Fitch Ratings changed its outlook on Mexico’s long-term foreign-currency debt issues Wednesday from “stable” to “negative,” citing the potential policies of President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
The leftist Lopez Obrador has tried to smooth anxieties in the business community, but upset many on Monday by cancelling a partly built, $13 billion new airport on the outskirts of Mexico City.
The private sector had strongly backed the airport project, but Lopez Obrador called it wasteful. Instead he plans to upgrade existing commercial and military airports. He made the decision based on a public referendum that was poorly organized and drew only about 1 percent of the country’s voters.
Alfredo Coutino, Latin America director at Moody’s Analytics, said the decision to cancel the airport project “added not only volatility but also uncertainty to the economy’s future, because it signals that policymaking in the new administration can be based more on such kind of subjective consultation and less on technical or fundamentals consistent with the country’s needs.”
“The cancellation has certainly introduced an element of uncertainty in markets and investors,” Coutino wrote, “which could start affecting confidence and credibility.”
Fitch confirmed its BBB+ investment-grade rating for Mexican government debt, but said Wednesday “there are risks that the follow-through on previously approved reforms, for example in the energy sector, could stall.”
Lopez Obrador has said he will review private concessionary oil exploration contracts granted under current President Enrique Pena Nieto’s energy reform, but won’t cancel them if they were fairly granted. The fear is that future exploration contracts may be delayed or cancelled.
Lopez Obrador won’t take office until December1, but has already announced major policy decisions.
Some of his policy announcements – like fiscal restraint, respect for the independence of the central banks and a pledge to avoid new debt – earned praise from investors.
But Fitch noted the decision to cancel the airport “sends a negative signal to investors.”
Lopez Obrador has also pledged to have the state-owned oil company, Pemex, build more refineries to lower imports of gasoline.
Fitch wrote that this type of proposal will “would entail higher borrowing and larger contingent liabilities to the government.”
your ad here
31 жовтня прокурори зачитали 24 сторінки обвинувального акта щодо екс-голови Державної фіскальної служби України Романа Насірова, повідомила Спеціалізована антикорупційна прокуратура.
«Прокурори САП на вимогу сторони захисту розпочали 7 грудня 2017 року зачитувати повний текст обвинувального акту, який складається з 774 сторінок. Упродовж сьогоднішнього судового засідання прокурорами зачитано 24 сторінки обвинувального акту. Таким чином, у справі зачитано уже 391 сторінку обвинувального акту», – заявили в САП.
Наступне засідання призначене на 20 листопада 2018 року.
На початку березня 2017 року суд арештував Насірова з можливістю застави в 100 мільйонів гривень, яку внесли його дружина і тесть. Після цього відсторонений голова ДФС вийшов із СІЗО. 15 лютого Насіров попросив Окружний адміністративний суд Києва поновити його на посаді голови Державної фіскальної служби.
За даними слідства, Насіров причетний до так званої «газової схеми Онищенка» і впродовж 2015 року ухвалив низку «безпідставних і незаконних рішень» про розстрочення сум платежів з рентної плати за користування надрами для задіяних у схемі компаній на загальну суму понад мільярд гривень. Слідство вважає, що такими рішеннями державі завдано збитків на суму майже 2 мільярди гривень. Захист Насірова і він сам ці звинувачення заперечують.
…
Підозрюваний в державній зраді глава «РИА Новости-Украина» збирається скаржитися до Вищої ради правосуддя на дії слідчого судді. Про це повідомляє кореспондент проекту Радіо Свобода «Крим.Реалії».
31 жовтня Херсонський міський суд відмовив у задоволенні клопотання сторони захисту підозрюваного в зраді глави «РИА Новости-Украина» Кирила Вишинського про відвід слідчого судді Галини Радченко.
При цьому суд погодився з тим, що на вересневому засіданні були допущені порушення, які дають право звернутися зі скаргою до компетентних органів.
У суді Вишинський наполягав на тому, що Радченко «фактично відмовляла йому в захисті», смс-повідомлення про засідання його адвокату прийшло із запізненням, а саму суддю він викрив у брехні.
«Суд зазначив, що були значні порушення, які дають можливість нашому підзахисному звернутися до компетентних органів з приводу дій судді, зокрема зі скаргою до Вищої ради правосуддя. Я думаю, що Кирило Вишинський цим скористається. На суді він зазначив, що буде реалізовувати свої права», – прокоментував ситуацію адвокат Андрій Доманський.
Читайте також: Вишинський, якого в Україні підозрюють у держзраді, отримав у Росії премію імені Політковської
Херсонський міський суд 6 серпня залишив під арештом обвинуваченого в державній зраді Вишинського на 60 діб, продовживши тримання під вартою до 4 листопада.
Затриманому 15 травня в Києві медіаменеджеру інкримінують державну зраду і проведення підривної інформаційної діяльності проти України. Вишинського загрожує до 15 років позбавлення волі в разі визнання винним. Він усі звинувачення відкидає.
За даними СБУ, Вишинський за завданням Москви готував інформаційні матеріали в Криму для виправдання анексії Росією українського півострова, пізніше в Києві – для підтримки угруповань «ДНР» і «ЛНР». Щомісяця він отримував на цю діяльність 53 тисячі євро, ці гроші, як заявили в СБУ, надходили з Росії через Сербію.
…
Причиною аварії ракети «Союз» стала некоректна робота датчика, що сигналізує про відділення першого і другого ступенів носія. Про це повідомив в середу виконавчий директор «Роскосмосу» Сергій Крикальов.
Він зазначив, що одну з бічних панелей при відділенні не відвели на потрібну відстань, вона вдарила по баку пального другого ступеня, що призвело до розриву бака і руйнування другого ступеня.
Він сказав, що зараз працюють над усуненням дефекту, щоб убезпечити подальші польоти.
Читайте також: Американський астронавт заявив, що продовжує довіряти системі «Союз» навіть після аварії
11 жовтня космічний корабель «Союз МС-10» здійснив аварійну посадку. На борту корабля були космонавт «Роскосмосу» Олексій Овчинін і астронавт NASA Нік Гейґ. Вони приземлили пілотований блок на парашутах у ручному режимі.
За останні кілька років російський «Роскосмос» здійснив кілька невдалих космічних запусків. Два із них – з російського космодрому «Східний» (27 квітня і 28 листопада 2017 року), в обох використовувалися ракети-носії «Союз», які випускає ракетно-космічний центр «Прогрес» у Самарі. Вона була використана і при запуску з Байконура 11 жовтня.
…
У столиці російського регіону Інгушетія, місті Магас, 31 жовтня відбувся узгоджений мітинг проти передачі іншому росйському регіону, Чечні, частини території республіки. У ньому брали участь близько тисячі людей, повідомляє російська служба Радіо Свобода з посиланням на слова одного з лідерів протестів Бараха Чемурзієва.
Він також розповів, що Всесвітній конгрес інгуського народу ухвалив рішення призупинити вуличні протести, оскільки мета протестів досягнута. Конституційний суд Інгушетії 30 жовтня скасував угоду про зміну кордону з Чечнею і зажадав провести референдум з цього питання. У відповідь лояльний Москві лідер регіону Юнус-Бек Євкуров заявив, що це не є компетенцією Конституційного суду Інгушетії.
26 вересня керівники Інгушетії та Чечні Юнус-Бек Євкуров і Рамзан Кадиров підписали договір про закріплення адміністративного кордону між регіонами. Документ викликав протести в Інгушетії: за ним Чечні передається частина території Сунженського району, яку в республіці вважають своєю. Це практично незаселена територія, де, як вказують геологи, є поклади нафти.
4 жовтня в Магасі розпочалися акції протесту проти угоди. Пізніше вони були припинені до 31 жовтня.
Минулого тижня глава Чечні Рамзан Кадиров запропонував проводити мітинги на підконтрольних йому територіях, заявивши, що після цього учасники протестів можуть не поїхати додому живими. Так Кадиров відреагував на образи мітингувальників у Магасі, які нібито обізвали його «пастухом».
…
Austria said Wednesday it will join the United States and Hungary in not signing a global agreement meant to minimize the factors that push migrants to leave their home country, while boosting safety, access to services and inclusion for those who are compelled to go.
Nations are due to gather in early December in Morocco to adopt the non-binding Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, which was negotiated through a U.N.-led process during the past two years.
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said his government fears the agreement would pose a threat to its national sovereignty and that it would blur the lines between legal and illegal migration.
Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache said there is not and should not be a human right to migration.
Hungary also cited concerns about the agreement going against national interests when it announced in July it would not be part of the pact.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told reporters that contrary to his government’s policies, the agreement would promote migration as “good and inevitable,” and “it could inspire millions” of migrants.
The United States was the first to step away from the negotiations, deciding in December of last year that the proposed agreement was “inconsistent with U.S. immigration and refugee policies.”
Then-U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States supports international cooperation on migration issues, “but it is the primary responsibility of sovereign states to help ensure that migration is safe, orderly, and legal.”
The Global Compact features 23 objectives, including boosting access to basic services, strengthening anti-smuggling and anti-trafficking efforts, eliminating discrimination, safeguarding conditions that ensure decent work, and facilitating safe and dignified return for those who are sent back home.
The United Nations estimates there are about 258 million migrants in the world — or just over three percent of the world’s population. The world body considers a migrant to be anyone who changes their country, regardless of the reason. It expects the number of migrants to increase due to factors such as population growth, trade, rising inequality and climate change.
…
США та європейськиі держави на засіданні Ради безпеки ООН 30 жовтня заявили, що проведення підтримуваними Росією сепаратистами виборів 11 листопада на непідконтрольних уряду України територіях Донбасу порушуватиме Мінські угоди 2015 року.
Заступник генерального секретаря ООН із політичних питань Розмарі ДіКарло підтримала цю позицію країн Заходу, що залишило Росію ізольованою. Західні союзники також заблокували пропозицію Росії долучити до обговорення представницю так званого «центрвиборчкому ЛНР» Олену Кравченко.
Перед початком наради Франція, Нідерланди, Польща, Швеція, Велика Британія, Італія, Бельгія та Німеччина оприлюднили спільну заяву, в якій засуджують незаконні «вибори» на частині території України 11 листопада. У заяві зазначається, що це є порушенням українського законодавства та «суперечить зобов’язанням», які проросійські угруповання та Москва зафіксували в угодах 2015 року. Країни Євросоюзу закликали Росію «використати свій значний вплив, щоб зупинити так звані «вибори».
Посол Росії в ООН Василь Небензя у своєму виступі зазначив, що Мінські угоди забороняють проведення муніципальних виборів, а не голів проросійських угруповань, які Москва називає «республіками». Він також звинуватив Київ у порушенні домовленостей.
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 10 300 людей.
…
The future economy minister tapped by Brazilian President-elect Jair Bolsonaro insisted on Tuesday that he wanted to fast-track an unpopular pension reform to help balance government finances despite mounting resistance to getting it done this year.
Paulo Guedes, whom Bolsonaro selected as a “super minister” with a portfolio combining the current ministries of finance, planning and development, has urged Congress to pass an initial version of pension reform before the Jan. 1 inauguration.
“Our pension funds are an airplane with five bombs on board that will explode at any moment,” Guedes said on Tuesday. “We’re already late on pension reform, so the sooner the better.”
He called the reform essential to controlling surging public debt in Latin America’s largest economy and making space for public investments to jump-start a sluggish economy. Markets surged in the weeks ahead of Bolsonaro’s Sunday victory on the expectation that he could pull off the tough fiscal agenda.
Brazil’s benchmark Bovespa stock index rose 3.7 percent on Tuesday, boosted by strong corporate earnings and the resolve shown by Guedes on pension reform.
Yet the University of Chicago-trained economist, who is getting his first taste of public service, met with skepticism from more seasoned politicians.
Rodrigo Maia, the speaker of the lower house of Congress, said on Tuesday that reform is urgent, but cautioned that the conditions to pass it were still far off.
Major Olimpio, a lawmaker from Bolsonaro’s own party who helped run his campaign, agreed the political climate was not ready for reform.
Even Bolsonaro’s future chief of staff, Onyx Lorenzoni, said in a Monday radio interview that he only expects to introduce a reform plan next year.
After a meeting with Lorenzoni, Guedes said the decision on timing was ultimately a political one that the chief of staff would weigh.
“We can’t go from a victory at the ballot box to chaos in Congress,” Guedes told journalists.
On other issues, Guedes made clear he was the final word on economic matters, laying out plans to give the central bank more institutional independence and clarifying comments made by Lorenzoni about exchange-rate policy.
“You are all scared because he is a politician talking about the economy. That’s like me talking about politics. It’s not going to work,” Guedes said.
Hot Button Issues
While advisers work out the details of his economic program, Bolsonaro revisited some of his most contentious campaign promises on Monday night: looser gun laws, a ban on government advertising for media that “lie,” and urging a high-profile
judge to join his government.
In interviews with TV stations and on social media, Bolsonaro, a 63-year-old former Army captain who won 55 percent of Sunday’s vote after running on a law-and-order platform, made clear he would push through his conservative agenda.
Bolsonaro said he wants Sergio Moro, the judge who has overseen the sprawling “Car Wash” corruption trials and convicted former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of graft, to serve as his justice minister.
Barring that, he said he would nominate Moro to the Supreme Court. The next vacancy on the court is expected in 2020.
Bolsonaro had not formally invited Moro as of Tuesday afternoon, and the judge remained noncommittal on the proposal.
“In case I’m indeed offered a post, it will be subject to a balanced discussion and reflection,” Moro said in a statement.
Media Showdown
Late on Monday, Bolsonaro said in an interview with Globo TV that he would cut government advertising funds that flow to any “lying” media outlets.
During his campaign, the right-winger imitated U.S. President Donald Trump’s strategy of aggressively confronting the media, taking aim at Globo TV and Brazil’s biggest newspaper, the Folha de S.Paulo.
“I am totally in favor of freedom of the press,” Bolsonaro told Globo TV. “But if it’s up to me, press that shamelessly lies will not have any government support.”
Bolsonaro was referring to the hundreds of millions of reais the Brazilian government spends in advertising each year in local media outlets, mainly for promotions of state-run firms.
The UOL news portal, owned by the Grupo Folha, which also controls the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper, used Brazil’s freedom of information act as the basis for a 2015 article that showed Globo received 565 million reais in federal government spending in 2014. Folha got 14.6 million reais that year.
Globo said on Tuesday that federal government advertising represented less than 4 percent of the revenue for its flagship channel, TV Globo, without providing more detailed figures.
Grupo Folha did not reply to requests for comment.
…
This is part of “Ocean Shock,” a Reuters series exploring climate change’s impact on sea creatures and the people who depend on them.
A lobster tattoo covers Drew Eaton’s left forearm, its pincers snapping at dock lines connecting it to the American flag on his upper arm. The tattoo is about three-quarters done, but the 27-year-old is too busy with his new boat to finish it.
Eaton knows what people here in Stonington have been saying about how much the boat cost him.
“I’ve heard rumors all over town. Small town, everyone talks,” he says. “I’ve heard a million, two million.”
By the time he was in the third grade, Eaton was already lobstering here on Deer Isle in Downeast Maine. By the time he was in the eighth grade, he’d bought his first boat, a 20-footer, from a family friend. The latest one, a 46-footer built over the winter at a nearby boatyard, is his fourth.
Standing on the seawall after hauling lobster traps for about 12 hours on a foggy day this August, he says he’s making plenty of money to cover the boat loan. He’s unloaded 17 crates, each carrying 90 pounds of lobster, for a total haul of nearly $5,500. It’s a pretty typical day for him.
Eaton belongs to a new generation of Maine lobstermen that’s riding high, for now, on a sweet spot of climate change. Two generations ago, the entire New England coast had a thriving lobster industry. Today, lobster catches have collapsed in southern New England, and the only state with a significant harvest is north in Maine, where the seafood practically synonymous with the state has exploded.
The thriving crustaceans have created a kind of nautical gold rush, with some young lobstermen making well into six figures a year. But it’s a boom with a bust already written in its wake, and the lobstermen of the younger generation may well pay the highest price. Not only have they heavily mortgaged themselves with pricey custom boats in the rush for quick profits, they’ll also bear the brunt of climate change — not to mention the possible collapse of the lobstering industry in Maine as the creatures flourish ever northward.
Shifts by 85 percent of species
In the U.S. North Atlantic, fisheries data show that at least 85 percent of the nearly 70 federally tracked species have shifted north or deeper, or both, in recent years when compared with the norm over the past half-century. And the most dramatic of species shifts have occurred in the last 10 or 15 years.
Just in the last decade, for example, black sea bass have migrated up the East Coast into southern New England and are caught in the same traps that once caught lobsters. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, only 50 percent of lobster caught in the United States came from Maine. That started to shift in the 2000s, and this decade, nearly 85 percent of all lobster landings are in Maine.
Pushed out of their traditional habitats by dramatically rising ocean temperatures and other fallout from climate change, the lobsters are part of a global dislocation of marine species that threatens livelihoods and cultures in the lands where they once thrived.
On this island where two-lane roads twist around cedar-shingled houses and the rocky shore, lobstermen set the rhythm, often rising hours before dawn and resting not long after sunset.
Although young guns like Eaton are flush with cash now, old-timers know that lobsters no longer thrive in warming waters to the south, and they’ve heard the talk about how fast the Gulf of Maine is warming. They fret that lobsters will start failing here, too, and Stonington will lose its mantle as lobster capital of the world to somewhere in Canada. And these days, there’s not much to fall back on if it does.
They remember back when fishermen could catch plenty of cod, pollock and halibut if lobsters weren’t filling their traps.
Until recently, shrimp was a reasonably reliable catch for local fishermen. But in 2014, regulators closed the shrimp fishery entirely.
“Here you’ve got these coastal fishing communities that are totally based on what comes out of the water,” says Ted Ames, a commercial fisherman who became a scientist and co-founded the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries.
He sits in the research center’s main conference room overlooking Stonington harbor, where hundreds of lobster boats bob on their mooring balls and the docks bustle with fishermen and their traps.
In coastal Maine, he says, there’s little to sustain a community other than lobster and tourism.
“You eliminate lobsters, and you have an instant Appalachia, right here.”
Lobstering over time
Unlike kids in most fishing communities around the world, youngsters here in Stonington clamor to get on the water. The gold-rush fever has gotten so bad, the local high school even has a program that encourages students to graduate before heading off to make a living from fishing.
The skippers program, as it is known, offers the allotment of traps as a reward for staying in school. And when the students graduate, it streamlines the process of getting a full Maine skipper license, gradually increasing the number of traps to the maximum of 800.
Deer Isle-Stonington High life sciences teacher Seth Laplant sympathizes with the students who chafe at being in school.
“We have students that, you know, run their own business during the summer and do very well, and then they come back here and they have to ask to go to the bathroom,” he says. “It’s like a completely different world for them, and some of them do struggle with that. They’re used to being their own boss, and they’re respected in the community and in their families as adults.”
But like many teens, they still play the one-upmanship game. Only with these students, it revolves around the size of their boats or the number of traps they own.
Colby Schneider tells the class he’s the part-owner of a 30-foot fishing boat.
Alex Boyce can’t believe it. “Are you serious, you have a 30-foot Novi?”
“Yes,” Colby shoots back. “Me, my brother and my mom went thirds on it.”
Alex rolls his eyes. He’s still accumulating traps and owns about a third of the 150 traps that students in the program are permitted to use. And his boat is only 19 feet long.
Later in the day, Alex gathers with his father and grandfather in his grandparents’ kitchen.
“Every year he asks: ‘Do I have to go back to school? Can I go fishing?'” says his father, offshore lobsterman Theodore Boyce II. “He went one weekend and made $700 in two days. That’s a tough thing to say no to as a parent. … But if he doesn’t finish school, he doesn’t go fishing.”
Alex interrupts his father: “I was going to say, you seem to have a pretty easy job saying no.” Theodore’s eyes dart toward his son, and Alex backs down.
Alex’s grandfather, Theodore “Ted” Boyce, is a fisherman and retired teacher. The 69-year-old, who still fishes part time, hopes his grandson can make a decent living on the water, but he isn’t sure.
Invasive creature
In the summer of 2017, chatter on the Stonington docks was that lobstering wasn’t going to be as lucrative as it had been in recent years. Lobstermen were pulling fewer lobsters, and the traps often came up coated with layers of slimy sea squirts — an invasive jellyfish-type creature.
The arrival of the squirts may or may not be related to climate change or the size of the catch, but it seemed to be a harbinger. As autumn moved toward winter, many of the traps piled high near the docks were encrusted with squirt carcasses.
And when the Maine fisheries released their 2017 landings numbers, the chatter on the docks turned out to be true: Maine lobstermen landed 15 percent less than the record haul in 2016, the lowest catch since the beginning of the decade.
Lobster rush
The waters between the islands of Deer Isle, Isle au Haut and Vinalhaven tell the story of the lobster rush.
Thousands upon thousands of colorfully painted buoys decorate the surface, marking the point where traps are strung below. Each fisherman has a color pattern: reds and whites, blacks and pinks, and yellows, oranges and greens. Most are striped horizontally, making them easier to identify when floating on their sides.
Despite Maine’s reputation as a largely undeveloped state, it’s a thoroughly urban world under the water here. At the height of the summer, there are probably traps every 10 to 20 feet in the near-shore waters.
To describe a lobster pot as a trap, though, is a bit insulting to most other traps. As a practical matter, this is free-range aquaculture. The traps are designed to allow smaller, younger lobsters to come and go as they please, feasting on rotten fish. Even larger lobsters come and go, although with a little more effort.
The unlucky ones are snacking when the trap’s owner decides to check it.
Lobster buoys like the ones off Stonington once punctuated waters along the entire New England coast. Between 1960 and 2000, Connecticut and Rhode Island in southern New England accounted for about 15 percent of the lobster harvest. Since 2010, however, lobster catches have collapsed in both states, with a combined haul of less than 2 percent.
Dramatic drop
Even Massachusetts Bay, which sits on the southwestern edge of the Gulf of Maine, has seen the catch dip dramatically. In the 1980s and 1990s, when lobster’s popularity with U.S. diners exploded, Massachusetts boats accounted for 20 to 30 percent of the harvest. Today, their share hovers around 10 percent.
Southern New England lobsters once were protected from the warm water temperatures in Long Island Sound by upwelling from the Labrador current that tucked in along the coast of eastern Connecticut, Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts.
As the waters in the sound became warmer and warmer during the summer months, the cooling current couldn’t keep up, and cold-water species such as lobsters no longer thrived in southern New England. And what remained of the lobster stock was vulnerable to an unsightly shell disease that made them worthless at the market.
But even as the lobster business boomed in Maine, the waters here were warming faster than almost any other body of water in the world.
Since 1980, the waters in the Gulf of Maine have steadily heated up, but that warming accelerated in the last decade. In fact, the average sea-surface temperature has been between 1 and 4 degrees Fahrenheit above the norm for most of the 2010s.
The warming is driven by direct and indirect effects of climate change, says Andrew Pershing, chief science officer of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.
He says oceans the world over are absorbing heat from the warming atmosphere. The gulf’s warming, however, is compounded by its position in the North Atlantic, which is close to the weakening Labrador current flowing from the north and a strengthening warm Gulf Stream current flowing from the south.
“You know,” says Ames, the lobsterman turned scientist, “lobster is the best example of global warming we have.”
‘Go-getters’
Perley Frazier has been working these waters for more than 50 years. And at 70 he still hauls the maximum permitted 800 traps.
His buoys, black on top, white in the middle and red on the bottom, are usually found a mile or so from town, near islands that once were quarried for granite by Italian immigrants. The stone was used in the construction of the George Washington Bridge in New York and the John F. Kennedy memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.
No one works in the quarries anymore, he says as he slows his boat, Jericho’s Way.
The rising sun winks off the peaks of swells and the thousands of buoys ahead of him. Without checking his chart plotter, he picks out a string of his buoys from about 100 yards away.
Behind Frazier, his daughter, Lindsay Frazier Copeland, and son-in-law, Brad Copeland, prepare to hook a buoy and haul up traps. After a haul of three keepers, Lindsay and Brad shove the traps back into the water. Frazier throttles up and spins the boat a few feet to the next buoy. It’s a well-practiced routine, and not much said is among the crew, called sternmen.
“It’s hard work, this,” Frazier says during one of their smoke breaks. “It’s hard to find a good sternman who wants to work this hard.” Since this trip, in fact, Brad and Lindsay have moved to Florida, and Frazier has put his boat up for sale.
On the way to the docks to unload his harvest, Frazier points to a trawler heading into port. It’s one of the few non-lobster boats in the town — a herring trawler that goes offshore to catch the small fish, which are used almost exclusively for bait.
And they can’t land enough herring to satisfy the local need for lobster bait; it’s trucked in from New Jersey, among other places. There are even stories of frozen fish heads from Asia finding their way into Maine lobster traps.
These days, Frazier is using cowhide and discarded fish carcasses as bait. Others are using menhaden, or pogies, which migrated north into these waters even as the herring population has dropped off.
Not much else to catch
The truth is, apart from lobster, there’s not much to catch here. And certainly not in the numbers that fishermen could make a living on.
Until this century, only about 50 percent of all fishing revenue in Maine came from lobstering, according to U.S. fisheries data. In the 2000s, that started to steadily rise until, in 2016, it topped 82 percent.
Later, Frazier sits in his armchair at home, after saving the largest five lobsters he caught for dinner. He sips a Canadian whiskey and recalls the days when there were other ways to make a living on the water besides lobster.
Take shrimp, for instance. “They always said shrimp needs cold water. Well, we haven’t had any cold water,” Frazier says.
“That’s the biggest thing — my biggest worry is about global warming. I mean, I’ve seen different fish that’s supposed to be down south that’s up here already, right now.
“We got like triggerfish and we’re gettin’ butterfish, and fella told me the other day … that he had a seahorse.”
He looks at all the new boats being added to the local fishing fleet and isn’t sure lobster can sustain them.
“These guys, they got three-quarters of a million just in the boat,” he says. “And the gear, another quarter-million dollars. They are a million.”
Maine’s fishing fleet is the newest in the nation among states with more than 200 U.S. Coast Guard-documented commercial fishing vessels. And it’s not close. Maine’s boats are an average 24 years old. The average age of the next two states, Massachusetts and Louisiana, is 31. Alaskan boats’ average age is 37, Oregon, 45.
Still, Frazier doesn’t begrudge the money that younger skippers on newer boats are making.
“I mean, these guys work hard and they go hard and put a lot of time in,” Frazier says. “Young guys, go-getters. And they did it right at the exact right time.”
Six-figure income
Back when Drew Eaton was in grade school, it took him two years to buy that first boat, which a family friend’s daughter no longer used.
“I could buy half the boat and the motor the same year,” he says. He worked for the lobsterman the next summer to pay off the balance.
Eaton left Stonington after graduating from high school and went to Pennsylvania for a year to study automotive collision repair. He didn’t stay in that field for long. “I worked in a body shop for a year, and I was getting $12 an hour,” he says.
So he returned to what he knew.
The young lobsterman’s boat now easily produces a six-figure income before expenses. He doesn’t linger on doubts about the future of lobstering in Maine. He leaves that for others.
When he bought his last boat, he says, his parents were skeptical. “They thought I was going too quick.”
Eaton was 22 and it was the same type of boat his father had just bought.
“And then I started catching more than Dad. And then I wasn’t moving so quick.”
And besides, he says, “I am young enough that if I fail, I can start over again in something totally different.”
…
A landmark 11-member trade deal aimed at slashing barriers in some of Asia Pacific’s fastest growing economies will come into force at the end of December, the New Zealand government said on Wednesday.
The deal would move forward after Australia informed New Zealand that it had become the sixth nation to formally ratify the deal, alongside Canada, Japan, Mexico and Singapore.
“This triggers the 60 day countdown to entry into force of the Agreement and the first round of tariff cuts,” said New Zealand Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker. His country is responsible for official tasks such as receiving and circulating notifications made by members of the pact.
The original 12-member deal was thrown into limbo early last year when President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement to prioritize protecting U.S. jobs.
The 11 remaining nations, led by Japan, finalized a revised trade pact in January, called the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
The success of the deal has been touted by officials in Japan and other member countries as an antidote to counter growing U.S. protectionism, and with the hope that Washington would eventually sign back up.
Australia said the agreement will boost agricultural exports, set to be worth more than A$52 billion ($36.91 billion) this year despite a crippling drought across much of the country’s east coast.
“It will give Australian grain farmers a good reason to smile, at a time when drought conditions have played havoc for many, by ensuring improved market access and better grain prices once more favorable seasonal conditions return,” said Luke Mathews, trading and economics manager at industry body, GrainGrowers Australia.
The deal will reduce tariffs in economies that together amount to more than 13 percent of global GDP — a total of $10 trillion. With the United States, it would have represented 40 percent.
The five member countries still to ratify the deal are Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Peru and Vietnam.
…
Republican campaigns took a defensive approach a week before elections to determine control of the U.S. Congress, with the party spending more to try to hold on to previously secure House seats and President Donald Trump preparing a six-day trip focused on Senate races.
The National Republican Congressional Committee on Tuesday launched a wave of ads targeting 14 House of Representatives races, including defenses of eight incumbents and four currently Republican-held seats whose current officeholders are not running in the Nov. 6 elections.
Trump’s planned blitz of Senate battleground states, including Florida, Missouri and Tennessee, follows an NBC/Marist opinion poll showing the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate in Arizona taking a 6 percentage-point lead and a Quinnipiac University Poll showing Democrat Beto O’Rourke pulling closer to Republican Senator Ted Cruz in Texas.
A Reuters analysis of a trio of political forecasting groups showed the picture in the House brightening for Democrats.
Of 65 races seen as competitive or leaning against the incumbent party, the odds of a Democratic victory had increased in 48 as of Tuesday in the eyes of at least one of the three of political forecasting groups — Cook Political Report, Inside Elections and the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics — according to the Reuters analysis.
Democrats would need a net gain of 23 seats in the House and two in the Senate to take majorities away from Trump’s fellow Republicans, which would put them in position to oppose the president’s legislative agenda. Opinion polls and political forecasters generally show Democrats having a strong chance of winning a House majority, with Republicans expected to keep control of the Senate.
Early voting
Early voting has surged nationwide, with eight states already recording more ballots cast ahead of Election Day than in all of 2014, the last midterm congressional election cycle, according to University of Florida researchers.
“Many voters are looking for someone who will be a check and not just a rubber stamp,” said Mike Levin, Democratic candidate in California’s 49th congressional district, which encompasses a wealthy suburban stretch between Los Angeles and San Diego.
Republican Darrell Issa currently represents the district but is not seeking re-election.
Until recently solidly Republican, the district has been trending Democratic in recent elections. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney won it by 6 percentage points in 2012, but Democrat Hillary Clinton won it by 7 percentage points in 2016, a swing of 13 percentage points. This year, opinion polls give Levin an edge over his Republican rival, Diane Harkey.
“We talk a lot about the need to have a check on this administration,” Levin said in an interview at a campaign office in San Clemente.
The seat is among more than 40 that were held by Republicans who are not running for re-election, the highest number since at least 1930.
Safer districts
Republicans are focusing their efforts on conservative districts Trump won by double-digit margins in 2016, particularly in rural areas. That has allowed Democrats to gain ground in more racially diverse urban and suburban districts like the one Issa represents.
In conservative areas where Trump remains popular, from upstate New York to southern Illinois, several Republican incumbents said they saw the odds as moving in their favor.
They said their chances have been boosted by the bruising debate around Trump Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who was narrowly confirmed by the Senate after denying a sexual assault allegation.
Anger over his contentious, protest-marred confirmation hearings and sympathy among conservatives toward Kavanaugh have boosted the enthusiasm of the Republican base, particularly in rural areas, candidates and strategists said.
…
The U.N.’s political chief cautioned Tuesday that planned local elections in two separatist areas of eastern Ukraine next month could contradict international agreements.
“The U.N. urges all parties to avoid any unilateral steps that could deepen the divide or depart from the spirit and letter of the Minsk agreements,” Rosemary DiCarlo told a Security Council meeting on the issue.
In 2015, France, Germany, Russia, Ukraine and pro-Russia separatists signed the Minsk agreement in the Belarus capital. It seeks to halt the fighting through a cease-fire and the withdrawal of foreign troops and heavy weapons, and open the way to a permanent, legal and political solution to the conflict in Ukraine, which began in 2014.
De facto authorities in the separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk have announced that they plan to hold elections on Nov. 11.
“As we understand, two separate ballots in both Donetsk and Luhansk are reportedly being planned: one for the “head of Republic” and one for the “People’s Councils,” DiCarlo said. She said the posts will reportedly be for five-year terms.
She noted that election-related matters are covered in the Minsk agreements.
“I therefore caution that any such measures taken outside Ukraine’s constitutional and legal framework would be incompatible with the Minsk agreements,” she said.
Western council members echoed her concerns and condemned the planned ballot.
“These sham elections staged by Russia run directly counter to efforts to implement the Minsk peace agreements,” said U.S. deputy U.N. Ambassador Jonathan Cohen. “The elections also obstruct and undermine efforts to end the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine.”
“We do see these so-called elections as illegitimate,” said British Ambassador Karen Pierce. “They are the latest example in the Russian campaign to destabilize Ukraine. They are a clear breach of the Minsk agreements, and they are illegal under Ukrainian law.”
Even China, a close ally of Moscow, expressed concerns.
“China respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states, including Ukraine, and opposes the interference in Ukraine’s internal affairs by any external forces,” Beijing’s deputy envoy told the council.
Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia dismissed the criticism.
“Today, we are witnesses of the latest round of hypocrisy — the total and inexcusable sabotage by Kyiv of the Minsk agreements, over the long term, factually from Day One, has been completely ignored,” Nebenzia said. “Instead of recognizing this fact, in the discussion in the Security Council we are discussing the forthcoming elections in November, which are a necessary measure in conditions of sabotage by Kyiv of its political commitments.”
He said European and American sanctions imposed on Moscow because of the Ukrainian situation is an invitation to Kyiv to continue undermining its Minsk obligations because Russia will be the one to pay for it.
Ukraine’s ambassador, Volodymyr Yelchenko, said holding these “so-called early elections’ would amount to putting armed gangs’ leaders in seats in illegitimate representative bodies.” He said the move is a “provocation” and a “further escalation” of the situation by Russia.
While he acknowledged to reporters later that there is little Kyiv authorities can do to stop the voting from going forward, he said the results would be null and void and not be recognized by Ukraine or the international community.
After a brief calm over the summer months, the U.N. said during the past six weeks, cease-fire violations have spiked, and casualty levels have risen. It also reports increased tensions in the Sea of Azov, warning there is a “need to avoid any risk of escalation, provocation or miscalculation.”
The Kyiv government has been clashing with Russian-backed separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine since 2014. The United Nations says more than 3,000 civilians have been killed, and up to 9,000 injured since the start of the conflict.
…
President Donald Trump has warned that if Democrats regain political power in the midterm elections, the U.S. economy would essentially implode.
Democrats, he insists, would push tax hikes and environmental restrictions that stifle growth. Undocumented immigrants would steal jobs and unleash a crime wave that would halt commerce. Health insurance would devolve into a socialist program offering shoddy care at unsustainable cost.
“At stake in this election,” Trump declared at a rally in Houston, “is whether we continue the extraordinary prosperity that we’ve all achieved or whether we let the radical Democrat mob take a giant wrecking ball and destroy our country and our economy.”
Almost no private economist agrees with Trump’s portrait of a financial apocalypse.
If Democrats win control of the House in next week’s congressional elections, their legislative priorities wouldn’t likely much alter a $20 trillion economy. For one thing, Trump would remain able to block Democratic initiatives — just as they could stop his plans for more tax cuts and a 5 percent cut to Cabinet department budgets.
What instead would likely result is continued gridlock — perhaps even more entrenched than what exists now in Washington. Arrayed against a stout Republican majority in the Senate, a Democratic House majority couldn’t do much to reorder the economy, which typically hinges more on the willingness of consumers and businesses to spend and on the state of the global economy than on government policy priorities.
“It’s probably not that much of a change,” Beth Ann Bovino, chief U.S. economist at S&P Global, said of the likely outcome. “While you might see further gridlock if the Democrats take the House, that doesn’t mean it would tip the boat and slow growth.”
Many polls and analyses suggest — though hardly assure — that the Democrats could regain a majority in the House if their voters turn out in sufficient numbers in key races. If so, Trump would have to contend with a divided government instead of one with Republicans in complete control. Yet depending on voter turnout, it’s also possible that the Republicans could maintain their hold on both the House and the Senate.
Analysts at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley foresee a divided government as most probable. So do their peers at Oxford Economics and Keefe Bruyette & Woods.
“The most likely political consequences would be an increase in investigations and uncertainty surrounding fiscal deadlines,” Goldman Sachs concluded in a client note.
Oxford Economics’ senior economist, Nancy Vanden Houten, has suggested that the Republicans’ legislative agenda would stall if they lost the House.
“A Democrat-controlled House would, in our view, be a line of defense against further tax cuts, reduced entitlement spending and efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act,” she said.
The economy has enjoyed an acceleration in growth this year — to a gain estimated to be 3 percent after deficit-funded tax cuts. Unemployment is at a 49-year low of 3.7 percent, and employers continue to post a record number of job openings. The economic expansion is already the second longest on record.
But annual growth is widely expected to dip back to its long-term average of near 2 percent by 2020. It’s even possible that the economy could slip into a recession within a few years as growth inevitably stalls — for reasons unrelated to who controls the White House or Congress. A global slowdown could, for example, spill over into the United States. Or higher interest rates, spurred by the Federal Reserve, might depress economic activity.
Trump would still have plenty of discretion on some key economic issues. His trade war with China and his drive to reduce regulations are two of them. The president has managed to pursue those priorities without Congress’ involvement, though his updated trade agreement with Canada and Mexico would need congressional approval.
“Trade stuff is being done administratively; regulatory stuff is being done administratively,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the right-of-center American Action Forum. “There’s just not that much on the table legislatively.”
In an appearance this month at Harvard University, the House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi, outlined her agenda should her party regain the chamber’s majority and she the speakership.
Within the first 100 days, Pelosi said, she would seek to reduce the influence of large campaign donors and groups that aren’t legally required to disclose their funding sources. She would also push for infrastructure funding — to rebuild roadways, rail stations or airports, for example — and seek protections for undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children, among other priorities.
Any such initiatives, though, could be blocked by a Republican Senate, or by Trump.
Budget and deficit issues will also surface after the election. Congress will most likely need to raise the government’s debt limit and approve spending packages before October 2019. And mandatory government spending caps are set to kick in for the 2020 fiscal year after having been suspended for two years. Those spending limits could dampen economic growth.
Lewis Alexander, chief U.S. economist at Nomura, said Republicans might renew their focus on reducing the national debt, after having approved tax cuts last year that swelled annual budget deficits by $1.5 trillion over the next decade.
Alexander noted that shrinking the deficit has historically become a higher priority when competing parties have controlled the White House and Congress. If the government seeks to pare the deficit, it could possibly slow the economy, which in the past year has been fueled in part by government spending.
It’s likely Trump would blame Democrats if growth falters, just as he might absorb criticism for his economic stewardship as Democratic presidential campaigns accelerate into a higher gear.
The hostile rhetoric makes it unlikely that Democrats and Republicans would join to pass any meaningful legislation for the economy, such as for infrastructure rebuilding.
“The way parties are talking about it right now, I don’t think anybody is dying to cooperate,” said Michael Madowitz, chief economist at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.
Still, if Democrats regain the House, the president might feel pressure to produce some tangible legislative results ahead of his own quest for re-election in 2020.
“Trump is the wild card here,” said Jason Rosenstock, a financial industry lobbyist with Thorn Run Partners. “He may want to be seen as a deal-cutter going into the 2020 election.”
…
Рада безпеки ООН обговорює на своєму засіданні ситуацію на окупованих територіях України. Радіо Свобода веде пряму трансляцію.
Українська місія при ООН інформувала, що в межах Римського статуту Україна подала дві декларації про визнання юрисдикції Міжнародного кримінального суду щодо розслідування злочинів, скоєних на українській території починаючи з листопада 2013 року.
Востаннє Рада безпеки обговорювала ситуацію в Україні 29 травня.
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 10 300 людей.
…
Сонячний зонд Національного аерокосмічного агентства США (НАСА) побив рекорд наближення до зірки, який тримався більше 40 років. Про це повідомили в НАСА 29 жовтня.
Попередній рекорд належав апарату Helios 2, який наблизився до Сонця на відстань 43,4 мільйона кілометрів у 1976 році.
Parker зміг підлетіти до зірки на відстань 42,73 мільйона кілометрів.
«Це важливий для нас момент, але ми як і раніше зосереджені на першому максимальному зближенні з Сонцем, яке має розпочатися 31 жовтня», – розповіли в агентстві.
Зонд збиратиме дані про структуру зірки, її склад та активність протягом 12 днів – з 31 жовтня до 11 листопада. Загалом таких підльотів за сім років апарат здійснить 24.
Запуск Parker Solar Probe відбувся 12 серпня. Зонд розміром у невеликий автомобіль має обертатися навколо Сонця з рекордною швидкістю – 690 тисяч кілометрів за годину.
Вчені сподіваються, що апарат допоможе їм більше дізнатися про магнітні поля Сонця і так званий сонячний вітер.
Зонд розміром у невеликий автомобіль має обертатися навколо Сонця з рекордною швидкістю – 690 тисяч кілометрів за годину.
Вчені сподіваються, що апарат допоможе їм більше дізнатися про магнітні поля Сонця і так званий сонячний вітер.
…
The death toll from flooding and gale-force winds battering Italy rose to 11, authorities said Tuesday as storms raged across Europe.
Roads were reported blocked and thousands were left without power in southern and central Europe, where fierce winds and rain felled trees.
Venice flooded to a level seen few times before in the lagoon city’s history, with tourists and residents holding bags above their heads as water sloshed above their knees.
Debris from pulverized yachts filled the harbor of Rapallo near Genoa after a dam broke under the pressure of flood waters.
Heavy snow trapped many in their cars and hotels in the mountainous intersecting border regions of Italy, Switzerland, and France.
…
Recent allegations that an oligarch with close personal ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin is behind several attacks and at least one killing has compelled some journalists and free speech advocates to take a stand against intimidation tactics in Russia.
An October 22 Novaya Gazeta article by reporter Denis Korotkov, who just days prior to publication received a funeral wreath bearing an anonymous threat at his private residence and a severed goat’s head in a basket outside his newsroom, says billionaire businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin has directed clandestine hits on multiple continents.
Prigozhin, who is known as “Putin’s Chef” for catering presidential events and sometimes personally waiting on important guests, has been indicted by American investigators for allegedly trying to interfere with the 2016 U.S. election.
In the investigative report about Prigozhin, headlined “The Chef Likes It Spicy,” Valery Alemchenko, a former convict who worked for Prigozhin, details physical attacks on Prigozhin’s opponents, as well as the killing of an opposition blogger in northwest Russia, all at the mogul’s behest.
Alemchenko also says several Prigozhin employees traveled to Syria last year to test an unknown poison on Syrians who refused to fight for President Bashar al-Assad’s government, an allegation Novaya Gazeta corroborated with two other sources.
Alemchenko disappeared shortly after meeting with the reporter and is now on a Russian police list of missing persons.
Danger of inaction
For Novaya Gazeta contributor Boris Vishnevsky, the latest threats and disappearances have taught him one thing: the greatest threat to his own colleagues and sources is their own inaction.
“I believe that the information published by Novaya Gazeta cannot remain only within the circle of its readers,” Vishnevsky told VOA’s Russian Service, explaining why he has called upon Russia’s prosecutor general and federal legislators to conduct an investigation of the latest allegations surrounding Prigozhin, and the threats against those who reported them.
“These are very serious suspicions of involvement in crimes, including the murders of people who, to put it mildly, are connected to Mr. Prigozhin and his structures,” said Vishnevsky, who is also a deputy in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly. “This evidence should be checked, and I think there is enough – names are named, quotes are quoted. And to leave it unheeded seems to me quite impossible.”
Vishnevsky’s appeal coincided with a statement by the Union of Journalists of the St. Petersburg and Leningrad region, who expressed concerns about the threats directed at Korotkov.
Asked whether Russian investigators would actively probe any of Putin’s closest associates, Vishnevsky said that’s beside the point.
“I’m not inclined to have big illusions about its results, especially about the conclusions that will be made,” he said. “Nevertheless, I want to see official explanations from the prosecutor general’s office and the investigative committee on the reports of crimes contained in Denis Korotkov’s article.
“I understand that everything will be done to, in simple terms, cover up for Mr. Prigozhin,” he added. “But if a verification is not demanded, then you cannot expect anything at all.”
Because Article 144 of the Russian Criminal Code says crimes reported in the media require the consideration of federal prosecutors and investigators, Vishnevsky said he expects that some sort of investigation will be carried out.
‘Second wave’ of investigative reporting
Roman Zakharov of the Glasnost Defense Foundation, a non-governmental organization that advocates press freedom, said the threats against Korotkov are extremely serious, and that they come amid a “second wave” of hard-hitting investigative journalism occurring in Russia.
“The first surge of this genre was during the years of democratic development of Russia, but then it seemed to us to be something taken for granted,” Zakharov told VOA. “And now there is a second wave of investigations, and they are being conducted by many young journalists who write about economic crimes, about corruption, about the Mafia’s links with politicians.”
With a surge in investigative reporting, he said, comes a surge in threats to reporters and editors behind the stories.
“Of course editors try to protect [their reporters], but, as we see from practice, the powers of the editors themselves are limited,” he said, referring to the assassinations of Russian reporters stretching over decades. “But all joking aside, it’s impossible to oppose the Mafia, much less the state steamroller.”
As widely reported in Western media, some of Prigozhin’s privately owned enterprises, such as the Concord catering company, were used to bankroll disinformation campaigns designed to interfere with U.S. elections. Earlier this month, U.S. officials brought charges against Prigozhin employee Elena Khusyaynova for helping oversee the finances of the St. Petersburg-based “Internet Research Agency,” the so-called troll farm that aimed to influence American voters through social media postings.
Activities of Prigozhin’s private security-contracting firm, Wagner – a mercenary outfit that has conducted operations in Ukraine, Syria, the Central African Republic and Sudan – are well documented.
‘Don’t touch journalists’
Another member of Prigozhin’s security detail, Oleg Simonov, who is suspected of attacking the husband of an opposition activist and injecting him with poison, died last year under murky circumstances.
“Behind it all – written messages, funeral wreaths and a severed sheep’s head – as we know from past investigations, these are people who will stop at nothing and shrink from nothing,” Zakharov said, emphasizing that they “aren’t even averse to murdering their own associates.”
“There is the need to gather the entire journalistic community and citizens and say ‘No, Mr. Prigozhin! Don’t touch journalists, don’t threaten them,'” Zakharov said. “If you do not agree with the publications, sue them in court. Act by legal means, even if the Kremlin and the authorities are on your side.
“We hope that due to these public disclosures, there will be none of the excesses that have occurred with some other journalists,” Zakharov added, referring to “assault and battery … and also murders.”
Russia is currently ranked 148 out of 180 countries profiled in the 2018 World Press Freedom Index by international media watchdog Reporters Without Borders.
This story originated in VOA’s Russian Service. Some information for this report was provided by AP.
your ad hereКандидатуру Нікола Пашиняна вдруге висунули на посаду прем’єр-міністра країни, знову за умови необрання. Про це вірменській службі «Радіо Свобода» повідомила керівник фракции «Елк» Лена Назарян.
Кандидатуру Пашиняна висунули парламентські фракції “Царукян” та “Елк”, а також ряд депутатів, що раніше залишили фракцію Республіканської партії Вірмении.
Відзначимо, що термін висування кандидатів на пост прем’єр-міністра закінчився сьогодні.
Наразі Пашинян є єдиним кандидатм на пост глави уряду. Якщо і цього разу прем’єра-міністра не оберуть, Національні збори розпустять силою закону і призначать позачергові парламентські вибори.
Читайте також: Пашинян має оголосити про відставку для призначення дострокових виборів
Пашинян з тактичних міркувань пішов у відставку 16 жовтня. Він наполягає, що нинішні Національні збори (парламент) «не представляють вірменський народ», і що він отримав мандат від народу на розпуск парламенту 23 вересня, коли його політична сила «Мій крок» виграла вибори до міської ради Єревана, набравши понад 80% голосів.
…
Президент України Петро Порошенко указом від 30 жовтня призначив новим головою Київської обласної державної адміністрації Олександра Терещука.
Він змінить на посаді Олександра Горгана, якого звільнили з посади згідно поданої ним заяви.
Відповідні укази Порошенко (№348/2018 та №349/2018) оприлюднені на сайті президента.
Горган очолював Київську ОДА з жовтня 2016-го,
Кабінет міністрів України на засіданні 24 жовтня погодив звільнення голів Київської, Луганської, Чернівецької та Черкаської обласних держадміністрацій. Уряд також схвалив нових очільників ОДА.
…
During every election season, as many American citizens prepare to go to the polls, one group of immigrants has traditionally chosen not to get involved. The Cambodian community in the U.S. has been fearful of the government because of its past, but this midterm election is different. The largest Cambodian community in the U.S. is taking political action. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has their story from Long Beach, California.
…
Cambodian-American Laura Som said her mother raised her to never get involved in politics. Her mother would say politics is “a bloodbath, and we don’t want to see you walk into that.”
A deep fear of government is shared by Cambodians, many of whom experienced the violence of the Cambodian genocide, a four-year period in the 1970s when the communist Khmer Rouge regime killed nearly 2 million people.
“Just the word ‘government’ would trigger a lot of traumas of killing, violence, not just to ourselves but to our children or to our loved ones,” said Som, a community activist who lives in Long Beach, California, the U.S. city with the largest concentration of Cambodians.
Recalling the first time she became involved in local civic activities, Som said, “My mother received a call from a community leader to say how horrible of a mother she was to allow such a young college kid (to) participate in civic engagement events.”
Som’s experience as a Cambodian-American is not unusual.
During every election season, Cambodian-Americans have remained noticeably silent. Som said her community has traditionally avoided the polls during elections and have taught their children not to get involved.
Som said during the U.S. Census, which attempts to count every resident in the country, many Cambodian-Americans either do not participate or misreport the numbers in their households because they fear being on a government list.
Civics engagement
However, the 2018 midterm election season is proving to be different. Many Cambodian-Americans in Long Beach are on a mission to create political change for their community by pushing for a seat at the table in city government so their voices can be heard.
The movement was born during a civics class taught by Som at the MAYE Center, a center she founded to help fellow Cambodian genocide victims heal from the trauma they suffered and located in the heart of Long Beach’s Cambodia Town. (The four elements of self-healing at the MAYE Center include meditation, agriculture, yoga and education.)
One of her students, Vy Sron, remembered the discussion that started a tidal wave within the community.
“When the teacher said that (the) Cambodian community does not have a political voice like other communities, I asked the question of ‘why does the Cambodian community not have such political voice?’ ”
Som said she believes more political representation would help bring a cultural awareness and sensitivity to the needs of her community.
“We have members, elders who would go up to council and speak Cambodian, and we didn’t have anyone translating,” Som said. “We’re people of the earth. We want plants and gardens. This is how we heal ourselves, but yet we are put in a community where it’s a cement jungle.”
About 20,000 Cambodian-Americans live in Long Beach, or about 4 percent of the city’s population of 486,000, according to the Long Beach Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. More than half of the Cambodian-Americans in Long Beach live in and around an area known as Cambodia Town, a 1.2-mile business strip of Khmer-owned restaurants, shops and temples, according to the bureau.
However, the area in and around Cambodia Town is currently part of four of the city’s nine council districts. And each of the four districts is represented by a different council member, meaning any political clout the Cambodian community might have is diffused.
The students in the MAYE Center civics class decided to take action, organizing their community and collecting signatures for a petition to ask the city of Long Beach to redraw district lines so the largely Cambodian community could be consolidated into one district, with one representative.
But they are learning that seeking representation is a complicated matter that takes work and patience.
Cities typically look at redrawing district boundaries every 10 years, after the U.S. Census, so the population can be equally divided. The Long Beach city charter also allows the city to redistrict every five years or at any time the City Council feels there is a need.
In the last redistricting, in 2011, the Long Beach City Council adopted criteria for redrawing district lines, including “splits in neighborhoods, ethnic communities and other groups having a clear identity should be avoided.”
Som said council members did not follow that criteria when they split the area in and around Cambodia Town among four districts. The MAYE Center group wants the city to redraw the boundary lines, consolidating the Cambodia Town area into one district, before the next U.S. Census in 2020. The new district would allow Cambodian-Americans to vote for someone who would more solidly represent their interests in the 2020 election cycle, the group said.
“All the students took part in educating one Cambodian resident at a time, (and) have collected 3,000 signatures in two months,” Som said.
Civil rights attorney Marc Coleman said other ethnic minority groups have been successful with similar endeavors in the past.
“The Latino community did the same thing, and they created what … they call the Latino District,” said Coleman, who is also treasurer of the MAYE Center.
Midterm elections
The group’s efforts are twofold in this election. The Cambodian community is also supporting a proposal on the November 6 ballot to amend the Long Beach city charter to create an independent, citizen-led redistricting panel, taking that duty away from City Council members. The hope would be to have a member of the Cambodian community on the panel, the group added.
Long Beach city officials, however, said redistricting of the city will not be considered until after the 2020 Census to get the most accurate population count. Who is involved in the redistricting process will depend on the results of the November vote on the independent commission.
Guatamalan native and Long Beach resident Juan Ovalle, who also fled an oppressive government, said he supports the Cambodian community’s efforts for representation, but he opposes the ballot measure, calling it a façade by politicians that would only allow residents to think they have more control over redistricting. He warned the Cambodian community not to be fooled.
“It (the redistricting committee) is still beholden to political influences. Those that will select the members of the redistricting committee are basically politicians,” Ovalle said.
Coleman, of the MAYE Center, in responding to Ovalle said, “This is as good as we could get it. Nothing is perfect. Nothing is foolproof, but we feel confident this is a good system.”
Knowledge is power
Charles Song, who survived the Cambodian genocide, said he had tried in the past to organize the Long Beach Cambodian community, but was never very successful.
“The roadblock is always here, because when you’re talking about the Cambodian community, the first thing is fear,” he added.
Song said experts from outside the community, whom he credits with empowering residents by teaching them how city government works, are behind the intense interest among Cambodian-Americans in this year’s election.
For Som, whose civics class ignited the students’ interest in local politics, this has also been an exercise in trying to persuade her mother to trust the U.S. government.
“I have to remind her that this is a different political landscape, that many have died in this country to give us this kind of voice and that we could do it,” she said.
…
Оболонський районний суд Києва 30 жовтня ухвалив рішення про завершення стадії дебатів у справі за звинуваченням колишнього президента України Віктора Януковича в державній зраді. Також суд назвав 19 листопада останнім днем, коли Янукович зможе виступити з останнім словом. Суд вказав, що 12 і 23 жовтня екс-президент уже мав можливість для виступу, тому резервних днів не буде.
Ухваленню цих рішень передувало клопотання адвоката Олександра Байдика з вимогою допиту свідків Авакова та Наливайченка, а також співробітників Управління державної охорони про обставини їхньої поїздки до Криму 23 лютого. Суд відмовив у задоволенні клопотання, заявив, що промова Байдика виходить за встановлені рамки та вирішив зупинити його дебатну промову. Виступ Байдика завершив виголошення промов сторони захисту.
13 вересня суд розпочав заслуховування сторони захисту на стадії дебатів. Сторона обвинувачення 16 серпня попросила у суду 15 років ув’язнення для Януковича.
Оболонський районний суд 29 червня 2017 року ухвалив рішення щодо проведення спеціального судового провадження щодо Януковича.
За даними Генпрокуратури, Януковича підозрюють у скоєнні злочинів, передбачених ч. 1 ст. 111 (державна зрада), ч. 5 ст. 27, ч. 3 ст. 110 (пособництво в умисних діях, вчинених з метою змін меж території та державного кордону України), ч. 5 ст. 27, ч. 3 ст. 437 (пособництво у веденні агресивної війни) Кримінального кодексу України.
…
When massive gold deposits were discovered about a decade ago in Chimanimani, eastern Zimbabwe, the rural district became famous for attracting hundreds of artisanal miners from across the country every year.
Wealthy small-scale prospectors regularly offer residents generous deals for their land, locals say. To many widows selling their unused land, that kind of money can be life-changing and a source of greater autonomy.
But in recent years, widows in Chimanimani have found that taking a deal can have consequences. Many say they have been taken to tribal courts by their husbands’ families for selling portions of their land.
“I feel bruised,” said Mavis, a 63-year-old widow from Haroni village who did not want to disclose her surname.
“I lived in peace as a widow in my home until last year, when I sold an unwanted acre of my late husband’s land to korokoza,” she said, using a colloquial term for an artisanal gold miner.
He paid her $2,000 in cash. “All hell broke loose,” Mavis explained.
When her male relatives found out about the sale, they reported her to the tribal court.
“The accusations were insane. They said I bewitched my husband, even though he died way back in 1979, in the colonial war,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The cultural norms of the Ndau people, who make up the majority of the population in Chimanimani, forbid widows from owning land their husbands leave behind or selling that land unless a male family member controls the transaction.
As her uncles laid claim to her late husband’s property, Mavis joined a growing number of widows whose male family members have denied them the right to sell land they are supposed to legally inherit.
“In our village, I am the fourth widow since 2017 to be brought to (tribal court) for selling land without male approval,” she said.
Her case is still ongoing.
Tribal Justice
According to Zimbabwe’s latest census, which was conducted in 2012, there are more than half a million widows in the country.
Throughout rural areas, widows routinely find themselves harassed and exploited by in-laws claiming the property their husbands left behind, rights activists say.
O’bren Nhachi, an activist and researcher focusing on natural resources and governance, said the problem has gotten worse in Chimanimani over the past few years, as the gold rush has pushed up the value of land.
“Chimanimani was a poor backwater district until gold was discovered. Suddenly, local land prices shot up because artisanal gold diggers are paying huge sums to snap up plots,” he said. “This has brought conflict, with male family members using patriarchy as a tool to dispossess widows of potential land sales income.”
Although Zimbabwe’s constitution gives women and men equal rights to property and land, in many rural communities tradition overrides national legislation, experts say.
Tribal custom dictates that chiefs are the custodians of communal land, and responsible for allocating land to villagers.
“A woman cannot sell land unless she has obtained permission from my Committee of Seven,” said Mutape Moyo, a tribal headman in Chimanimani, referring to the group of elders — all men — who hear cases in the local customary court.
But this makes it unclear who has legal ownership of land, Nhachi said.
“The laws of the country say the state is the owner of all land. Tribal chiefs are merely ‘custodians’. Does custodian mean they are owners?”
In a country where women carry out 70 percent of the agricultural work – according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization – Nhachi said more women need to be made aware of how to legally hold onto their land if their husbands die.
He said he would like to see the government implement legal awareness programs and properly define who owns and distributes land in rural Zimbabwe.
No Recourse
Provincial administrator Edward Seenza, the head civil servant of Manicaland province, where Chimanimani is located, said that if widows lose their land in tribal courts, there are ways for them to appeal and reverse the ruling.
“If anyone is unhappy with a village head’s decision, they can speak to a chief,’ he said. “Where this does not produce the desired result, they can take their complaint to the district administrator and further up to my office.”
But activists say few rural women know they have that option. And those who do are often too poor or too scared to travel to a government office.
Seenza said that so far, not one woman has come to him to appeal a tribal court ruling.
And without legal help, widows denied the right to sell their land can be left devastated.
Rejoice, a 38-year-old widow from Chipinge district, sold her late husband’s mango orchard two years ago to a wealthy gold digger for $4,000. She needed the money to pay for medication to treat a kidney tumor.
Her father-in-law took her to tribal court.
“I was ordered to refund the buyer, in cash, with punitive interest; pay court fines for ‘disrespect’; and surrender the rest of the land to male family custodians,” said Rejoice, whose name has been changed to protect her identity.
She paid back the buyer as much as she could, but still owes him some money. And her husband’s family is still fighting for ownership of the land, she added.
The court told her that if she does not honor the ruling, she could be thrown out of her home.
“I will end up a destitute, living on the roadside,” she said. “The thought of this gives me sleepless nights.”
…
Far more men than women think their companies offer equal pay and promote the sexes equally, yet younger generations are wising up, a U.S. entertainment industry survey found on Monday.
Only a quarter of women think their employers pay them the same as men, while twice as many men believe their company has no gender pay gap, according to the survey by CNBC, a business news channel, and job-oriented social networking site LinkedIn.
About one third of women said both sexes rise up the ranks at the same rate in their workplaces, while more than half of men think the promotion rates are equal, according to responses from at least 1,000 LinkedIn members who work in entertainment.
“Men, typically we found across industries … they’re not as cognizant as their female counterparts to these issues,” said Caroline Fairchild, managing editor at LinkedIn.
Other surveys in finance and technology have revealed similar findings, she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Congress outlawed pay discrimination based on gender in the federal Equal Pay Act in 1963, yet public debate over why wages still lag drastically for women has snowballed in recent years.
Last year in the United States, working women earned 82 percent of what men were paid, the Pew Research Center found.
According to the CNBC-LinkedIn survey, four in five women said the workplace holds more obstacles to advancement for women than for men, but only about half of men held the same opinion.
However the survey found that younger men were more likely than their older peers to say they were aware of the obstacles that stop women from succeeding at work, according to Fairchild.
“Perhaps the old guard of the industry is thinking a certain way, but we are seeing a perception change in what perhaps younger people in the industry are thinking,” she added.
A U.S. appeals court in San Francisco ruled in April that employers cannot use workers’ salary histories to justify gender-based pay disparities, saying that would perpetuate a wage gap that is “an embarrassing reality of our economy.”
A handful of U.S. cities and states ban employers from asking potential hires about their salary histories.
The World Economic Forum reported a global economic gap of 58 percent between the sexes for 2016 and forecast women would have to wait 217 years before they are treated equally at work.
Gender inequality in the workplace could cost the world more than $160.2 trillion in lost earnings, according to the World Bank. The figure compares the difference in lifetime income of everyone of working age and if women earned as much as men.
…