Vera Jourova. In the interview, she said that to unblock EU funding, Hungary must…

Berlin (05/11 – 40) The international transport corridor “Tajikistan-Europe” will be expanded. The initiative for the implementation of the “Crossroads of the World” project was announced at the IV International Tbilisi Silk Road Forum, which concluded in the capital of Georgia. The project envisions the development of connections between Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Iran. This means that the Silk Road, which once passed through the North Caucasus, will now be connected to the South Caucasus hub. “In this way, another node is added to the multimodal corridor ‘China – Tajikistan – Uzbekistan – Turkmenistan – Iran – Turkey – Europe’,”…

Paris, Frankfurt (27/10 – 20) Indonesian Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto and Vice Presidential candidate Gibran Rakabuming Raka registered on Wednesday, Oct 25, the last open day, with the General Election Commission, the recently-forged Prabowo-Gibran team accompanied by millions of sympathizers; there were lengthy traffic jams. Prabowo-Gibran thus complements the two other teams of presidential and vice presidential candidates who registered on the first day: Anies Baswedan-Muhaimin Iskandar and Ganjar Pranowo-Mahfud MD. The three couples have undergone medical tests and the results will come out this afternoon (Oct 27). Since the advent of what is known as Reformasi, or a “reform…

Malaysia, South Sudan, Israel: with the promotion of 21 clergymen on Saturday, Pope Francis is expanding the number of countries represented in the College of Cardinals. In the future, the body that elects the pope — meaning all cardinals who are not yet 80 years old — will comprise men from 71 nations, more countries than ever before. Since his first consistory, which is what a pope’s appointment of new cardinals is called in church jargon, Pope Francis has remained true to his course: making the group of cardinals who will someday choose his successor more international. Many more countries are now represented in…