asia

Bombs tear through Sri Lankan churches and hotels, killing 290 people

(CNN)The calm of Easter Sunday was shattered by gruesome bombings that killed at least 290 people in Sri Lankan churches and hotels.

An intelligence memo warning of a possible attack had circulated 10 days earlier, raising questions about whether more preventative measures could have been taken.

“Serious action need to be taken as to why this warning was ignored,” Sri Lanka’s Minister of Telecommunications, Harin Fernando, tweeted along with a photo of the memo. The document, titled “Information of an alleged plan attack,” is dated April 11 and signed by the Deputy Inspector General of Police, Priyalal Dissanayake.

The explosions blew out the tiled roofs of churches and hotel windows, killing worshippers and hotel guests in the process.

Images and footage showed bloodied pews, broken glass, and plumes of smoke.

“You can see pieces of flesh thrown all over the walls and on the sanctuary and even outside of the church,” Father Edmond Tillekeratne, social communications director for the Archdiocese of Colombo, told CNN from St. Sebastian’s Church, one of the explosion sites.

He estimated that more than a thousand people had come to the church for Easter Sunday “because it is a special day.” Many came from villages afar, he said.

The first wave of attacks struck during busy Easter services at churches in the heart of the country’s minority Christian community — in the cities of Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa.

More blasts ripped through three luxury hotels in the capital city of Colombo: the Shangri La, Cinnamon Grand and Kingsbury.

The Shangri-La in Colombo said the hotel’s Table One cafe was attacked just after 9 a.m local time. The hotel is popular with foreign tourists and the country’s business community.

Another blast rocked a hotel in front of the Dehiwala Zoo in Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia.

The final blast struck a private house in Mahawila Gardens, in Dematagoda, during a raid in connection with the attacks, officials said. Three police officers were killed.

“When crime division officials started questioning the people in the house, two explosions occurred,” police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said. “One sub inspector and two constables of police have been killed.”

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe “expressed his gratitude” to the officers in a statement, according to state news agency Derena TV.

Wickremesinghe reiterated that “stern action will be taken against those responsible,” the news agency reported.

In all, the eight sites of explosions Sunday included:

St. Anthony’s Shrine, Colombo
St. Sebastian’s Church, Negombo
Zion Church, Batticaloa
Cinnamon Grand, Colombo
Shangri-La Hotel, Colombo
The Kingsbury Hotel, Colombo
Near Dehiwala Zoo in Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia
A house in Mahawila Gardens, Dematagoda

“There is also information that these have been suicide bombings carried out,” Manisha Gunasekera said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility by any terror group. But seven people were arrested following the attacks, said Harsha de Silva, Sri Lanka’s minister of economic reforms and public distribution.

The victims came from around the world

Of the hundreds of people killed, about 30 were foreigners, de Silva tweeted.

At least 20 foreigners were among those killed in the capital city of Colombo, hospital director general Anil Jasinghe said.

The foreigners killed include at least three Indians, two Turkish nationals and two Chinese citizens, Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Five British citizens, including two dual US-UK nationals, were also killed in the bombings, the statement said.

Social media is cut off

The Sri Lankan government blocked social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram while the investigation got under way.

Facebook issued a statement Sunday offering its condolences to the those “affected by this horrendous act.”

“Teams from across Facebook have been working to support first responders and law enforcement as well as to identify and remove content which violates our standards,” the company said.

“We are aware of the government’s statement regarding the temporary blocking of social media platforms. People rely on our services to communicate with their loved ones and we are committed to maintaining our services and helping the community and the country during this tragic time.”

Authorities order a curfew

Police in Sri Lanka imposed an island-wide curfew from Sunday evening until Monday morning. In Colombo, the streets were eerily quiet, with hardly any cars on the road and no signs of bustling city life.

Four guards carrying AK-47 rifles stood by a locked gate of a hotel not far from the Shangri-La, and bomb-sniffing dogs checked bags.

Earlier, the country’s authorities convened an emergency meeting involving the heads of the army, air force and navy, according to de Silva, Sri Lanka’s economic reforms minister.

“Horrible scenes, I saw many body parts strewn all over,” de Silva said after visiting the Kochchikade church and Shangri-La Hotel in Colombo. “We took multiple casualties to hospital. Hopefully saved many lives.”

De Silva said rescue operations were underway, adding that emergency crews were operating in “full force.”

Christians were the apparent targets

Sri Lanka’s minority Christian community appeared to be the main target of Sunday’s attack. Christianity is a minority religion in Sri Lanka, accounting for less than 10% of the total population of 21.4 million.

According to census data, 70.2% of Sri Lankans identify as Buddhist, 12% Hindu, 9.7% Muslim, and 7.4% Christian. It is estimated that 82% of Sri Lankan Christians are Roman Catholic.

Sunday’s attacks risk upsetting the country’s fragile post-war peace. Tensions between the majority Sinhalese and the Tamil minority led to a 25-year civil war between the Tamil Tigers, classified by the United States and others as a terrorist organization, and government forces.

More than 70,000 people died in the fighting, which ended when Sri Lankan forces defeated the Tamil Tigers in 2009.

In recent years, the country has witnessed a surge in ultra-nationalist Buddhism led by the Bodu Bala Sena, the country’s most powerful Buddhist organization, which has pledged to defend the religion.

04.15.19 Credit Cards

Partnering with Visa, emerging market lender Branch International raises $170 million

The San Francisco-based startup Branch International, which makes small personal loans in emerging markets, has raised $170 million and announced a partnership with Visa to offer virtual, pre-paid debit cards to Branch client networks in Africa, South-Asia and Latin America.

Branch — which has 150 employees in San Francisco, Lagos, Nairobi, Mexico City and Mumbai — makes loans starting at $2 to individuals in emerging and frontier markets. The company also uses an algorithmic model to determine credit worthiness, build credit profiles and offer liquidity via mobile phones.

“We’ll use [the money] to deepen existing business in Africa. Later this year we’ll announce high-yield savings accounts…in Africa,” says Branch co-founder and chief executive Matt Flannery.

The $170 million round from Foundation Capital and its new debit card partner, Visa, will support Branch’s international expansion, which could include Brazil and Indonesia, according to Flannery. Branch launched in Mexico and India within the last year. In Africa, it offers its services in Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania.

A potential Branch customer

The Branch-Visa partnership will allow individuals to obtain virtual Visa accounts with which to create accounts on Branch’s app. This gives Branch larger reach in countries such as Nigeria — Africa’s most populous country with 190 million people — where cards have factored more prominently than mobile money in connecting unbanked and underbanked populations to finance.

Founded in 2015, Branch started operating in Kenya, where mobile money payment products such as Safaricom’s M-Pesa (which does not require a card or bank account to use) have scaled significantly. M-Pesa now has 25 million users, according to sector stats released by the Communications Authority of Kenya. Branch has more than 3 million customers and has processed 13 million loans and disbursed more than $350 million, according to company stats.

Branch has one of the most downloaded fintech apps in Africa, per Google Play app numbers combined for Nigeria and Kenya, according to Flannery.

Already profitable, Branch International expects to reach $100 million in revenues this year, with roughly 70 percent of that generated in Africa, according to Flannery.

In addition to Visa and Foundation Capital, the $170 Series C round included participation from Branch’s existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Trinity Ventures, Formation 8, the IFC, CreditEase and Victory Park, while adding new investors Greenspring, Foxhaven and B Capital.

Branch last raised $70 million in 2018. The company’s overall VC haul and $100 million revenue peg register as pretty big numbers for a startup focused primarily on Africa. Pan-African e-commerce startup Jumia, which also announced its NYSE IPO last month, generated $140 million in revenue (without profitability) in 2018.

Startups building financial technologies for Africa’s 1.2 billion population have gained the attention of investors. As a sector, fintech (or financial inclusion) attracted 50 percent of the estimated $1.1 billion funding to African startups in 2018, according to Partech.

Branch’s recent round and plans to add countries internationally also tracks a trend of fintech-related products growing in Africa, then expanding outward. This includes M-Pesa, which generated big numbers in Kenya before operating in 10 countries around the world. Nigerian payments startup Paga announced its pending expansion in Asia and Mexico late last year. And payment services such as Kenya’s SimbaPay have also connected to global networks like China’s WeChat.

09.22.17 Tax Free Retirement Program

India mourns death of Air Force war hero Arjan Singh

New Delhi (CNN)Tributes are being paid to Marshal Arjan Singh, India’s last five-star officer and the only member of the Indian Air Force (IAF) to be awarded the accolade.

A state funeral was held on Monday in Delhi, with the national flag lowered to half-mast across all government buildings in the city.

The Indian Air Force tweeted: “#IAF & the Nation mourns the loss of a Great AirWarrior. The CAS (Chief of Air Staff) pays homage to the Marshal of the Indian Air Force Arjan Singh.”

Paying tribute to Singh, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the country remembered his “outstanding service to the nation.”

The Indian Army gave a 17-gun salute to Singh while Indian Air Force jets performed a fly-past in honor of Singh.

From war to independence

Born on April 15, 1919 in Lyallpur, now known as Faisalabad in Pakistan, Singh was chosen for a pilot training course at the Royal Air Force College Cranwell in Lincolnshire, England, at the age of 19.

His training was cut short because of World War I and he returned home before being posted to the North Western Frontier Province, present day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province in Pakistan, as a member of the No. 1 IAF Squadron.

In 1944, Singh led his squadron in combat during the Burma Campaign, in which forces from what was then the British Empire, the Republic of China and the United States defeated the Japanese. He received a Distinguished Flying Cross for his role in the fight, and was later promoted to Wing Commander.

When India became an independent nation on August 15, 1947, Singh led a fly-past of over 100 aircraft over Delhi’s Red Fort to mark the end of British colonial rule.

A national hero

In the following years, Singh quickly rose up the ranks of independent India’s new air force. In 1964, at the age of 44, he was appointed Chief of Air Staff with the rank of Air Marshal.

Over his long career, Singh flew more than 60 types of aircraft, from pre-World War 2 planes to the more modern Gnats and Vampires. In 1965 he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second highest civilian honor, for his leadership and became the first Air Chief Marshal of the IAF that same year.

Following his retirement in 1969, Singh was appointed as India’s Ambassador to Switzerland in 1971 and concurrently served as the Ambassador to the Vatican. He became India’s envoy to Kenya in 1974.

In 2002, the Indian government gave him the rank of Marshal of the Air Force, making him the first and only ‘Five Star’ rank officer of the IAF.

The Indian Armed Forces have had only three Marshal rank officers, the highest honorary rank given.

The first, Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, led the military operation that led to creation of Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, in 1971. He died in 2008 at the age of 94.

Field Marshal K.M. Cariappa, the first Commander-in-Chief of the Army, died aged 94 in 1993.

09.20.17 Credit Cards

China’s biggest tech CEO makes a grand entrance at a stadiumas Michael Jackson

You probably wouldn’t see Tim Cook doing this anytime soon.

Jack Ma, Alibaba CEO and Asia’s richest man, turned up at his company’s 18th anniversary birthday bash dressed as Michael Jackson.

He first rode onstage in a black motorcycle, before getting off and striking a number of poses, in a black and gold outfit similar to Jackson’s iconic Dangerous World Tour suit.

But because he was wearing a mask, the stadium of 40,000 Alibaba employees only broke into surprised applause when he stepped forward and took off the bejewelled accessory. What an entrance.

Watch the whole performance:

At the end of the opening sequence (which included Ma’s deputies marching onstage in Beyoncé’s “Formation” style) Ma put on a black helmet, and rode his motorcycle into a cage, which then hoisted him into the ceiling.

People watching the live stream of the party on Weibo were rapt.

“Not bad, an admirable effort,” said one.

“Okay, I’m applying for a job at Alibaba,” another user commented.

Why Jack Ma is Asia’s richest man

Alibaba is often referred to as China’s Amazon, running the biggest B2B marketplace, as well as the consumer retail juggernaut, Taobao.

Remember that last year in November, Taobao sales on its Singles’ Day shopping event (China’s version of Black Friday) moved $14.3 billion in merchandise in 15 hours.

Consider that in comparison, Black Friday last year saw $4.45 billion in spending.

The stadium in which Ma addressed his 40,000 employees.

Riding high on Alibaba’s success, Ma addressed the crowd, celebrating Alibaba’s status as the world’s sixth-largest company in terms of market capitalisation.

The company has 54,000 employees globally.

WATCH: You can now pay for your fried chicken with a smile because credit cards are so 2016

09.16.17 expense manager

Navy continues search for sailors, wants answers after collision

(CNN)As search teams continued Tuesday to look for 10 American sailors missing after a Navy warship collided with a commercial tanker east of Singapore — the latest in a series of similar incidents in the Pacific — the US defense brass wants answers.

Following the collision Monday between the USS John S. McCain, a guided-missile destroyer, and the merchant vessel, Defense Secretary James Mattis said he supports the decision by Adm. John Richardson, chief of naval operations, to conduct a “comprehensive review” of recent US Navy collisions.

The aim will be “to determine any of the causal factors, to determine what’s going on — both immediate contributors to this incident but also any related factors.”

The US 7th Fleet said search efforts are being focused on an area east of the Straits of Malacca and Singapore.

Monday’s crash marked the fourth time this year a US warship has been involved in an accident in Asian waters.

Richardson said in a Facebook statement that he has asked Adm. Phil Davidson, commander of US Fleet Forces Command, to take charge of the investigation, which will include a review of “the process by which we train and certify our forces that are forward-deployed in Japan to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to make them ready for operations and war fighting.”

The probe will also examine operational tempo and “trends in personnel, materiel, maintenance and equipment,” he said. “It will also include a review of how we train and certify our surface warfare community, including tactical and navigational proficiency.”

Richardson said there is no indication at this time that the incident was caused by cyberintrusion or sabotage, but the review will consider all possibilities.

“We are looking at every possibility so we are not leaving anything to chance there,” he said.

‘Forceful action’

Richardson is ordering a one-day pause in operations, allowing fleet leaders and commanders to take measures to “ensure safe and effective operations around the world,” he said.

“This is the second collision in three months and is the last in a series of incidents in the Pacific theater. This trend demands more forceful action,” Richardson said.

The pause is a one-day safety stand-down that will be done on a rotational basis over the course of a couple of weeks, at the discretion of individual commands, a source told CNN.

“The emphasis of that is really to take a look at the fundamentals, at the unit and team level, to make sure that we are not overlooking anything … the basic seamanship, airmanship, those sorts of things: teamwork, how we do business on the bridge, the fundamentals,” Richardson told reporters on Monday.

“We want to do this pretty briskly. My direction will be about a week we should execute all of this, and then we’ll roll those up and capture any lessons learned and roll those back out,” he said.

The 7th Fleet said the McCain collided with the merchant vessel Alnic MC while the destroyer was making its way to a port in Singapore. The collision was reported at 5:24 a.m. local time, east of the Malacca Strait, one of the world’s most congested shipping routes.

The Navy reported significant hull damage to the McCain, saying there was flooding in berthing compartments as well as machinery and communication rooms.

After the accident, President Donald Trump arrived at the White House on Marine One and told reporters of the collision, “That’s too bad.” He and Vice President Mike Pence also tweeted that their thoughts and prayers were with the sailors aboard the destroyer.

Sen. John McCain joined them and thanked the rescue crews for their service. The destroyer is named for the senator’s father and grandfather, both of whom were Navy admirals. The senator was a captain in the Navy.

Pacific naval impact

The collision comes at a time of high tensions in the Pacific.

Search on for missing sailors

The McCain is equipped with the Aegis missile defense system, which has been touted as a possible counter to any North Korean missile launch.

A US 7th Fleet spokesman said the McCain is one of 14 Aegis-equipped ships the Navy has forward-deployed to Japan and it plans to add another next year. The US Navy has 84 vessels equipped with the Aegis system.

Cmdr. Clay Doss said the United States has a mixture of ships and aircraft available to cover all missions even without the McCain or USS Fitzgerald, the McCain’s sister ship that was damaged in a June collision.

The US military and South Korea began 10-day military exercises Monday, as scheduled. The annual drills antagonize Pyongyang, which issued a statement Sunday that military exercises are “reckless behavior driving the situation into the uncontrollable phase of a nuclear war.”

The McCain’s last high-profile mission came earlier this month when it performed a freedom-of-navigation exercise near a Chinese-claimed island in the South China Sea.

Search and rescue

No fuel or oil was seen on the water near the ship after the collision as it steamed under its own power to Changi Naval Base in Singapore, the Navy said.

Malaysian officials said their ships and aircraft had joined the search for the missing sailors.

The search area encompassed 100 nautical square miles, they said, describing sea conditions as rough, with waves up to 1 meter (3.2 feet) high.

In addition to the 10 missing sailors, the Navy said five were injured in the collision. Four of those were flown by a Singapore navy helicopter to a hospital in Singapore, where they were treated for injuries not considered life-threatening, the Navy said.

US helicopters and Marine Corps Osprey aircraft from the amphibious assault ship USS America were joining search-and-rescue efforts along with Singaporean ships and helicopters, the Navy said.

Rocky year for Navy

The McCain collision marks the fourth incident involving a US Navy warship in the Pacific this year.

On June 17, the USS Fitzgerald collided with a container ship off the coast of Japan. That collision resulted in the deaths of seven US sailors. The Fitzgerald will be transported to the United States for repairs.

On May 9, the guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain was struck by a small fishing boat off the Korean Peninsula.

And in late January, the guided-missile cruiser USS Antietam ran aground while trying to anchor in Tokyo Bay. Authorities at Yokosuka Naval Base said the Antietam remains out of action.

Experts: ‘Navy is not looking good’

Military experts said the latest incident calls into question the Navy’s training and will likely lead to changes in the Navy’s leadership.

“I can almost guarantee you that there will be a tumultuous shake-up in the senior leadership of at least the 7th Fleet and maybe the Navy in general,” CNN military analyst Rick Francona said.

“The Navy is not looking good about now, especially when we need those … Aegis-equipped ships for possible ballistic missile defense in a North Korean scenario,” he added.

In a report on the Fitzgerald collision released last week, the Navy said it would review its training and qualification procedures.

“The collision was avoidable and both ships demonstrated poor seamanship. Within Fitzgerald, flawed watch stander teamwork and inadequate leadership contributed to the collision,” a 7th Fleet statement said.

Oil tanker ‘three times bigger’

Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center, said the oil tanker would have been at least three times bigger than the USS John S. McCain.

“Oil tankers are huge, and it takes miles for them to change course,” he said.

“When you’re going into a congested channel, you’re supposed to be very alert, track ships around you to a very meticulous degree.”

The Malacca Strait, which runs between Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, is the world’s second-busiest waterway, according to the World Economic Forum. The collision took place in waters to the east of the Malacca Strait, US authorities said.

At a press conference, Malaysian authorities said both ships were heading toward Singapore from the South China Sea when the collision occurred. They described the area as very busy, with some 80,000 ships passing through it every year.

Both ships should have reported to what the Malaysian authorities called a maritime “traffic separation scheme,” essentially air traffic control for ships.

Francona said no matter what the tanker did, the faster, nimbler US destroyer should have been able to avoid a collision.

“How does a state-of-the-art Navy destroyer — equipped with multiple radar systems and communications gear with a full bridge watch — not see, detect and evade a 30,000-ton slow-moving (10 knots) behemoth?” Francona asked.

No injuries on tanker

A US Navy official told CNN the McCain had experienced a loss of steering before the collision, but that steering had been regained.

Merchant marine websites describe the Alnic MC as a 600-foot-long oil tanker flying a Liberian flag.

The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore said the Alnic sustained damage to a tank at its bow, about 7 meters (23 feet) above the waterline. No one was injured on the tanker, it said, and no oil spill was reported.

The vessel is 505 feet long and displaces about 9,000 tons.

09.06.17 mobile wallet

Asia gets a new mobile wallet, and surprise, it’s not from a bank or payment company

Finally, people in Singapore are about to get an easier and quicker way to send money to a friend, via a mobile wallet app.

But surprisingly, it’s not coming from a bank or payment company — it’s coming from ride-hailing app, Grab.

Grab, Uber’s biggest competition in Southeast Asia, on Wednesday announced users will be able to transfer funds in the app’s wallet between users, without fees.

They can do it by sending money over to a mobile number registered with Grab, or by physically scanning a friend’s QR code.

The function is similar to what users have with China’s WeChat and Alipay wallets — arguably the world leaders in simple peer-to-peer fund transfers.

But it’ll lack one key thing that the Chinese apps have. Your money in the Grab wallet can’t be transferred out to a bank account.

That means whatever you have in there needs to be spent on rides or to be sent back to other friends.

1,000 street vendors are coming

By the end of the year though, Grab plans to announce a raft of 1,000 small merchants in Singapore that’ll be on board, allowing you to pay with a scan of their QR codes.

Now we’re talking. The biggest barriers to cashless adoption in cash-reliant Southeast Asia are infrastructure and bank fees.

To take a credit card, a street vendor would have to get a point-of-sale system that works with MasterCard or Visa, and pay fees of between 1 percent and 3 percent on each transaction.

Alipay and Wechat, on the other hand, revolutionised the Chinese market with the simple QR code scanner, and far lower fees of less than 1 percent.

Grab hasn’t announced its merchant fee structure yet. But if it’s acceptably low to the small retailer, it could really help unshackle users here from carrying cash around.

In Singapore, at least, the cashless options haven’t been quite as slick as what China has. Recently, the country’s banks jointly announced a way to pay friends from your mobile banking app.

That process requires a 2FA token or SMS code, and way too many taps, in comparison to what Grab is showing off right now.

Local bank DBS has a QR code P2P payment option, but again it requires fiddling with 2FA codes. DBS has been trying to get small merchants onboard, to its credit.

For Grab, its headstart into the market with 1,000 merchants in Singapore (and presumably way more in the region) may well further entrench users in relying on the app, beyond calling for rides.

Grab already claims about 72 percent market share for private vehicle sharing, and 95 percent for taxis in Southeast Asia, where it’s in seven countries fighting Uber.

It also processes 1 billion payment transactions annually for rides, but it’s got to prepare to add merchants to that load soon.

So while the country continues to look for a way to go cashless, Grab’s already out of the gates. It’ll be interesting to see who’s next on its tail.

asia