Statement by Binance Chief Executive Officer (CEO): Tigran’s Deteriorating Condition after 6 Months of Unjust Detention

 

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Statement by Binance Chief Executive Officer (CEO): Tigran’s Deteriorating Condition after 6 Months of Unjust Detention

Despite his conditions, the Nigerian government has refused adequate medical care, including basic needs such as providing access to a wheelchair

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JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, August 29, 2024/ -- We are now at the six month mark of Tigran’s unjust detention. Tigran’s physical and mental conditions have deteriorated rapidly with his situation being more dire than ever. He is in severe pain and unable to walk due to a herniated disc. Despite his conditions, the Nigerian government has refused adequate medical care, including basic needs such as providing access to a wheelchair. Furthermore, they are refusing to provide access to his legal counsel, despite a trial commencing on 2 September, which we have been informed is unconstitutional in Nigeria. A court has demanded the government release Tigran’s medical records but after several months, they have still not complied. This week Tigran was denied access to his US consulate representative. These actions are inexplicable. I am deeply concerned about the long-term, potentially irreversible physical and mental impact this horrific episode is having on Tigran and I appeal once again for the Nigerian government to allow him to go home to his family on humanitarian grounds so that he can seek the appropriate medical treatment in the US, recover and get back to the healthy, active life he previously had. Baseless Allegations Should Not be Used to Continue to Hold Tigran A reason that the Nigerian government has used for continuing to hold Tigran is because “(Binance) is operating virtually. The only thing we have to hold on to is this defendant (https://apo-opa.co/3yW0d1Q).”  This statement is far from the truth. There is no need to imprison an innocent employee to answer for any allegations against Binance. We have settled issues in countries around the world, including the US, Thailand, and most recently in Brazil (https://apo-opa.co/3MnjsEm) and India (https://apo-opa.co/3Xm3z7v), in a reasonable, collaborative and amicable manner with governments. All these were done without threat or harm inflicted to any of our employees. This is no good reason to hold an innocent employee to advance the discussion of outstanding issues. Another claim made by the Nigerian government was that Binance was responsible for its currency decline. To everyone paying attention, this is not backed up by facts. Between 2021 and the end of 2022, the Naira traded between a relatively narrow range of USD1: 380 to USD1: 440.  We have been offering P2P services as a value-added service for our users wishing to get exposure to crypto during that period of time. The end of the Naira’s currency peg by the Government in June 2023 caused the biggest fall in Naira’s history according to experts (https://apo-opa.co/4dY7P2y). It went from USD1: 460 in June 2023 to USD1: 900 by the end of 2023. The downward trend continued since. The Naira traded at a recent low of USD1: 1,660 on 31 July 2024, representing a 50% decline from the start of 2024. This downward trend continued despite Binance ceasing to offer P2P services in the country in February 2024. As economists have more elegantly explained, the movement of a country’s currency is attributable to various macroeconomic factors (https://apo-opa.co/3Mnk11h).  It is useful to point out that Nigeria has never been a big market for Binance. The Government has said that we made USD$26bn in revenue from Nigeria in 2023. That is not the case. The $21.6bn figure is the total transaction volume from 2023. To provide an understanding of transaction volume: if a person were to take $1000 and trade it 1000 times, that would represent $1m in transaction volume. Our actual revenue is based on charging a small percentage of transaction fee and we are proud to offer our users some of the lowest transaction fees of any exchange globally. Call to Action Tigran is a proud American who should not be subject to such unjust treatment. It is my sincere hope that the American government and political apparatus can exert its political will and muscle to bring Tigran home soon, so that he can get the adequate treatment and be reunited with his family and loved ones. The US administration and legislators have the power to designate Tigran as one of its “unlawfully detained” citizens overseas and there are substantial reasons to do so. Global citizens should add their voices and concerns, convincing the Nigerian government such unilateral action without strong basis will be detrimental to the long term economic development and well-being of a country. Key stakeholders in the government of Nigeria made the decision to unfairly and unlawfully detain Tigran and they can just as easily make the fair decision to allow Tigran, a former US federal agent, to go home. We appeal on humanitarian grounds to all decision makers in Nigeria to allow Tigran safe passage home to his wife and two young children. Once these issues are resolved, we hope to work with the Nigerian government to support development of the Web3 industry, create more opportunities for its young, talented workforce, and support the effort to attract more foreign direct investment. Further Reading From Richard Teng, Binance CEO: Tigran Gambaryan is Innocent and Must Be Released (https://apo-opa.co/4dZhiGU) Statement Regarding Tigran Gambaryan (https://apo-opa.co/3ABPp9p) Noah Perlman: Building a Culture of Compliance at Binance (https://apo-opa.co/4cNCSND) Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Binance. SOURCE Binance

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New Original Artworks and NFTs for Sale By Ekenyerengozi Michael China

One Village, One Cinema To Generate N29 Billion Annually To Boost Creative Economy of Nigeria

 

The One Village, One Cinema initiative of the International Digital Post Network Limited, an  affiliate partner of Cinewav of Singapore will generate an estimated annual revenue of N29 billion for both the Christian Cinema in Nigeria (CCN) programme and SMEs in the entertainment Industry in all the 774 local government areas in Nigeria, famous for the phenomenal Nollywood, the largest indie film industry in Africa. 

With only an investment of N10, 000, 000 (ten million naira) that is currently less than US$10, 000 (ten thousand dollars) you can have a low budget cinema that can be installed within an hour indoors or outdoors and it can generate an average monthly revenue of N200, 000 - N400, 000 from the sales of the tickets from one location in a village in Africa's most populous nation with an estimated population of more than 200 million people.

The Christian Cinema in Nigeria (CCN) alone has an estimated target audience of 21 million Christians.

The N10 million investment includes the cinema equipment and all expenses paid one week training course at Cinewav in Singapore for one person who will be the operator of the cinema and can train others to become operators in Nigeria.

The cinema equipment can be taken from one location to another location from village to village. Tickets will be sold from N500 per person which is about one quarter of the amount paid for a ticket at the standard cinemas located in the upscale shopping malls in towns and cities. The urban cinemas are not enough for the increasing population of moviegoers with regular disposable incomes. There are less than 400 screens in the country in few cities with most of them in Lagos, the commercial capital of Africa's largest economy. 

The increasing demands for more cinemas compelled the International Digital Post Network Limited to start the One Village One Cinema initiative for both entertainment and public enlightenment and to boost the entertainment industry and accelerate the creative economy of Nigeria.

The initiative will be launched in 2024.

The cinemas will show approved movies, documentary films, series, sports and adverts. 

Public announcements for government programmes and other events are allowed.

The charges for public announcements and adverts are negotiable from N10, 000 - N100, 000 per location.

Revenues from public announcements and adverts are estimated to be N500, 000 - N1, 000, 000 monthly.

During outdoor screenings, only those who paid for tickets can hear the audio with the Cinewav  audio app.

International Digital Post Network Limited plans for more than 12, 000 cinemas in Nigeria, including  solar powered Cinewav Cineplex.

Potential investors, partners and  sponsors are the local, state and federal governments; private sector of local and foreign companies and organizations; especially telecoms, banks, fintechs and other businesses in Nigeria.

"What is the future of big screen?

"Most of the world is without a cinema hall. That will all change! One village, one cinema. Why not?"
~Anthony Tate, Virgina, U.S.A.

We would be happier to use cinemas to break social class barriers and build bridges of unity among communities for the common benefit of all.

Cinema has never been an elitist medium of communication.
Cinema is a tool for public entertainment and enlightenment and has been very effective and imperative in mass literacy campaigns in developed and developing countries for decades. Cinemas made Hollywood the film capital of the world buoyed by over 38,605 indoor screens in 5,561 sites and 628 Drive-In screens in 381 sites in the US, the largest in the world".

Screen Naija One Village, One Cinema Project: The Revival of Outdoor Cinema in Nigeria | Screen Outdoor Open Air Cinema

https://screennaija.wordpress.com/2013/12/04/screen-naija-one-village-one-cinema-project-the-revival-of-outdoor-cinema-in-nigeria/

A Copy of the NOLLYWOOD MIRROR® Sold for Over N1 Million

https://a.co/d/6swXgCI

The first edition of the NOLLYWOOD MIRROR® Series has become a collectors' item among art collectors of unique books and now selling for US$1, 882.91 which is equivalent to more than N1, 100, 000 with the current exchange rate of the US dollar to the naira 

Why is it a highly priced book?

* This is the first edition of the first book series on Nollywood and the Nigerian film industry.

* The articles and photographs document the genesis of the phenomenon of Nollywood and the history of filmmaking in Nigeria since the first feature, "Palaver" directed by Geoffrey Barkas in 1926. 

* The fonts are unconventional and  seen as art form.

* The prophetic cover of the photograph of Kenneth Gyang, whose film, "Confusion Na Wa" starring Ramsey Nouah, OC Ukeje, Ali Nuhu and Tunde Aladese won the coveted awards for the Best Film and the Best Nigerian Film at the 9th annual Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) in 2013.  Kenneth Gyang has become the poster child of the Big Picture of the future of Nollywood and Nigerian cinema on Netflix and international film festivals.

#Nigeria #Nollywood #africa #future #art #art #filmmaking #AMAA #movies #awards #KennethGyang #filmfestivals
#netflix #books #collectors

Nollywood Mirror by Ekenyerengozi, Michael Chima (2013) Paperback https://a.co/d/6swXgCI

Red Sea Film Festival announces $10m fund for Arab and African Filmmakers

The Red Sea Film Festival Foundation has announced the $10 million Red Sea Fund that will support projects with directors from the Arab World and Africa, launching a new generation of filmmakers and supporting established auteurs as they bring their work from script to screen.

The Red Sea Fund is part of the Red Sea Film Foundation’s commitment to the regional screen sector, that will also include launching the inaugural Red Sea International Film Festival that will take place from 11th to 20th November 2021.

The fund will support fiction, documentary and animation feature films, as well as episodic content. Additionally, Saudi nationals will be able to apply to the Red Sea Fund to support short films in development and production.

“Helping African and Arab cinema grow, that’s a very exciting responsibility. That’s what the Red Sea Fund will do at every stage of the making of the chosen movies and episodic content. In providing more than 100 grants of up to $10 million to help the development, production and post-production of movies across the Arab World and Africa, the Red Sea Fund will help cinema that is in full metamorphosis,” says Edouard Waintrop, Artistic Director, Red Sea International Film Festival.

Applications are welcome from around the world to support projects that are being helmed by an African or Arab director. The fund is open from 15th June – 21st July 2021, with all details and requirements available via https://redseafilmfest.com/en/red-sea-fund/.

The Red Sea Fund will be split across three main categories:

Red Sea Fund – Development

The fund aims to support bold and creative directors in developing live-action, emerging media, and animation projects from treatments to production-ready screenplays and concepts. Red Sea Fund will develop projects from Arab, African and Saudi directors that have a director and producer attached.

Red Sea Fund – Production.

The Red Sea Fund – Production is for projects going into production and is aimed at supporting any aspect of the shoot. Open to viable projects at the production stage, with a script, committed director and producer attached, as well as potential cast and confirmed timeline. The team can be emerging or established, but with proven experience in filmmaking.

Red Sea Fund – Post-Production

A fund supporting all aspects of post-production on feature-length projects. Once a rough cut is ready, these grants will support filmmakers to complete their films and get them ready for distribution and exhibition. The team can be emerging or established, but with proven experience in filmmaking.

The festival will see the launch of the Red Sea Souk, its market place and industry hub for the region. Red Sea Souk will include a Project Market, with pitching sessions of more than 20 projects from the Arab World and Africa, as well as the Films-in-Progress workshop. All projects that apply to the Red Sea Fund will automatically be eligible for Red Sea Souk – Project Market and Red Sea Souk Films-in-Progress Workshop.

The Red Sea Souk - Project Market will take place from 12th to 15th November 2021 at the Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah. The projects will compete for the Red Sea Development and Production Awards respectively in the amount of $25,000 and $100,000.

The Red Sea Souk Films-in-Progress Workshop will take place from 12th to 15th November 2021, at the Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah. Each selected project in Films-in-Progress will compete for the Red Sea Post-Production Awards in the amount of $30,000.

“The Red Sea Fund is a major boost for the African and Arab film industry. Over the past two decades, we have seen the Arab and African film industry grow and flourish. The Fund and the Red Sea Souk will provide more tools to support the Arab and African film business to make even more of an impact on the international marketplace with the launch of its project market and films in-progress workshop this November,” said Shivani Pandya, Managing Director, Red Sea International Film Festival.

The Red Sea Souk will also contain panels, networking events, workshops and booths connecting the international film community to the exciting new Saudi market.

Virtualization Saves Microsoft Customers Nearly a Half-Million Dollars Per Year

Virtualization Saves Microsoft Customers Nearly a Half-Million Dollars Per Year

Businesses gain value via server consolidation, integrated management tools and application management.

REDMOND, Wash. - Feb. 9, 2009 /PRNewswire/ — Microsoft Corp. today announced that some business customers around the world have saved on average $470,000 (U.S.) per year through IT projects using Microsoft virtualization software. Microsoft's business customers have been able to use virtualization to help reduce operations and capital expenses via reduced electrical power consumption and cooling within datacenters, reduced hardware acquisition costs, automation of desktop and server management, and centralized application deployment.

The cost of running IT systems has increased as electrical power, cooling and physical space has become constrained. In his 2008 refereed journal article, "Worldwide electricity used in data centers," Jonathan Koomey, Ph.D., of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Stanford University concluded that total datacenter power was about 1.5 percent of all U.S. electricity use in 2005, with 80 percent of that amount going toward powering and cooling servers.

A separate report, by Gartner Inc., stated that "the effective use of virtualization can reduce server energy consumption by up to 82 percent and floor space by 85 percent" (Gartner: "Energy Savings via Virtualization: Green IT on a Budget"; Nov. 12, 2008).

"Businesses are looking to reduce and manage computing costs in datacenters and across server and client computing devices," said David Greschler, director of integrated virtualization at Microsoft. "Virtualization software allows businesses to pool computing resources to drive down IT costs, increase IT efficiency and be more responsive to business needs. Customers are getting a better bang for their buck with the Microsoft platform and virtualization solutions because virtualization is in both the operating system and in the holistic management tools. Customers can manage IT services and a broad set of applications across the datacenter and desktops. There is less of a learning curve for customers, and it eases interoperability with existing systems."

Savings Through Available Built-In Virtualization and Management Automation
Microsoft's approach to virtualization, which incorporates server and presentation virtualization into Windows Server 2008 and unlimited virtual machine management with Microsoft System Center suite license, is helping break down barriers to broad virtualization adoption.

"The VMware ESX solution would have cost $30,000 (U.S.) for four servers. With Microsoft, we have a service provider agreement that allows for monthly payments with no capital costs — costing us less than $1,000 over the life of the contract," said David Straede, president and chief operating officer for Santa Barbara Web Hosting. "Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V has the core features businesses need. It's the Windows people know, is installed just like other Windows-based applications, and works in a management console that IT staff are already using. The ESX feature set simply doesn't justify its additional expense."

If making it easy for customers to implement virtualization is important, making it easy to manage the environment is just as critical for saving time and money. With Microsoft System Center, customers have a single solution for managing the entire IT life cycle, from deployment and provisioning to monitoring and backup. Equally important, customers can manage both server and desktop resources, both virtual and physical assets, and both Microsoft and VMware hypervisors, all with the same platform.

These capabilities helped Banverket ICT choose Microsoft for its virtualization strategy. "We knew we wanted to build a compatible virtualization platform that would encompass server consolidation, Terminal Services and application virtualization that we could manage with a single set of tools," said Pontus Blomkvist, service design manager, Banverket ICT. "With Microsoft Application Virtualization for Terminal Services, we have been able to reduce the number of terminal servers because we can run many applications on any server at any time, without worrying about conflicts. With Hyper-V, we are now running 50 virtual machines in production, with a utilization rate of 80 percent for some of the servers as opposed to 15 percent before we deployed Hyper-V."

Savings Through Consolidation, Reductions in Power
By running multiple virtual machines on fewer physical servers, Microsoft customers are drastically cutting hardware requirements and easing server management. For example, Indiana University's Auxiliary IT Department went from 152 to just 32 servers, which it expects will save $85,000 (U.S.) annually. Saxo Bank had an average physical server utilization of just 20 percent and was deploying nearly 200 new servers per year before using server virtualization. Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V allowed the bank to reduce the number of servers needed by 36 percent and realize savings equivalent to $1 million (U.S.), because of lower server hardware costs and associated reductions in space, power and cooling costs.

Many customers have realized similarly dramatic electrical savings as a result of server consolidation, which is a particularly important benefit in today's climate of volatile power prices. TALX expects to save approximately 50 percent in annual power and cooling costs by consolidating its server environment with Hyper-V. HotSchedules, which noted that its No. 1 cost in the datacenter is power, spent about $11,000 (U.S.) a month on datacenter power costs, but with Hyper-V it anticipates that this monthly figure will go down to $2,500. Santa Barbara Web Hosting uses Hyper-V to reduce its power consumption costs by $5,220 (U.S.) per month, helping the company provide more cost-effective services to its customers. And Slough Borough Council took advantage of the savings from eliminating 10 physical servers to preserve the electrical power needed to turn on a new storage area network.

"I wouldn't be surprised to see us virtualize 60 servers once our physical-to-virtual analysis is complete, which represents nearly half our server holdings," said Chris Wintermute, technical infrastructure manager for Slough Borough Council. "We've achieved hardware savings of $148,000 (U.S.), and we expect to reduce server deployment costs by $23,700 (U.S.) annually, based on rolling out 20 servers a year."

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass on Microsoft's corporate information pages. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may since have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft's Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/contactpr.mspx.
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