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Spanish PM demands clarity over Catalan plan (Second Lead)
Madrid, Oct 11 (IANS) Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Wednesday said he has asked Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont to confirm whether or not he has declared independence.
Rajoy gave a press conference following an emergency cabinet meeting convened the morning after Catalan President Carles Puigdemont told his Parliament that “Catalonia had won the right to become independent” but that he would “suspend an official declaration for some weeks” to allow for talks with Madrid.
Rajoy accused Puigdemont of creating “deliberate confusion” and said that the Spanish government needed to know whether or not he had declared the northeastern region independent from Spain, BBC reported.
The Spanish Prime Minister said his government would base its response on the answer it was given, including any measures it might take invoking a constitutional clause allowing for direct rule.
Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution would allow Rajoy to suspend Catalonia’s autonomy and impose direct rule from Madrid.
“This call — ahead of any of the measures that the government may adopt under Article 155 of our Constitution — seeks to offer citizens the clarity and security that a question of such importance requires,” Rajoy said.
“There is an urgent need to put an end to the situation that Catalonia is going through, to return it to safety, tranquillity and calm and to do that as quickly as possible,” he added.
Spain has been in turmoil since a disputed referendum in Catalonia on October 1 was declared invalid by the country’s Constitutional Court.
Addressing the Catalan Parliament in Barcelona on Tuesday evening, Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont said: “We call on international states and organisations to recognise the Catalan republic as an independent and sovereign state.”
He said the “people’s will” was to break away from Madrid, but he also said he wanted to “de-escalate” the tension around the issue. Puigdemont signed a declaration of independence but halted its implementation to allow negotiations.
However, the Spanish government rejected his calls for mediation.
Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria described Puigdemont as someone “who does not know where he is, where he’s going”.
“Dialogue between democrats takes place within the law, respects the rules of the game and doesn’t make them up as it goes along.”
About 90 per cent of participants voted in favour of splitting from Spain in the referendum. But it was marred by violence after Spanish police acting on court orders attempted to stop the vote by raiding polling stations, seizing ballot boxes, beating voters and firing rubber bullets at crowds.
Ahead of Puigdemont’s address on Tuesday, influential figures including Barcelona’s Mayor Ada Colau and European Council President Donald Tusk had urged him to step back from declaring independence.
The European Union made clear that if Catalonia split from Spain, the region would cease to be part of the EU.
–IANS
soni/dg
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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