Wednesday, November 30, 2016
অ্যাপলের ডিজিটাল লেনদেন সেবা
মার্কিন প্রযুক্তি প্রতিষ্ঠান অ্যাপলের ডিজিটাল লেনদেন সেবা নিয়ে মিলিত হয়ে দর কষাকষি করা যাবে না বলে অস্ট্রেলিয়ার ব্যাংকগুলোকে জানানো হয়েছে, মঙ্গলবার দেশটির অ্যান্টিট্রাস্ট নিয়ন্ত্রণ কর্তৃপক্ষের প্রকাশ করা এক খসড়ায় এ সিদ্ধান্ত জানানো হয়।
অস্ট্রেলিয়ান কম্পিটিশন অ্যান্ড কনজিউমার কমিশন (এসিসিসি) জানায়, অ্যাপল আইফোনের ডিজিটাল ওয়ালেট সেবা নিয়ে মিলিতভাবে প্রস্তাব দেওয়ার সুযোগ দেওয়া হলে, আলাদাভাবে একটি প্রতিষ্ঠান হিসেবে মার্কিন প্রতিষ্ঠানটির সঙ্গে আলোচনায় ব্যাংকগুলোর সামর্থ্য কমে যাবে।
অস্ট্রেলিয়ার ওই ব্যাংকগুলো আশা করে তারা অ্যাপলের ‘ইন-হাউস’ এই লেনদেন সেবা কাটিয়ে এর নিজস্ব সংস্করণ বের করবে। এরই প্রেক্ষিতে এমন সিদ্ধান্ত নেওয়া হল বলে জানিয়েছে রয়টার্স। অস্ট্রেলিয়ার স্মার্টফোন বাজারে সবচেয়ে বেশি শেয়ার অ্যাপলেরই দখলে।
ডিজিটাল ওয়ালেট সেবা চালুতে অস্ট্রেলীয় ব্যাংকগুলো প্রথম ‘চ্যালেঞ্জ’ নেয়। নতুন সিদ্ধান্তের মাধ্যমে বিশ্ববাজারে ডিজিটাল ওয়ালেট ব্যবসায় অ্যাপলের আধিপত্য শক্ত হতে পারে- এমন নজির সৃষ্টি হয়েছে বলে জানিয়েছে সংবাদমাধ্যমটি।
এসিসিসি-এর চেয়ারম্যান রড সিমস এক বিবৃতিতে বলেন, “এসিসিসি ধারণা করে ব্যাংকগুলোকে মিলিতভাবে আলোচনা ও বর্জনের সুযোগ দেওয়া হলে তাদেরকে অ্যাপলের সঙ্গে দর কষাকষিতে উন্নত অবস্থান দেওয়া হতে পারে, এর লাভ এখনও অনিশ্চিত আর হয়তো সীমাবদ্ধও।”
অ্যাপল পে এখন বিভিন্ন কার্ড সেবাদাতা প্রতিষ্ঠানের মাধ্যে কার্ড বদল গ্রাহকদের জন্য সহজ করে দিয়ে প্রতিযোগিতা বাড়াতে পারে।
কমনওয়েলথ ব্যাংক অফ অস্ট্রেলিয়া, ওয়েস্টপ্যাল ব্যাংকিং কর্পোরেশন, ন্যাশনাল অস্ট্রেলিয়া ব্যাংক লিমিটেড, বেন্ডিগো অ্যান্ড অ্যাডেলেইড ব্যাংক- এই চারটি অস্ট্রেলিয়ার ক্রেডিট কার্ড বাজারের এক তৃতীয়াংশ ধরে রেখেছে। তাদের দাবি, অ্যাপলকে মোবাইল ওয়ালেট ব্যবহার সীমাবদ্ধ করতে দেওয়াটা অপ্রতিযোগিতামূলক ছিল। কিন্তু অ্যাপলের দাবি, ডিজিটাল ওয়ালেট ব্যবসায় তৃতীয় পক্ষের অ্যাকসেস দেওয়া উচিৎ নয়, কারণ এর মাধ্যমে গ্রাহকদের প্রাইভেসি ও ডেটা নিরাপত্তা লঙ্ঘিত হবে।
মঙ্গলবার এ নিয়ে অনুরোধ করা হলেও প্রতিষ্ঠানটির প্রতিনিধিরা তাৎক্ষণিকভাবে কোনো সাড়া দেননি বলে জানিয়েছে সংবাদমাধ্যমটি।
চলতি বছর মার্চে এ বিষয়ে চূড়ান্ত সিদ্ধান্ত দেবে এসিসিসি।
Monday, November 28, 2016
Sunday, November 27, 2016
Saturday, November 26, 2016
Cuba Fidel Castro is Dead at age 90
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (American Spanish: [fiˈðel aleˈxandɾo ˈkastɾo ˈrus] 
audio (help·info); August 13, 1926 – November 25, 2016), commonly known as Fidel Castro, was a Cuban politician and revolutionary who governed the Republic of Cuba as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as President from 1976 to 2008. Politically a Marxist–Leninist and Cuban nationalist, he also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1961 until 2011. Under his administration Cuba became a one-party socialist state; industry and business were nationalized, and state socialist reforms implemented throughout society.
Born in Birán as the son of a wealthy farmer, Castro adopted leftist anti-imperialist politics while studying law at the University of Havana. After participating in rebellions against right-wing governments in the Dominican Republic and Colombia, he planned the overthrow of Cuban President Fulgencio Batista, launching a failed attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953. After a year's imprisonment, he traveled to Mexico where he formed a revolutionary group, the 26th of July Movement, with his brother Raúl Castro and Che Guevara. Returning to Cuba, Castro took a key role in the Cuban Revolution by leading the Movement in a guerrilla war against Batista's forces from the Sierra Maestra. After Batista's overthrow in 1959, Castro assumed military and political power as Cuba's Prime Minister. The United States was alarmed by Castro's friendly relations with the Soviet Union, and unsuccessfully attempted to remove him by assassination, economic blockade, and counter-revolution, including the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961. Countering these threats, Castro formed an alliance with the Soviets and allowed them to place nuclear weapons on the island, sparking the Cuban Missile Crisis—a defining incident of the Cold War—in 1962.
Adopting a Marxist-Leninist model of development, Castro converted Cuba into a one-party socialist state under Communist Party rule, the first in the Western hemisphere. Reforms introducing central economic planning and expanding healthcare and education were accompanied by state control of the press and the suppression of internal dissent. Abroad, Castro supported anti-imperialist revolutionary groups, backing the establishment of Marxist governments in Chile, Nicaragua, and Grenada, and sending troops to aid allies in the Yom Kippur War, Ethio-Somali War, and Angolan Civil War. These actions, coupled with Castro's leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1979–83 and Cuba's medical internationalism, increased Cuba's profile on the world stage and earned its leader great respect in the developing world. Following the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991, Castro led Cuba into its "Special Period" and embraced environmentalist and anti-globalization ideas. In the 2000s he forged alliances in the Latin American "pink tide"—namely with Hugo Chávez's Venezuela—and signed Cuba to the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas. In 2006 he transferred his responsibilities to Vice-President Raúl Castro, who formally assumed the presidency in 2008.
Castro was a controversial and divisive world figure. He was decorated with various international awards, and his supporters laud him as a champion of socialism, anti-imperialism, and humanitarianism, whose revolutionary regime secured Cuba's independence from American imperialism. Conversely, critics view him as a totalitarian dictator whose administration oversaw multiple human-rights abuses, an exodus of more than one million Cubans, and the impoverishment of the country's economy. Through his actions and his writings, he significantly influenced the politics of various individuals and groups across the world.
Cuban Revolution
The Movement and the Moncada Barracks attack: 1952–53
In a few hours you will be victorious or defeated, but regardless of the outcome – listen well, friends – this Movement will triumph. If you win tomorrow, the aspirations of Martí will be fulfilled sooner. If we fail, our action will nevertheless set an example for the Cuban people, and from the people will arise fresh new men willing to die for Cuba. They will pick up our banner and move forward... The people will back us in Oriente and in the whole island. As in '68 and '92, here in Oriente we will give the first cry of Liberty or Death!
— Fidel Castro's speech to the Movement just before the Moncada Attack, 1953[46]
Castro formed a group called "The Movement" which operated along a clandestine cell system, publishing underground newspaper El Acusador (The Accuser), while arming and training anti-Batista recruits.[47] From July 1952 they went on a recruitment drive, gaining around 1,200 members in a year, the majority from Havana's poorer districts.[48] Although a revolutionary socialist, Castro avoided an alliance with the communist PSP, fearing it would frighten away political moderates, but kept in contact with PSP members like his brother Raúl.[49] Castro stockpiled weapons for a planned attack on the Moncada Barracks, a military garrison outside Santiago de Cuba, Oriente. Castro's militants intended to dress in army uniforms and arrive at the base on July 25, seizing control and raiding the armory before reinforcements arrived.[50] Supplied with new weaponry, Castro intended to spark a revolution among Oriente's impoverished cane cutters and promote further uprisings.[51] Castro's plan emulated those of the 19th century Cuban independence fighters who had raided Spanish barracks; Castro saw himself as the heir to independence leader José Martí.[52]
Fidel Castro under arrest after the Moncada attack, 1953 Castro gathered 165 revolutionaries for the mission,[53] ordering his troops not to cause bloodshed unless they met armed resistance.[54] The attack took place on July 26, 1953, but ran into trouble; 3 of the 16 cars that had set out from Santiago failed to get there. Reaching the barracks, the alarm was raised, with most of the rebels pinned down by machine gun fire. 4 were killed before Castro ordered a retreat.[55] The rebels suffered 6 fatalities and 15 other casualties, whilst the army suffered 19 dead and 27 wounded.[56] Meanwhile, some rebels took over a civilian hospital; subsequently stormed by government soldiers, the rebels were rounded up, tortured and 22 were executed without trial.[57] Accompanied by 19 comrades, Castro set out for Gran Piedra in therugged Sierra Maestra mountains several miles to the north, where they could establish a guerrilla base.[58] Responding to the attack, Batista's government proclaimed martial law, ordering a violent crackdown on dissent, and imposing strict media censorship.[59] The government broadcast misinformation about the event, claiming that the rebels were communists who had killed hospital patients, although news and photographs of the army's use of torture and summary executions in Oriente soon spread, causing widespread public and some governmental disapproval.[59]
Over the following days, the rebels were rounded up; some were executed and others – including Castro – transported to a prison north of Santiago.[60] Believing Castro incapable of planning the attack alone, the government accused Ortodoxo and PSP politicians of involvement, putting 122 defendants on trial on September 21 at the Palace of Justice, Santiago.[61] Acting as his own defense counsel, Castro cited Martí as the intellectual author of the attack and convinced the 3 judges to overrule the army's decision to keep all defendants handcuffed in court, proceeding to argue that the charge with which they were accused – of "organizing an uprising of armed persons against the Constitutional Powers of the State" – was incorrect, for they had risen up against Batista, who had seized power in an unconstitutional manner.[62] The trial embarrassed the army by revealing that they had tortured suspects, after which they tried unsuccessfully to prevent Castro from testifying any further, claiming he was too ill.[63] The trial ended on October 5, with the acquittal of most defendants; 55 were sentenced to prison terms of between 7 months and 13 years. Castro was sentenced on October 16, during which he delivered a speech that would be printed under the title of History Will Absolve Me.[64] Castro was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment in the hospital wing of the Model Prison (Presidio Modelo), a relatively comfortable and modern institution on the Isla de Pinos.[65]
Imprisonment and the 26th of July Movement: 1953–55
I would honestly love to revolutionize this country from one end to the other! I am sure this would bring happiness to the Cuban people. I would not be stopped by the hatred and ill will of a few thousand people, including some of my relatives, half the people I know, two-thirds of my fellow professionals, and four-fifths of my ex-schoolmates
— Fidel Castro, 1954.[66]
Imprisoned with 25 comrades, Castro renamed his group the "26th of July Movement" (MR-26-7) in memory of the Moncada attack's date, and formed a school for prisoners.[67] He read widely, enjoying the works of Marx, Lenin, and Martí but also reading books by Freud, Kant, Shakespeare, Munthe, Maugham and Dostoyevsky, analyzing them within a Marxist framework.[68] Corresponding with supporters, he maintained control over the Movement and organized the publication of History Will Absolve Me.[69] Initially permitted a relative amount of freedom within the prison, he was locked up in solitary confinement after inmates sang anti-Batista songs on a visit by the President in February 1954.[70] Meanwhile, Castro's wife Mirta gained employment in the Ministry of the Interior, something he discovered through a radio announcement. Appalled, he raged that he would rather die "a thousand times" than "suffer impotently from such an insult".[71] Both Fidel and Mirta initiated divorce proceedings, with Mirta taking custody of their son Fidelito; this angered Castro, who did not want his son growing up in a bourgeois environment.[71]
audio (help·info); August 13, 1926 – November 25, 2016), commonly known as Fidel Castro, was a Cuban politician and revolutionary who governed the Republic of Cuba as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as President from 1976 to 2008. Politically a Marxist–Leninist and Cuban nationalist, he also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1961 until 2011. Under his administration Cuba became a one-party socialist state; industry and business were nationalized, and state socialist reforms implemented throughout society. Born in Birán as the son of a wealthy farmer, Castro adopted leftist anti-imperialist politics while studying law at the University of Havana. After participating in rebellions against right-wing governments in the Dominican Republic and Colombia, he planned the overthrow of Cuban President Fulgencio Batista, launching a failed attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953. After a year's imprisonment, he traveled to Mexico where he formed a revolutionary group, the 26th of July Movement, with his brother Raúl Castro and Che Guevara. Returning to Cuba, Castro took a key role in the Cuban Revolution by leading the Movement in a guerrilla war against Batista's forces from the Sierra Maestra. After Batista's overthrow in 1959, Castro assumed military and political power as Cuba's Prime Minister. The United States was alarmed by Castro's friendly relations with the Soviet Union, and unsuccessfully attempted to remove him by assassination, economic blockade, and counter-revolution, including the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961. Countering these threats, Castro formed an alliance with the Soviets and allowed them to place nuclear weapons on the island, sparking the Cuban Missile Crisis—a defining incident of the Cold War—in 1962.
Adopting a Marxist-Leninist model of development, Castro converted Cuba into a one-party socialist state under Communist Party rule, the first in the Western hemisphere. Reforms introducing central economic planning and expanding healthcare and education were accompanied by state control of the press and the suppression of internal dissent. Abroad, Castro supported anti-imperialist revolutionary groups, backing the establishment of Marxist governments in Chile, Nicaragua, and Grenada, and sending troops to aid allies in the Yom Kippur War, Ethio-Somali War, and Angolan Civil War. These actions, coupled with Castro's leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1979–83 and Cuba's medical internationalism, increased Cuba's profile on the world stage and earned its leader great respect in the developing world. Following the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991, Castro led Cuba into its "Special Period" and embraced environmentalist and anti-globalization ideas. In the 2000s he forged alliances in the Latin American "pink tide"—namely with Hugo Chávez's Venezuela—and signed Cuba to the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas. In 2006 he transferred his responsibilities to Vice-President Raúl Castro, who formally assumed the presidency in 2008.
Castro was a controversial and divisive world figure. He was decorated with various international awards, and his supporters laud him as a champion of socialism, anti-imperialism, and humanitarianism, whose revolutionary regime secured Cuba's independence from American imperialism. Conversely, critics view him as a totalitarian dictator whose administration oversaw multiple human-rights abuses, an exodus of more than one million Cubans, and the impoverishment of the country's economy. Through his actions and his writings, he significantly influenced the politics of various individuals and groups across the world.
Cuban Revolution
The Movement and the Moncada Barracks attack: 1952–53
In a few hours you will be victorious or defeated, but regardless of the outcome – listen well, friends – this Movement will triumph. If you win tomorrow, the aspirations of Martí will be fulfilled sooner. If we fail, our action will nevertheless set an example for the Cuban people, and from the people will arise fresh new men willing to die for Cuba. They will pick up our banner and move forward... The people will back us in Oriente and in the whole island. As in '68 and '92, here in Oriente we will give the first cry of Liberty or Death!
— Fidel Castro's speech to the Movement just before the Moncada Attack, 1953[46]
Castro formed a group called "The Movement" which operated along a clandestine cell system, publishing underground newspaper El Acusador (The Accuser), while arming and training anti-Batista recruits.[47] From July 1952 they went on a recruitment drive, gaining around 1,200 members in a year, the majority from Havana's poorer districts.[48] Although a revolutionary socialist, Castro avoided an alliance with the communist PSP, fearing it would frighten away political moderates, but kept in contact with PSP members like his brother Raúl.[49] Castro stockpiled weapons for a planned attack on the Moncada Barracks, a military garrison outside Santiago de Cuba, Oriente. Castro's militants intended to dress in army uniforms and arrive at the base on July 25, seizing control and raiding the armory before reinforcements arrived.[50] Supplied with new weaponry, Castro intended to spark a revolution among Oriente's impoverished cane cutters and promote further uprisings.[51] Castro's plan emulated those of the 19th century Cuban independence fighters who had raided Spanish barracks; Castro saw himself as the heir to independence leader José Martí.[52]
Fidel Castro under arrest after the Moncada attack, 1953 Castro gathered 165 revolutionaries for the mission,[53] ordering his troops not to cause bloodshed unless they met armed resistance.[54] The attack took place on July 26, 1953, but ran into trouble; 3 of the 16 cars that had set out from Santiago failed to get there. Reaching the barracks, the alarm was raised, with most of the rebels pinned down by machine gun fire. 4 were killed before Castro ordered a retreat.[55] The rebels suffered 6 fatalities and 15 other casualties, whilst the army suffered 19 dead and 27 wounded.[56] Meanwhile, some rebels took over a civilian hospital; subsequently stormed by government soldiers, the rebels were rounded up, tortured and 22 were executed without trial.[57] Accompanied by 19 comrades, Castro set out for Gran Piedra in therugged Sierra Maestra mountains several miles to the north, where they could establish a guerrilla base.[58] Responding to the attack, Batista's government proclaimed martial law, ordering a violent crackdown on dissent, and imposing strict media censorship.[59] The government broadcast misinformation about the event, claiming that the rebels were communists who had killed hospital patients, although news and photographs of the army's use of torture and summary executions in Oriente soon spread, causing widespread public and some governmental disapproval.[59]
Over the following days, the rebels were rounded up; some were executed and others – including Castro – transported to a prison north of Santiago.[60] Believing Castro incapable of planning the attack alone, the government accused Ortodoxo and PSP politicians of involvement, putting 122 defendants on trial on September 21 at the Palace of Justice, Santiago.[61] Acting as his own defense counsel, Castro cited Martí as the intellectual author of the attack and convinced the 3 judges to overrule the army's decision to keep all defendants handcuffed in court, proceeding to argue that the charge with which they were accused – of "organizing an uprising of armed persons against the Constitutional Powers of the State" – was incorrect, for they had risen up against Batista, who had seized power in an unconstitutional manner.[62] The trial embarrassed the army by revealing that they had tortured suspects, after which they tried unsuccessfully to prevent Castro from testifying any further, claiming he was too ill.[63] The trial ended on October 5, with the acquittal of most defendants; 55 were sentenced to prison terms of between 7 months and 13 years. Castro was sentenced on October 16, during which he delivered a speech that would be printed under the title of History Will Absolve Me.[64] Castro was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment in the hospital wing of the Model Prison (Presidio Modelo), a relatively comfortable and modern institution on the Isla de Pinos.[65]
Imprisonment and the 26th of July Movement: 1953–55
I would honestly love to revolutionize this country from one end to the other! I am sure this would bring happiness to the Cuban people. I would not be stopped by the hatred and ill will of a few thousand people, including some of my relatives, half the people I know, two-thirds of my fellow professionals, and four-fifths of my ex-schoolmates
— Fidel Castro, 1954.[66]
Imprisoned with 25 comrades, Castro renamed his group the "26th of July Movement" (MR-26-7) in memory of the Moncada attack's date, and formed a school for prisoners.[67] He read widely, enjoying the works of Marx, Lenin, and Martí but also reading books by Freud, Kant, Shakespeare, Munthe, Maugham and Dostoyevsky, analyzing them within a Marxist framework.[68] Corresponding with supporters, he maintained control over the Movement and organized the publication of History Will Absolve Me.[69] Initially permitted a relative amount of freedom within the prison, he was locked up in solitary confinement after inmates sang anti-Batista songs on a visit by the President in February 1954.[70] Meanwhile, Castro's wife Mirta gained employment in the Ministry of the Interior, something he discovered through a radio announcement. Appalled, he raged that he would rather die "a thousand times" than "suffer impotently from such an insult".[71] Both Fidel and Mirta initiated divorce proceedings, with Mirta taking custody of their son Fidelito; this angered Castro, who did not want his son growing up in a bourgeois environment.[71]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)