Established 1961 11 News Thursday, February 8, 2018 LA Times sold to local billionaire ey from Nigeria to Zimbabwe, or from the United States Nigerian crypto to Sudan,” he explained. Banks were “very tedious” and LOS ANGELES: The Los Angeles Times is being sold to payment companies “generally exploitative”, he said. billionaire physician and investor Patrick Soon-Shiong in a “There’s heavy discrimination, definitely. We have to go move aimed at reviving the fortunes of the newspaper craze unfazed by all around them to succeed.” amid recent turmoil, the publisher announced yesterday. Samuel-Biyi’s company, SureRemit, developed its own Publishing group Tronc Inc. said it reached a deal to sell bitcoin plunge virtual token - a kind of custom cryptocurrency like bit- the LA Times and San Diego Union-Tribune to Soon- coin or one of the many alternatives such as ether. The Shiong’s Nant Capital for $500 million plus the assump- LAGOS: While bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have tokens are used to buy vouchers, which may be used to tion of $90 million in pension liabilities. suffered precipitous falls in recent weeks, the units remain purchase goods and pay bills at participating merchants The move comes after months of newsroom unrest popular in Nigeria where they make it easier to do busi- anywhere in the world, cutting out cumbersome middle- at the storied Los Angeles daily that has seen three edi- ness. On the surface, digital coins may not seem like a men and eliminating fees. In January, SureRemit held its tors in the past six months, and a vote to unionize the good idea in a country where corruption is rampant and “initial coin offering” (ICO), a form of online crowdfund- journalists. “We are pleased to transition leadership of stacks of hard cash are often smuggled overseas. Yet West ing where people purchase the tokens to be put in circu- the Los Angeles Times and The San Diego Union- Africa’s biggest economy has the world’s third-largest bit- lation for use in eight countries, mostly in Africa and the Middle East. Tribune to local ownership, and we are certain that the coin holdings as a percentage of gross domestic (GDP), The 500 million tokens, each worth two US cents, journalistic excellence in Southern California will con- behind Russia and New Zealand, according to Citigroup. sold out in just two days and were snapped up by major tinue long into the future,” said Justin Dearborn, chief That may be because blockchain technology - public, online ledgers that underpin cryptocurrencies - is liberat- cryptocurrency players, including South Korea’s executive of Tronc, the name adopted for the group Hashed, raising $7 million for the company. “We were previously known as Tribune Publishing. ing Nigerians sidelined by the global financial system as it dramatically improves the ease of doing business. expecting scam allegations,” said Samuel-Biyi, referring Soon-Shiong, a South African-born surgeon whose to Nigeria’s unenviable reputation for online financial biotech investments have boosted his net worth to some Olaoluwa Samuel-Biyi, a slight 27-year-old entrepreneur, looks the part of an aspiring corporate disrupter, dressed fraud. “But the world really accepted it.” $7.8 billion, said in the statement: “We look forward to Patrick Soon-Shiong in skinny jeans with dishevelled hair. He first considered If the token system works, SureRemit stands to take continuing the great tradition of award-winning journalism using cryptocurrency when credit card firms and other a chunk of the world’s remittance market, which was carried out by the reporters and editors of the Los Breakthroughs, aimed at developing immunotherapies to worth $429 billion in 2016, according to the World Bank. cure cancer. Soon-Shiong is the latest billionaire to seek established payment providers refused to partner with Angeles Times, The San Diego Union-Tribune and the his global remittance company, deeming the venture too It’s hardly surprising that SureRemit was conceived in other California News Group titles.” to turn around struggling newspapers, following on the Nigeria: Remittance flows that year were worth $19 bil- heels of Amazon owner Jeff Bezos’s purchase of the risky. “They said the markets were too high risk and that The LA Times, like many newspapers, has been down- people could finance terrorism,” he told AFP, laughing. lion - more than four percent of GDP. Sub-Saharan sizing its staff as readers turn away from print to online Washington Post and Boston Red Sox owner John Henry’s Africa has some of the highest remittance costs in the deal for the Boston Globe. “It’s ridiculous.” news platforms. The Los Angeles daily was family-owned He realized that the only way he could solve the prob- world, with the most expensive fees seen within the “I’d say this is good news, but with a caveat,” said Dan for more than a century before being sold to the Chicago- lem was to use cryptocurrency. “It’s so hard to send mon- continent. — AFP based Tribune Co. in 2000. Tribune Co, which split off its Kennedy, a Northeastern University journalism professor broadcast division and renamed its publishing arm Tronc and author of a forthcoming book on the efforts of Bezos (for Tribune Online Content), will continue to own the and Henry to remake American newspapers. “Wealthy Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida Sun- local ownership is exactly what the Los Angeles Times sent to jail for traffic offenses, so why shouldn’t they be Sentinel, Baltimore Sun and the New York Daily News. and the San Diego Union-Tribune need, assuming that Dr Opposition MPs punished for major embezzlements. The Assembly also Soon-Shiong, born in South Africa to Chinese parents, Soon-Shiong is willing to be patient and to respect the delayed voting on an agreement for opening an office has been an investor in Tronc and also owns a stake in the independence of the newsroom.” Kennedy noted that the of NATO in Kuwait until the foreign minister is avail- Los Angeles Lakers basketball team. He has been a faculty businessman has in the past criticized “false reporting” stage sit-in for... able to answer questions. MP Saleh Ashour asked why member at the UCLA medical school and has invested in about his own research efforts. “Given that, we’ll have to should there be a NATO office in the country when and donated to medical research. He was a founder of the see which Dr Soon-Shiong shows up in the owner’s suite,” Continued from Page 1 Kuwait is not a member of NATO. MP Abdulkarim Al- Cancer MoonShot 2020 program, renamed Cancer Kennedy said. — AFP Kandari said that MPs did not obtain answers to the graft in the interior ministry hospitality spending to issues of sovereignty and compensation from the for- the public prosecution for investigation. MP Adasani eign relations panel. badly damaged, at least two people were killed when the said that the interior ministry’s hospitality spending The Assembly also completed the debate on the Rescuers scour lower floors collapsed. But most residents got out and increased from a mere KD 2 million to KD 23 million, a housing problem, with lawmakers accusing both the authorities said they believed no more people were sevenfold rise, and the amount is larger than the same government and the Assembly of being unconcerned to trapped inside. President Tsai Ing-wen visited the apart- spending by all other ministries. He said that the inves- resolve the problem. State Minister for Housing Jenan tilting buildings... ment block Wednesday morning. “Now is the prime time tigation reports by the interior ministry itself and the Boushehri said the number of applications for govern- for our rescue efforts, our first priority is to save people,” budgets committee of the Assembly indicate suspicions ment housing dropped from 110,000 last year to of graft and forgery. Continued from Page 1 she said in a Facebook post. Hualien is one of Taiwan’s 96,000 currently, but she said that the path is still too most popular tourist hubs as it lies on the picturesque MP Ali Al-Deqbasi said that ordinary people are long to resolve the problem. rescued with ropes, ladders and cranes. But fire east coast rail line and near the popular Taroko Gorge. department staff at the site told AFP at least four bodies The government said 17 foreigners sought medical treat- had been pulled out of the building in the day. Of those ment for minor injuries. gratulations, tweeting: “This achievement, along with still missing, the Hualien disaster relief center said, 39 are Local resident Blue Hsu said some of those carried World’s biggest @NASA’s commercial and international partners, con- residents at the apartment block and 13 are guests at the out of the hotel were foreigners. “The lower floors sunk tinues to show American ingenuity at its best!” Musk Beauty Stay Hotel - which is on the bottom floors of the into the ground and I saw panicked tourists being res- replied: “Thank you on behalf of SpaceX. An exciting Yun Tsui building. One of the people killed at the apart- cued from the hotel,” Hsu told AFP. Some 830 people rocket soars ... future lies ahead!” The Falcon Heavy launched from the ment block was a woman from mainland China, authori- were in shelters, officials said, while 1,900 houses were same NASA pad that was the base for the Apollo-era Continued from Page 1 ties said. without power. Pope Francis expressed solidarity with Moon missions of the 1960s and 1970s. It is “the most Officials temporarily suspended rescue efforts over the victims and encouraged emergency responders in powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of Both rockets landed side by side in unison on fears the building might slip further as engineers raced to a statement issued by the Vatican yesterday.