Представник України на переговорах у Мінську Тристоронньої контактної групи екс-президент Леонід Кучма провів зустріч із головою делегації Міжнародного комітету Червоного хреста в Україні Аланом Ешліманом, повідомила у Facebook речниця Кучми Дарина Оліфер.
«Під час зустрічі обговорили актуальні питання роботи підгрупи з гуманітарних питань та роботу МКЧХ в Україні. Детально обговорено проведення аварійно-ремонтних робіт моста в районі Станиці Луганської. Особливо Леонід Кучма висловив занепокоєння недотриманням Великоднього перемир’я з боку НЗФ ОРДЛО», – написала вона.
Тристороння контактна група з врегулювання ситуації на Донбасі 26 березня домовилася про всеосяжне, стійке і безстрокове припинення вогню з 30 березня о 00:01 за київським часом. Це вже третя за трохи більше ніж три місяці спроба домовитися про перемир’я.
Збройний конфлікт на Донбасі триває від 2014 року після російської анексії Криму. Україна і Захід звинувачують Росію у збройній підтримці сепаратистів. Кремль відкидає ці звинувачення і заявляє, що на Донбасі можуть перебувати хіба що російські «добровольці». За даними ООН, за час конфлікту загинули понад 10 тисяч людей.
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Ветеранів бойових дій на Донбасі, які повертаються додому, цікавлять можливості отримати освіту коштом держави та питання відкриття власної справи,повідомила на брифінгу у Києві голова організації «Юридична сотня» Леся Василенко.
Також, за її словами, серед найпоширеніших питань, з якими бійці звертаються до правників – це особливості служби за контрактом та його розірвання, невиплата грошового забезпечення, пільги для учасників бойових дій та ветеранів з інвалідністю.
Як повідомили в «Юридичній сотні», організація напрацювала проекти законів, спрямованих на захист учасників бойових дій, включно з добровольцями та іноземцями, які служать в Збройних силах України за контрактом. Зокрема, представники організації зазначили, що у першому читанні Верховна Рада ухвалила законопроекти щодо забезпечення рівних можливостей для проходження служби жінок і чоловіків у структурах безпеки та оборони (законопроект 6109) та інші.
«За останній рік «Юридична сотня» посилила свою діяльність щодо розробки законопроектів, підтримки проектів законів, які розробляють відповідні органи центральних органів виконавчої влади. Зокрема, ми співпрацюємо з Міністерством оборони, допомагаємо просувати ті законопроекти, які потрібні для наших воїнів», – наголосила Василенко.
Правозахисна громадська організація «Юридична сотня» запрацювала під час подій Майдану, а з початку воєнних дій на Сході України її представники розгорнули волонтерську мережу задля захисту прав учасників бойових дій та їхніх родин.
Задля інформування учасників бойових дій про їхні права та підтримки їхніх родин, «Юридична сотня» започаткувала гарячу телефонну лінію (0-800-308100), якою упродовж 2017 року скористались близько 19 тисяч осіб, та підготувала рекомендації пам’ятки для військовослужбовців.
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Організація Об’єднаних Націй звернулася до міжнародного співтовариства з проханням надати 2,96 мільярда доларів для надання гуманітарної допомогти в Ємені.
«Ємен перебуває в найгіршій гуманітарній криза в світі», – заявив генеральний секретар ООН Антоніу Гутерріш на конференції в Женеві, назвавши ситуацію у виснаженій війною країні «катастрофічною».
У Ємені триває руйнівний конфлікт між урядом президента Абд-Раббу Мансур Хаді, якого підтримує військова коаліція під керівництвом Саудівської Аравії, та повстанцями Хуті, яких підтримують Іран.
З початку втручання коаліції з 2015 року вбиті понад 10 тисяч єменців, а 22,2 мільйона людей потребують гуманітарної допомоги.
Саудівська Аравія та її союзники в минулому році закрили кордони, а потім полегшили блокаду, проте обмеження доставки залишаються.
«Безумовно, гуманітарні працівники повинні мати можливість добратися до людей, які потребують допомоги найбільше… Всі порти повинні бути відкритими для гуманітарних та комерційних вантажів, ліків, продуктів харчування та палива, необхідного для їх доставки», – сказав Гуттеріш.
Глава ООН сказав, що Саудівська Аравія і ОАЕ вже запланували 930 мільйонів доларів на гуманітарну допомогу в цьому році. Інші донори виділили 293 мільйони доларів.
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As trade frictions heat up between China and the United States, the two countries are talking tough and giving assurances at the same time that the situation will not spiral out of control.
Despite assurances, analysts both in China and in the United States are divided over just how bad the situation could get.
“Right now, the markets are reacting, farmers are reacting, trade groups are reacting and most of us are expecting a counterproductive end in the short run,” said Dave Swenson, an economist at Iowa State University. “What we think this is right now is truly a skirmish, boundaries being drawn, what we don’t know is just the extent to which both sides are willing to go to make their points.”
President Donald Trump is expected to announce a new tariff list aimed at punishing Beijing over its technology transfer policies and intellectual property theft. And while the two sides have stressed that negotiations and talks are being pursued, there has been little evidence that that is happening.
China has said it will take proportional measures to respond to any tariffs enacted by the Trump administration. In response to earlier tariffs on steel and aluminum, China launched levies of up to 25 percent this week on 128 products, including fruits, nuts, pork, wine, steel and aluminum.
China’s actions so far have shown self-restraint, but there is there is much more Beijing could do, said economist Hu Xingdou.
“For example, China owns lots of U.S. treasury and corporate bonds, buys airplanes from Boeing and soybeans etc.,” Hu said.
The initial tariffs that China issued were smart and political, he adds. Most of the items on the list are agricultural products, which China can replace with imports from other markets, Hu said.
“I think the move sends a political message even though it is seen as a trade measure. In fact, political calculation is taken into consideration,” he said.
Some of the heaviest tariffs were placed on pork and pork products and one key state that is expected to feel the pinch from the new measures is Iowa, a state where support for Trump was strong in the 2016 elections. It is also the home of former governor and now U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad.
Swenson, the economist from Iowa State University, said that it is not only pork, but ethanol tariffs on China’s list that will have an impact.
“Because Iowa is the nation’s largest producer of corn, ethanol can be produced much more efficiently in Iowa than in any other state,” he said.
Some analysts in China believe that if President Trump does push ahead with tariffs targeting intellectual property theft and the country’s technology transfer policies, a trade war is inevitable.
Others argue it is unlikely that President Trump will go too far.
In an interview with the online news outlet “The Paper,” Yu Chunhai, an economist at Renmin University of China, said while trade frictions will grow, a trade war is unlikely. Yu said Trump is likely to use executive privilege to keep tensions under control and pull back when the costs are too high.
But while the building standoff brings both risks and uncertainty, it is also an opportunity.
“The crisis also presents an opportunity for China to deepen its reforms, fulfill its WTO commitments and curtail the role of state-owned enterprises in the local economy while opening up the local markets for the banking, insurance and cultural sector,” Hu said.
If it is not able to make such changes, however, Hu said the situation is likely to get worse. China has recently pledged to further open up its banking and insurance sector, but the time frame for that to happen is still three years down the road.
Joyce Huang and Ira Mellman in Washington DC contributed to this report.
your ad hereFrench railway workers went on strike Tuesday in the first of a series of planned work stoppages in protest of the government’s plans to institute reforms to the system.
Only a fraction of trains were running across the country, leaving platforms packed with people and roads clogged with commuters who normally rely on rail travel instead.
French President Emmanuel Macron wants to strip away job guarantees and other benefits for new hires for the railway system.
The government says the reforms are necessary to keep the services economically competitive and in line with European Union rules.
The main rail unions plan to strike two days out of every five for the next three months.
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White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says President Donald Trump proposed the White House as a potential place to host a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The suggestion came during a March 20 call between the two leaders. Trump said after that call he hoped to meet with Putin “in the not too distant future,” both sides have said planning has not gone any further.
Sanders did not give additional information about plans for the meeting to take place.
“We have nothing further to add at this time,” she told reporters Monday.
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov also said Trump floated the idea of hosting Putin for talks at the White House.
Trump is under scrutiny as a special counsel investigates potential ties between his presidential campaign and Russia. The U.S. intelligence community has assessed Putin directed an influence campaign aimed at the 2016 election that brought Trump to office.
Trump says there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia.
Since the March 20 phone call, relations between the two countries became more complicated with the United States expelling 60 Russian diplomats and ordering the closure of a Russian consulate in response to the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal in Britain. Russia denies it was responsible for the attack, and responded to the U.S. move by expelling U.S. diplomats and closing a U.S. consulate.
your ad hereВ ЄС арештували організовану злочинну групу хакерів, які через фішинг привласнила мільйон євро. Як повідомила прес-служба Євроюсту, агенції, яка координує роботу європейських судових органів, злочинці фальсифікували електронні листи від податкових органів та привласнювали гроші з банків Італії та Румунії.
Затримання 20 хакерів – це результат дворічного розслідування кіберзлочинності спільними зусиллями антикримінальних структур та поліції Румунії та Італії за підтримки Євроюсту, Європолу та їхньої Об’єднаної робочої групи з дій в галузі боротьби з кіберзлочинністю. Як повідомляє брюссельський кореспондент Радіо Свобода, 9 осіб були затримані в Румунії та 11 – в Італії, а загальна сума шкоди, завданої клієнтам двох банків, склала 1 мільйон євро.
«Влада Румунії здійснила 15 обшуків, у яких взяли участь 120 румунських поліцейських, тим часом, італійська влада за сприяння сотні італійських правоохоронців провела 9 домашніх та комп’ютерних обстежень, в яких взяли участь понад 100 італійських поліцейських. Були також арештовані документи, комп’ютерна техніка, наркотики та інші матеріали», повідомила прес-служба Євроюсту.
Організована злочинна група, до складу якої входять громадяни Румунії та Італії, використовувала електронну пошту для фішингу під приводом повідомлень з податкових органів. Одержувачам таких листів рекомендували натиснути на посилання, яке відкривало підроблену версію законного веб-сайту, з якого згодом збирали їхні облікові записи та контактні дані.
Розслідування, яке було розпочате в ще 2016 році, засвідчило, як саме злочинці використовували вкрадені банківські посвідчення в інтернет-мережі, щоб приховано переводити гроші з рахунків жертв на контрольовані ними рахунки.
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Stock markets in Asia and Europe saw declines Tuesday, but did not suffer losses as steep as those Monday in U.S. markets where continued fears about a U.S.-China trade war and a verbal attack on an online retailer by President Donald Trump sent stocks lower.
China’s Shanghai Composite Index finished down about 0.84 percent, while Japan’s Nikkei fell about one-half percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rallied in afternoon trading to close up about one-quarter percent.
Early trading sent markets in Britain and Germany lower.
The U.S. Down Jones Industrial Average closed down 1.9 percent Monday, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 dropped 2.3 percent and the NASDAQ fell nearly three percent.
Trump has strongly criticized online giant Amazon three times in the last few days. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also owns The Washington Post, whose revelatory stories on Trump and his administration frequently draw the president’s ire.
The U.S. leader says Amazon’s large-scale operations are detrimental to the business success of small retailers that cannot compete with its high-volume sales. Trump has also complained that the fees Amazon pays to the U.S. Postal Service to deliver merchandise the retailer sells are too low, costing the quasi-governmental agency hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue, although the Postal Service says its contract with Amazon is profitable.
“Only fools, or worse, are saying that our money losing Post Office makes money with Amazon,” Trump said in his latest broadside against Amazon. “THEY LOSE A FORTUNE, and this will be changed. Also, our fully tax paying retailers are closing stores all over the country…not a level playing field!”
Since Trump started verbally attacking Amazon, the company has lost more than $37 billion in market value.
China’s announcement that it is increasing duties on 128 categories of U.S. imports worth $3 billion in annual trade also worried investors. They fear Beijing’s response to the Trump tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese imports could spark an all-out trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.
“The importance of tariff announcements by both the U.S. and China lies in what they may portend for overall bilateral trade and investment relations between the two countries,” said Atsi Sheth, an analyst for Moody’s Investors Service.
Late Monday, White House deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters issued a statement saying, in part, that China needs to stop “its unfair trading practices which are harming U.S. national security and distorting global markets.”
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First, the United States imposed a tax on Chinese steel and aluminum. Then, China counterpunched Monday with tariffs on a host of U.S. products, including apples, pork and ginseng.
On Wall Street, the stock market buckled on the prospect of an all-out trade war between the world’s two biggest economies. But it hasn’t come to that – not yet, anyway.
“We’re in a trade slap-fight right now,” not a trade war, said Derek Scissors, resident scholar and China specialist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
China is a relatively insignificant supplier of steel and aluminum to the United States. And the $3 billion in U.S. products that Beijing targeted Monday amount to barely 2 percent of American goods exported to China.
But the dispute could escalate, and quickly. Already, in a separate move, the United States is drawing up a list of about $50 billion in Chinese imports to tax in an effort to punish Beijing for stealing American technology or forcing U.S. companies to hand over trade secrets.
China could respond by targeting American commercial interests uniquely dependent on the Chinese market: the aircraft giant Boeing, for example, and soybean farmers.
The possibility that the U.S. and China will descend into a full-blown trade war knocked the Dow Jones industrial average down as much as 758 points in afternoon trading. The Dow recovered some ground and finished down 458.92 points, or 1.9 percent, at 23,644.19.
For weeks, in fact, President Donald Trump’s aggressive trade actions have depressed the stock market.
But many trade analysts suggested that the Wall Street sell-off may be an overreaction.
China’s swift but measured retaliation to the U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs is meant to show “that it will not be pushed around but that it does not want a trade war,” said Amanda DeBusk, chair of the international trade department at the law firm Hughes Hubbard & Reed. “It is possible for the countries to pull back from the brink.”
“It seems to be pretty measured and proportional,” agreed Wendy Cutler, a former U.S. trade official who is now vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “They didn’t seem to overreach, and they didn’t hit our big-ticket items like planes and soybeans.”
Even if China’s tariffs don’t have a huge impact on America’s $20 trillion economy, they will bring pain to specific communities.
Take Marathon County in Wisconsin, where 140 local families grow ginseng, a root that is used in herbal remedies and is popular in Asia. Around $30 million – or 85 percent – of the area’s ginseng production went to China as exports or gifts. The county, which gave Trump nearly 57 percent of its vote in 2016, holds an international ginseng festival in September, crowning a Ginseng Queen and drawing visitors from China and Taiwan.
China’s new 15 percent tariff on ginseng is “definitely going to hit the growers hard if this happens,” said Jackie Fett, executive director of the Ginseng Board of Wisconsin. “It is the livelihood of many people. … We’re still holding on to a little bit of hope” that the tariffs can be reversed.
Jim Schumacher, co-owner of Schumacher Ginseng in Marathon, Wisconsin, said the 15 percent tax will hurt: “You’ve got to be price-competitive, even if you have the top-quality product. We’re definitely concerned. We hope something can be resolved.”
Trump campaigned on a promise to overhaul American trade policy. In his view, what he calls flawed trade agreements and sharp-elbowed practices by China and other trading partners are in part responsible for America’s gaping trade deficit – $566 billion last year. The deficit in the trade of goods with China last year hit a record $375 billion.
In his first year in office, Trump’s talk was tougher than his actions on trade. But he has gradually grown more aggressive. In January, he slapped tariffs on imported solar panels and washing machines. Last month, he imposed duties on steel and aluminum imports – but spared most major economies except China and Japan.
Now he is moving toward steep tariffs to pressure Beijing into treating U.S. technology companies more fairly. In the meantime, his administration has lost two voices that cautioned against protectionist trade policies: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and White House economic adviser Gary Cohn.
“Given the increasingly hostile rhetoric backed up by tangible trade sanctions already announced by both the U.S. and China, it will take a determined effort on both sides to come up with a mediated compromise that tamps down trade tensions and allows both sides to save face,” said Eswar Prasad, professor of trade policy at Cornell University.
If the dispute escalates, China can pick more vulnerable targets. In the year that ended last Aug. 31, America’s soybean farmers, for instance, sent $12.4 billion worth of soybeans to China. That was 57 percent of total U.S. soybean exports.
Brent Bible, a soybean and corn farmer in Lafayette, Indiana, has appeared in TV ads by the advocacy group Farmers for Free Trade, calling on the Trump administration to avoid a trade war.
“We’re kind of caught in the crossfire,” he said.
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While President Donald Trump has said illegal immigrants heading toward the United States are trying to take advantage of an Obama-era policy that shields certain people from deportation, the program known as DACA is actually not open to new entrants.
At issue is the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which the Republican president last September ordered rescinded. Under DACA, hundreds of thousands of young adults dubbed “Dreamers” who were brought into the United States illegally as children have been shielded from deportation and given work permits.
On Sunday, apparently in reference to a caravan of 1,500 Central Americans who are journeying through Mexico toward the United States, Trump wrote on Twitter: “These big flows of people are all trying to take advantage of DACA. They want in on the act!”
But there is no “act” to get in on. Newly arriving illegal immigrants cannot win protections under DACA, created in 2012 by Trump’s Democratic predecessor Barack Obama, for two reasons.
Anyone admitted into the program had to have been living continuously in the United States since June 15, 2007, along with other requirements. In addition, Trump himself ordered an end to the program, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is not accepting new applicants.
Under Trump’s action, DACA was supposed to have begun winding down last month. But courts have ruled that Trump acted improperly and that the hundreds of thousands of immigrants currently enrolled still qualified for protections while the legal fight over DACA unfolds.
When he announced he was ending DACA, Trump urged Congress to come up with a legislative fix. Referring to the Dreamers, Trump said, “I have a great heart for the folks we’re talking about, a great love for them.”
Seven months later, DACA participants are living with the uncertainty over whether they will be protected or targeted for deportation.
Meanwhile, following a series of failed negotiations with Democrats and some Republicans in Congress, Trump has been fuming over the refusal of lawmakers to fully fund a $25 billion wall he wants to build on the U.S.-Mexican border. The wall became a bargaining chip in DACA replacement legislation.
“NO MORE DACA DEAL!,” Trump said on Twitter as he blamed Democrats for the situation. “DACA is dead.”
Matthew Wright, a government professor at American University in Washington, called Trump’s tweets “not connected to reality.” Wright noted that Trump rejected several Democratic offers to address DACA, including at one point a deal that would have provided $25 billion for his wall.
Last month, Senator Angus King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, said Trump’s rejection of that offer was the “high-water mark” for the wall’s prospects in Congress, where support for it is tepid at best.
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A record number of women are running for governors’ offices in the U.S. this year.
The Center for American Women and Politics said Monday that 40 Democratic or Republican women have filed candidacy papers in 19 states where the deadline has passed. The number is likely to rise because filing remains open in 17 other states.
The center at Rutgers University in New Jersey says the previous high mark for major party female gubernatorial candidates was 34, set in 1994. This year’s field includes 24 Democrats and 16 Republicans.
At least one woman is running for governor in each state where filing has ended. Colorado and Maine have the most, with five female candidates.
The candidates include three incumbents, 15 challengers and 22 running for open seats in eight states.
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