troubles

Trouble for edtech major Byjus continues. The world's largest asset manager, BlackRock, has again slashed Byju’s valuation, this time to $8.2 billion. With this, the company's valuation is down 62.7% from $22 billion when it last raised fresh capital in October 2022. BlackRock marked down Byju's valuation three months after it first reduced the value of its holdings in the Indian company. BlackRock now owns less than 1% in Think and Learn Pvt Ltd, the parent company of Byju’s.Regulatory filing in US securitiesIn a…

In one of the more stomach-churning studies, a team led by the University of Cambridge has probed poo from two ancient toilets in Jerusalem and discovered traces of a microorganism called Giardia duodenalis, which causes diarrhea in humans.Latrines are a surprisingly valuable resource for archaeologists for reasons that are obvious after an unpleasant moment of reflection. If you drop a jewel or a large gold coin in a stream or a gutter, your first impulse is likely to reach down and pick it up. However, if you drop even…

The recent 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement underscored how much the Troubles, and those many years of bloodshed, have receded into historical memory. With the wounds less raw, it’s easier to mine the period for drama spiked with high-stakes violence and leavened with moral conundrums about justice, loyalty and political expediency. Belfast-born novelist and screenwriter Ronan Bennett is just the right man to map out this terrain. It’s not just his having roots in the region that helps, but also his longtime…

Music politics can be uneasy bedfellows. But on 19 May 1998, at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast, they combined to make a real difference. It was just five and a half weeks after one of the most historic days in Northern Ireland’s history: on 10 April, the Good Friday agreement, brokered by the Irish and British governments, was finally sealed between the main political parties.It was a watershed moment that would eventually help to end four decades of chaos and bloodshed. However, the agreement still needed the support of…

A report on U.S. retail sales will gauge consumers’ willingness to spend at stores, restaurants and online in March, amid turmoil in the banking sector, rising interest rates and easing hiring.  Households pulled back on retail shopping and dining out in February after spending strongly in a warmer-than-usual January. Consumers benefited recently from lower gasoline prices and a broad cooling in inflation. Prices rose at the slowest rate in nearly two years in March. But underlying cost pressures,…

WASHINGTON—Global economic growth is cooling while facing risks from the volatile banking sector, high inflation and climbing interest rates, the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday. Total economic output is projected to increase 2.8% this year, a slowdown from 3.4% last year, as nations continue recovering from slumps caused by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, the IMF said in its latest World Economic Outlook report. Its new 2023 forecast was little changed—just 0.1 percentage…

In late November 1993, the Observer published a front-page story that astounded many of its readers and triggered political tremors across the UK, Ireland and beyond. Under the headline “Major’s secret links with IRA leadership revealed”, the newspaper reported that the British government had been engaged in secret back-channel communications with senior republicans, with prime minister John Major’s approval.IRA bullets and bombs had killed 33 people that year alone. Four of the victims were children aged between three…

TikTok is ramping up a public relations campaign to fend off the possibility of a nationwide ban by the Biden administration, and it's bringing some unconventional advocates to help: online influencers.Dozens of TikTok creators — some with millions of followers on the video-sharing app — came to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to lobby in favor of the platform, one day before lawmakers are slated to grill the company's chief executive about concerns over user data falling into the hands of the Chinese government. Shou Zi Chew…

Bitcoin is on course for one of its biggest weekly gains of recent years, bolstered by wagers on eventual cuts in interest rates as the token rides out convulsions in the banking sector.The largest digital asset is up about 25% since the start of Monday. It's had a weekly jump of at least that much only 10 times in the past five years, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Smaller coins like Ether and Dogecoin are also rallying. The collapse of three regional US lenders and wobbles at Credit Suisse Group AG are strengthening…

Africa’s most valuable unicorn Flutterwave is still not off the hook in Kenya. About $3 million of its money that was confiscated in the second government seizure over money laundering and fraud claims remains frozen, in two banks, and 19 mobile money accounts (M-pesa paybill numbers), as the matter is before Kenya’s high court. The $3 million funds seizure happened late August last year, less than two months after Kenyan court froze $52.5 million from Flutterwave and other entities including Elivalat Fintech,…