What’s going on around the 🗺️
🇮🇳 India’s National Payments Corporation (NPCI) has confirmed that its programmable digital rupee CBDC is live, integrated with UPI for payments, and used for restricted subsidy disbursements to farmers with controls on purposes, merchants, and locations, raising concerns about potential financial censorship.
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🇷🇺 Russia's Putin just signed a tax overhaul hiking VAT from 20% to 22% next year, while slashing the threshold for small businesses from sixty million to ten million rubles, likely passing extra costs onto consumers amid military spending.
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🇹🇳 Tunisian police arrested human rights lawyer Ayachi Hammami on a five year sentence for conspiracy against state security, linked to his criticism of President Kais Saied, amid a crackdown that includes suspending fourteen NGOs, freezing assets, and targeting civil society groups financially.
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🇮🇷 Iran’s rial plummeted to a record low of 1.2 million per U.S. dollar this week, intensifying inflation and hardship for struggling households, a huge drop from 32,000 in 2015 linked to Tehran’s nuclear pursuits.
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🇨🇳 China and Thailand have launched a cross border QR payment system enabling Chinese tourists to pay Thai merchants via UnionPay linked apps, part of Beijing’s broader push to integrate its payment standards and digital yuan CBDC across Southeast Asia, including interoperability with Vietnam, Laos, and Indonesia.
Source: https://shorturl.at/pF5Fx
#Bitcoin #Nostr #News
The Times of India
NPCI says programmable CBDC already live - The Times of India
India Business News: BENGALURU: At India Blockchain Week in Bengaluru on Monday, Rahul Sanskrityayan, Specialist Consultant for Blockchain at NPCI,...
The Moscow Times
Putin Signs Law Raising Russia’s Value-Added Tax to 22% - The Moscow Times
President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed a major tax overhaul that will raise Russia’s value-added tax to 22% from 20% next year, a move aimed ...
AP News
Tunisian police detain leading human rights defender as crackdown on critics widens
Tunisian police have arrested prominent opposition lawyer Ayachi Hammami. His arrest on Tuesday follows a five-year prison sentence issued last wee...
AP News
Iran's currency falls to a new low as nuclear sanctions squeeze its ailing economy
Iran's rial currency has fallen to a new low of 1.2 million to the U.S. dollar as nuclear sanctions squeeze the economy.