Demand for bitcoin could single-handedly derail efforts to limit global warming because the increasingly popular digital currency takes huge amounts of energy to produce, scientists said on Monday.
Producing bitcoin at a pace with growing demand could by 2033 defeat the aim of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, according to U.S. research published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Almost 200 nations agreed in Paris in 2015 on the goal to keep warming to “well below” a rise of 2°C above pre-industrial times.
But mining, the process of producing bitcoins by solving mathematical equations, uses high-powered computers and alto of electricity, the researchers said.
“Currently, the emissions from transportation, housing and food are considered the main contributors to ongoing climate change,” said study co-author Katie Taladay in a statement. “This research illustrates that bitcoin should be added to this list.”
Mining is a lucrative business, with one bitcoin currently selling for about $6,300 (4,900 British pounds).
In 2017, bitcoin production and usage emitted an estimated 69 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, the researchers said.
That year, bitcoin was involved in less than half of 1 percent of the world’s cashless transactions, they said.
As the currency becomes more common, researchers said it could use enough electricity to emit about 230 gigatons of carbon within a decade and a half. One gigaton is equal to one billion metric tons of carbon.
“No matter how you slice it, that thing is using a lot of electricity. That means bad business for the environment,” Camilo Mora, another co-author, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Bitcoin mining, however, is becoming more energy efficient, said Katrina Kelly-Pitou, research associate at the University of Pittsburgh.
She said bitcoin miners are moving away from sites such as China, with coal-generated electricity, to more environmentally friendly utilities in Iceland and the United States.
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У турецькому Стамбулі відкрили найбільший аеропорт Європи.
Очікується, що летовище зможе обслуговувати 90 мільйонів пасажирів щорічно. До 2028 року цю цифру планують збільшити до 200 мільйонів, що майже удвічі переважає кількість пасажирів, які здатен зараз прийняти найбільший у світі міжнародний аеропорт Гартфілд-Джексон в американському місті Атланта, штат Джорджія.
Аеропорт Стамбула розташований за 50 кілометрів від центра міста, він зможе почати приймати рейси на повну потужність на початку 2019 року.
Місцеві ЗМІ оцінюють вартість проекту, проти якого виступали місцеві жителі та захисники навколишнього середовища, у близько 12 мільярдів доларів.
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У Болгарії затримали близько 20 людей через продаж болгарських паспортів громадянам України, Молдови та Македонії.
За даними місцевих ЗМІ, серед затриманих – керівник відомства в справах болгар, які мешкають за кордоном.
За даними правоохоронців, підозрювані отримували близько п’яти тисяч євро за один документ. Їм інкримінують корупцію, підробку документів, зловживання службовим становищем та створення кримінального угруповання.
Болгарія з 2007 року є членом Європейського союзу. Паспорти цієї країни дозволяють її громадянам вільно пересуватися та мешкати на території ЄС.
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The leader of Sweden’s Social Democrats, Stefan Lofven, on Monday abandoned efforts to form a government, extending a political deadlock that has gripped the country since an inconclusive national election seven weeks ago.
The failed attempt brought the prospect of a snap election closer, though the speaker of parliament said he would try to avoid that at all costs.
The Sept. 9 vote gave the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats hold the balance of power, but neither Lofven’s center-left bloc nor the center-right group of parties has been willing to give them a say in policy due to their white supremacist roots.
“In light of the responses I have had so far … the possibility does not exist for me to build a government that can be accepted by parliament,” Lofven told reporters.
The center-right Alliance bloc’s leader, Ulf Kristersson, has already tried and failed to form a government.
Speaker Andreas Norlen, who on Monday held talks with all the party leaders, said he would not, at least for now, ask anyone else to try to form a government.
Instead, he would on Tuesday take on a more active role in trying to mediate a way to forming a viable coalition. He would propose a prime minister to parliament at least once during the autumn, in order if possible to avoid another election.
“A snap election would be a big defeat for the Swedish political system,” he told reporters.
A caretaker administration under Lofven has run Sweden since last month’s ballot.
The delay in forming a permanent government could further undermine faith in mainstream parties. Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Akesson said a new vote could boost support for his party.
Both Lofven and Kristersson said they still hope to be prime minister, but neither offered a way to end the stalemate.
“I do not see any indication that anyone has changed their minds about anything at all,” Kristersson told reporters after meeting speaker Norlen.
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Belarusians gathered in Minsk on Monday to commemorate more than 100 people, including 22 writers and poets, who were executed by the NKVD secret service on Oct. 29, 1937, during Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s Great Purge.
The 100 victims, many of them from the Belarusian intelligentsia, were among between 600,000 and 1.5 million people in then-Soviet Belarus who were swept up in Stalin’s mass repression of dissent that came to a head in 1937.
At one memorial event Monday, about 20 people lit candles next to the Minsk headquarters of the KGB security service, the present-day successor to the NKVD.
In a separate memorial event, several dozen gathered at an execution site used by the NKVD in a wooded area on the Belrusian capital’s outskirts that is now marked by dozens of wooden crosses.
Belarusians read poems as they stood near the crosses decorated with burning candles.
Similar memorial events were being held in other parts of the former Soviet Union to mark an unofficial day of remembrance for victims of Stalinist repression.
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Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa met with business leaders Monday in an effort to assure the public his government can stabilize the sinking economy. But as one business leader explains, uncertainty about the cash supply and the currency in use makes it hard for the economy to function.
Addressing business executives at the State House, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said his government was “working day and night to stabilize the economy.”
Zimbabweans are dealing with an acute shortage of most essentials, including fuel, medical drugs, cooking oil, and clean drinking water. Prices have been rising, though not at the same rate as in 2008, when the official annual inflation rate reached 231 million percent.
Mnangagwa asked businesses to fix the shortages by bringing more products to market.
“I am advised that some manufacturers have been holding back products from retailers. This, if true, is regrettable,” he said. “The fear to lose wealth and savings as happened during the 2008 economic meltdown is currently unnecessary. I greatly appreciate and understand all your concerns and anxieties.”
The president of the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, Sifelani Jabangwe, told VOA if any companies are holding back goods, it is because they know getting resupplied will be impossible.
“The reality is the rates are moving and there is no [foreign] currency coming,” he said. “The manufacturer or wholesaler knows that the stock they are holding is the last, if they sell that and lose out they are finished and we have lost that company. So if there is anyone holding any product it is probably because they are waiting to understand what direction [the rate of exchange is going], but I do not think there are many companies that are doing that. A lot of companies have actually run out of materials.”
The heart of the issue is a lack of useable cash. Since Zimbabwe abandoned its own dollar in 2009, the country has mostly used U.S. dollars, the British pound and South African rand to conduct transactions.
But in recent years all three currencies have been hard to find, paralyzing the economy and forcing the country to rely on bondnotes, a currency the government began printing two years ago to ease cash shortages.
Monday, President Mnangagwa said the “multi-currency system of exchange is here to stay.” He said people’s bank balances are safe and there is no reason for people to spend or move their savings.
But the value of the bondnote is unquestionably falling. The government insists its currency trades on par with the U.S. dollar. On the black market however, a dollar is now worth close to four bondnotes.
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Прокуратура Автономної Республіки Крим не збирається масово притягувати до кримінальної відповідальності жителів анексованого півострову, яких призвали в російську армію. Як стверджує прокурор Прокуратури АРК Єлизавета Дзигора, кримінальна відповідальність може наставати тільки, якщо призваний громадянин вчинив злочин згідно з українським законом. Про це вона говорила 29 жовтня в ефірі проекту Радіо Свобода «Радіо Крим.Реалії».
«Той факт, що громадянин України перебуває на службі в Збройних силах Росії, безумовно, не є підставою для притягнення його до кримінальної відповідальності за кримінальним законодавством України. Я хочу зробити акцент на тому, що не існує ситуації, що також поширюється в інформаційному просторі, про можливе масове притягнення громадян України до кримінальної відповідальності за службу в російській армії. Це, безумовно, не так. І в разі, коли з’являються факти, що можуть свідчити про наявність чи відсутність складу злочину, в кожному окремому випадку це питання відпрацьовується абсолютно за конкретними фактами», – зазначила вона.
У моніторинговому звіті ООН, який представили 13 вересня, йшлося, що з 2015 року Росія призвала до своїх Збройних сил близько 12 тисяч чоловіків, які живуть в анексованому Криму.
Київ вимагає від Росії припинити призов до збройних сил жителів анексованого Криму. Прокуратура АРК просить кримчан звертатися по телефону або електронній пошті в разі отримання повісток для проходження служби в російській армії.
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За даними підконтрольного Кремлю кримського уряду, в 2018 році в російську армію мають призвати понад дві тисячі кримчан.
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«У міжнародних судах будуть відповідачами не маріонетки, а Росія… Після повернення Криму – все буде відновлено»
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rebuffed a bid by Republican legislators in Pennsylvania to reinstate a congressional district map struck down by that state’s top court as unlawfully biased in favor of Republicans.
The justices rejected the appeal of a January Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling invalidating the Republican-drawn map because it violated the state constitution’s requirement that elections be “free and equal” by marginalizing Democratic voters.
The case involves a practice called partisan gerrymandering in which electoral maps are drafted in a manner that helps one party tighten its grip on power by undermining the clout of voters that tend to favor the other party. The practice has been used for two centuries but has become more extreme with the use of computer programs to maximize the effects of gerrymandering in a way that critics have said warps democracy.
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A new report says African nations are failing to create enough jobs for a booming young population even as some countries have seen strong economic growth.
The latest Ibrahim Index of African Governance sounds a warning for a continent where the sub-Saharan population is projected to double by 2050.
The report released Monday says Africa’s overall GDP has risen nearly 40 percent over the past decade but the continent’s average score for sustainable economic opportunity has increased just a fraction of 1 percent.
Africa is seeing the rise of young opposition leaders in countries like Uganda, Zimbabwe and Cameroon who are impatient with some of the world’s oldest or longest-serving heads of state. Earlier this month, some in East Africa said they would unite with like-minded colleagues in West and southern Africa to form a movement to challenge the misrule that has plagued the continent.
Experts warn of coming turbulence as about 60 percent of Africa’s population is under age 25, with birth rates among the highest in the world and health conditions improving for many. The United Nations says sub-Saharan Africa is projected to be the source of more than half of the world’s population growth between now and 2050, straining countries’ abilities to provide good education, jobs and health care.
“Africa has a huge challenge ahead. Its large and youthful potential workforce could transform the continent for the better, but this opportunity is close to being squandered,” Mo Ibrahim, the Sudan-born billionaire who leads the foundation behind the new report, said in a statement. “The evidence is clear — young citizens of Africa need hope, prospects and opportunities. Its leaders need to speed up job creation to sustain progress and stave off deterioration.”
Strong economic growth doesn’t necessarily lead to more opportunities, the new report says. Nigeria, Angola, Sudan and Algeria have some of the highest GDP in Africa but are among the lowest for job creation.
The report also warns that education in 27 countries across the continent is now on the decline, further hurting the young population’s future.
And “alarmingly, citizens’ political and civic space in Africa is shrinking,” the report adds, meaning less room for an increasingly connected, tech-savvy population to express concerns and seek solutions, with potentially explosive results.
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China’s yuan sank to a 10-year low against the dollar on Monday, coming close to breaking the politically sensitive level of seven to the U.S. currency.
The yuan declined to 6.9644 per dollar at midday, passing its most recent low in 2016 before recovering slightly. It was the lowest level since May 2008.
The currency’s weakness is one of a series of elements fueling Washington’s trade complaints against Beijing. The U.S. Treasury Department declined this month to label China a currency manipulator but said it was closely watching Beijing.
Chinese authorities have promised to avoid “competitive devaluation” to boost exports amid a tariff war with U.S. President Donald Trump over Beijing’s technology policy. But they are trying to make the state-controlled exchange rate more responsive to market forces, which are pushing the yuan lower.
The level of seven yuan to the dollar has no economic significance, but could revive U.S. attention to the exchange rate.
Chinese authorities are likely to “stand their ground” and prevent a “capitulation beyond the 7 level,” Mizuho Bank said in a report Monday.
The yuan, also known as the renminbi, or “people’s money,” has declined by almost 10 percent against the dollar since April as China’s economy cooled and U.S. and Chinese interest rates went in opposite directions. That helps exporters cope with tariffs of up to 25 percent imposed by Trump on billions of dollars of Chinese goods. But it raises the risk of inflaming American complaints about Beijing’s trade tactics.
“The last thing they will do is to escalate the tension by starting a currency war amid a trade war,” Macquarie Group said in a report last week.
A Treasury report on Oct. 17 said China failed to meet criteria to be labeled a currency manipulator, a status that can trigger sanctions. But it said Beijing was, along with Japan and Germany, on a list of governments whose currency polices would be closely monitored.
A weaker yuan also might encourage an outflow of capital from the world’s second-largest economy. That would raise borrowing costs at a time when its leaders are trying to shore up cooling growth.
The People’s Bank of China has been trying to make its exchange rate mechanism more efficient by increasing the role of market forces.
The exchange rate is set each morning and allowed to fluctuate by 2 percent against the dollar during the day. The central bank can buy or sell currency — or order Chinese commercial banks to do so — to dampen price movements.
Some forecasters say Beijing’s stance might change if Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, make no progress at a possible meeting during a November gathering of the Group of 20 major economies.
The central bank tried to discourage speculation by imposing a requirement in August that traders post deposits for contracts to buy or sell yuan. That allows trading to continue but raises the cost.
Beijing imposed similar controls in October 2015 after a change in the exchange rate mechanism prompted markets to bet the yuan would fall. The currency temporarily steadied but fell the following year.
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The U.S. has more former felons than at any time in the country’s history – about 6.1 million men and women. But whether or not those felons have the basic democratic right to vote varies dramatically state by state – from Florida, where ex-felons wait years to battle through an uncertain process, to Vermont, one of two states in the nation that allows currently incarcerated prisoners the right to vote. VOA’s Congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson reports.
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У другому турі президентських виборів в Бразилії переміг правий кандидат Жаїр Болсонару, повідомив 29 жовтня Верховний виборчий суд країни.
За підсумками підрахунку майже всіх бюлетенів Болсонару набирає 55% голосів виборців, його суперник, кандидат від лівої Партії трудящих Фернанду Аддад – близько 45%. Остаточні підсумки стануть відомі пізніше.
У першому турі, який відбувся три тижні тому, Болсонару набрав близько 46% голосів, значно випередивши Аддада.
63-річний Жаїр Болсонару, якого називають «тропічним Трампом» – колишній армійський капітан. Він виступає за різке обмеження міграції, за вільне володіння зброєю, за скорочення податків і соціальних програм з метою стимулювати зростання економіки. Він також відомий заявами на захист так званих «традиційних цінностей», в яких його опоненти бачать елементи жінконенависництва і гомофобії. Болсонару позитивно висловлювався про епоху військової диктатури, під час якої він служив в армії. Він обіцяє повернути смертну кару, подолати корупцію та злочинність, поліпшити відносини зі США.
Президент США Дональд Трамп уже привітав Жаїра Болсонару з перемогою на президентських виборах.
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У Кабулі смертник підірвався біля штаб-квартири Незалежної виборчої комісії Афганістану, завдавши поранень щонайменше шести людям. Як повідомляє місцева поліція вранці 29 жовтня, це сталося поруч із автомобілем, що стояв перед будівлею, де розташований штаб.
«Вибух був у 20 метрах від авто працівників НВК», – повідомив новинній агенції AFP речник поліції Кабула Басір Муджагід. За його словами, серед постраждалих – четверо співробітників НВК і двоє поліцейських.
Наразі невідомо, скільки людей було на місці події в момент нападу. Він стався в момент, коли представники афганської влади почали підраховувати голоси парламентських виборів.
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19 жовтня у провінції Кандагар вирішили відкласти вибори та перенесли їх на 29 жовтня після нападу бойовиків збройного угруповання «Талібан».
Атаки талібів та бойовиків екстремістської організації «Ісламська держава» неодноразово ставили під загрозу виборчий процес в країні.
Обидва угруповання вдавалися до насильства, щоб не дозволити афганцям віддати свій голос на виборчій дільниці. Внаслідок нападів бойовиків загинуло кілька десятків людей: як правоохоронців, так і цивільних.
Попри це, 20 і 21 жовтня вибори відбулися в більшості регіонів Афганістану.
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Pope Francis has strongly condemned the attack on a synagogue in Pittsburgh after celebrating the closing mass of the Synod of Bishops on Youth in Saint Peter’s Basilica.
After reciting the Angelus prayer in Saint Peter’s Square on Sunday, Pope Francis led prayers for Pittsburgh, the day after what he describedas the “terrible” massacre inside a synagogue during Sabbath services in which 11 people were killed and six others injured.
The pope expressed what he called his closeness to the city of Pittsburgh, and in particular to the Jewish community stricken yesterday by a terrible attack on the synagogue.
He said everyone is in reality wounded by this inhumane act of violence and asked God to help put out the hotbeds of hate that flare up in society and to help strengthen a sense of humanity, respect for life, moral and civil values.”
Earlier, several thousand people, including hundreds of priests, nuns, and young people took part in the final ceremony of a month-long synod titled “Young People, Faith and Discernment of Vocation”.
In his homily, Pope Francis asked young people to forgive adults if they have not listened to youth or opened their hearts.
The pope also said young people could not wash their hands of the problems of their neighbors, but should “dirty” them if they really want to imitate Jesus.
Pope Francis attended every session of the synod, which were held on a daily basis during October.
A 60-page final document was issued at the end of the synod late Saturday and will be used by Pope Francis in writing his Apostolic Exhortation.
Women played an active role in this synod and although they did not vote the final text called on women to have greater recognition and say in the Church’s decision-making processes. But the document stopped short of making a common apology for decades of clerical sexual abuse and cover-ups.
your ad hereThe owner of the Leicester City soccer club of Britain’s Premier League was among five people who died after his helicopter crashed and burst into flames outside a stadium moments after taking off Saturday.
Along with Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, a 60-year-old billionaire entrepreneur, two members of Vichai’s staff, Nursara Suknamai and Kaveporn Punpare, and pilot Eric Swaffer and passenger Izabela Roza Lechowicz, also died when the aircraft went down in the parking lot near King Power Stadium after a night soccer match.
“The world has lost a great man,” Leicester said in a statement. “A man of kindness, of generosity and a man whose life was defined by the love he devoted to his family and those he so successfully led.”
Vichai who owns Thai duty-free retail giant King Power, bankrolled Leicester’s improbable league title triumph in 2016.
He bought Leicester for $50 million in 2010 when it was in the second-tier Championship and led it to its revival that peaked with the title win.
Vichai handsomely rewarded Leicester’s players for winning the Premier League with new bumper contracts. In addition he bought each player a BMW i8 worth around $135,000, including for goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel.
Vichai, who started his business career with one shop and grew Thailand’s massive King Power duty-free chain, was known for arriving and leaving the stadium in his helicopter.
Located in central England, Leicester is about 143 kilometers north of London.
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The leaders of Japan and India are reaffirming their ties amid growing worries about trade and regional stability.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who arrived Saturday, was meeting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at a resort area near Mount Fuji on Sunday. Modi is also visiting a nearby plant of major Japanese robot maker Fanuc.
Relations with China are a major issue shared by Modi and Abe, as their cooperation may balance China’s growing regional influence and military assertiveness.
“The India-Japan partnership has been fundamentally transformed and it has been strengthened as a ‘special strategic and global partnership,'” Modi told Kyodo News service. “There are no negatives but only opportunities in this relationship which are waiting to be seized.”
Modi chose Japan among the first nations to visit after taking power four years ago. He has been urging countries in the Indo-Pacific region to unite against protectionism and cross-border tensions.
In another sign of closer relations, India and Japan are also set to hold their first joint military exercises involving ground forces, starting next month.
Abe has just returned from China, where he met President Xi Jinping and agreed the two nations were “sharing more common interests and concerns.”
President Donald Trump’s policies that have targeted mostly China with tariffs, but also Japan and other nations, accusing them of unfair trade practices, are working to prod India and Japan to promote their economic ties.
The Japanese Foreign Ministry said the leaders had lunch at a hotel in Yamanashi Prefecture, west of Tokyo, and exchanged a wide range of views on pursuing “a free and open” Indo-Pacific region. Abe told Modi about his recent trip to China, and both sides agreed on the need to cooperate closely on getting North Korea to drop nuclear weapons development, the ministry said in a statement.
Japan’s investment in India still has room to grow. Japan is helping India build a super-fast railway system.
Abe has made bolstering and opening the nation’s economy central to his policies called “Abenomics,” and has encouraged trade, foreign investment and tourism.
Although Japan has long seen the U.S. as its main ally, especially in defense, Abe is courting other ties. He has also been vocal about free trade, which runs counter to Trump’s moves to raise tariffs.
Earlier this year, Japan signed a landmark deal with the European Union that will eliminate nearly all tariffs on products they trade. European and Japanese leaders pledged to strengthen their partnership in defense, climate change and human exchange, to send what they called a clear message against protectionism.
Abe and Modi will hold a more formal summit Monday in Tokyo.
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Близько 300 людей у Києві 28 жовтня вийшли на мітинг за проведення виборчої реформи. Більшість присутніх прийшли з прапорами політичних партій – Народного руху України, «Громадянської позиції», «Аграрної партії» , Всеукраїнського об’єднання «Свобода», «Сила людей» та інших. З парку Шевченка колона учасників мітингу рушила до Майдану Незалежності, де провела віче.
Учасники вимагали невідкладного ухвалення у другому читанні проекту Виборчого кодексу (№3112-1), що передбачає проведення парламентських виборів за пропорційною системою з відкритими регіональними списками.
Активісти та політики понад рік виходили на масові акції на підтримку ухвалення Виборчого кодексу. Остання до сьогоднішньої акція, під час якої активісти блокували депутатам Верховної Ради виходи з парламенту, відбулася 16 жовтня.
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Державна регуляторна служба України не погодила проект постанови Кабінету міністрів про підвищення цін на газ для населення.
«Прийняття проекту порядку у запропонованій редакції може призвести до монополізації ринку природного газу НАК «Нафтогаз України», невиконанню Україною її обов’язків за договором про заснування Енергетичного співтовариства», – зазначено у рішенні, опублікованому на сайті служби.
Також зазначається, що в документі відсутній аналіз регуляторного впливу на ринкове середовище, забезпечення прав та інтересів суб’єктів господарювання, громадян та держави, а також обґрунтування відповідності проекту принципам регуляторної політики.
У службі наголосили, що розробники постанови не дотрималися принципів державної регуляторної політики, визначених законодавством.
Кабінет міністрів України з 1 листопада підвищив ціну на газ для населення на 23,5%, до 8550 гривень за тисячу кубометрів. За словами прем’єр-міністра, спочатку Міжнародний валютний фонд вимагав підвищити ціну на газ на 60%.
На сьогодні ціна газу для населення становить 4942 гривні за тисячу кубометрів, а з урахуванням податку на додану вартість і зборів, які включають транспортування, – 6958 гривень за тисячу кубометрів.
Питання визначення ціни газу для потреб населення є предметом переговорів України з Міжнародним валютним фондом. Представники фонду раніше наполягали на тому, що вартість «блакитного палива» має бути піднята до рівня імпортного паритету.
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США вдруге поспіль успішно випробували нову ракету-перехоплювач, призначену для боротьби з бойовими ракетами середнього радіусу дії, повідомляє Defense News. Тест відбувся в Тихому океані 26 жовтня. В американському військовому відомстві цей результат назвали «ключовим моментом» у розвитку американської протиракетної оборони.
В операції взяв участь ескадрений міноносець John Finn, торік введений до складу ВМС США. Він виявив і перехопив ракету-мішень, пущену з західного узбережжя Гаваїв.
Протиракета SM-3 версії Block IIA розробляється з 2006 року спільними зусиллями США і Японії. Вона покликана замінити попередні модифікації SM-3. Новинка має більший кінетичний перехоплювач, нову сенсорну апаратуру, високі можливості з дискримінації помилкових цілей, а також збільшену дальність і швидкість ураження. Вона знищує мішень не в результаті підриву, а шляхом фізичного зіткнення з нею. Швидкість польоту протиракети становить 4,5 кілометра на секунду, гранична дальність ураження – 2700 кілометрів.
Протиракета буде встановлена як на морські, так і на наземні платформи ПРО Aegis Ashore, у тому числі на території Румунії, Польщі, а також Японії, яка стурбована ракетно-ядерною програмою КНДР.
Успішний тест протиракети відбувся через кілька днів після заяви президента Дональда Трампа про те, що США виходять із Договору про ракети середнього і меншого радіусу дії. Ця угода була укладена в 1987 році між США та СРСР. Документ забороняв сторонам мати і розробляти ракети наземного базування з дальністю польоту від 500 до 5,5 тисячі кілометрів. Вашингтон звинуватив Москву в порушенні цієї угоди і оголосив про плани розробити системи, покликані стати симетричною відповіддю на ракетні розробки, які, імовірно, веде Росія.
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There is no risk of contagion from Italy’s budget crisis in the European Union but the euro zone is not prepared enough to face a new economic crisis, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told daily Le Parisien on Sunday.
The European Commission rejected Italy’s draft 2019 budget earlier this week for breaking EU rules on public spending, and asked Rome to submit a new one within three weeks or face disciplinary action.
“We do not see any contagion in Europe. The European Commission has reached out to Italy, I hope Italy will seize this hand,” he said in an interview.
“But is the eurozone sufficiently armed to face a new economic or financial crisis? My answer is no. It is urgent to do what we have proposed to our partners in order to have a solid banking union and a euro zone investment budget.”
Eurozone officials have said that Rome’s unprecedented standoff with Brussels seems certain to delay the reform process and probably dilute it for good.
Le Maire also said French banks with branches in Italy had issued corporate and household loans totaling 280 billion euros ($319 billion).
“This sum is manageable but substantial,” he said.
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Recep Tayyip Erdogan has held plenty of grand opening ceremonies in his 15 years at Turkey’s helm. On Monday he will unveil one of his prized jewels — Istanbul New Airport —
a megaproject that has been dogged by concerns about labor rights, environmental issues and Turkey’s weakening economy.
Erdogan is opening what he claims will eventually become the world’s largest air transport hub on the 95th anniversary of Turkey’s establishment as a republic. It’s a symbolic launch, as only limited flights will begin days later and a full move won’t take place until the end of the year.
Tens of thousands of workers have been scrambling to finish the airport to meet Erdogan’s Oct. 29 deadline. Protests in September over poor working conditions and dozens of construction deaths have highlighted the human cost of the project.
Istanbul New Airport, on shores of the Black Sea, will serve 90 million passengers annually in its first phase. At its completion in ten years, it will occupy nearly 19,000 acres and serve up to 200 million travelers a year with six runways. That’s almost double the traffic at world’s biggest airport currently, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson.
“This airport is going to be the most important hub between Asia and Europe,” Kadri Samsunlu, head of the 5-company consortium Istanbul Grand Airport, told reporters Thursday.
The airport’s interiors nod to Turkish and Islamic designs and its tulip-shaped air traffic control tower won the 2016 International Architecture Award. It also uses mobile applications and artificial intelligence for customers, is energy efficient and boasts a high-tech security system.
All aviation operations will move there at the end of December when Istanbul’s main international airport, named after Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, is closed down. Ataturk Airport now handles 64 million people a year. On the Asian side of the city, Sabiha Gokcen Airport handled 31 million passengers last year. It will remain open.
Erdogan is expected to announce the official name of the new airport, part of his plan to transform Turkey into a global player.
Turkish Airlines will launch its first flights out of the new airport to three local destinations: Ankara, Antalya and Izmir. It will also fly to Baku and Ercan in northern Cyprus.
Nihat Demir, head of a construction workers’ union, said the rush to meet Erdogan’s deadline has been a major cause of the accidents and deaths at the site that employs 36,000 people.
“The airport has become a cemetery,” he told The Associated Press, describing the pressure to finish as relentless and blaming long working hours for leading to “carelessness, accidents and deaths.”
The Dev-Yapi-Is union has identified 37 worker deaths at the site and claimed more than 100 dead remain unidentified.
Turkey’s Ministry of Labor has denied media reports about hundreds of airport construction deaths, saying in February that 27 workers had died at the site due to “health problems and traffic accidents.” It has not commented since then.
Airport workers in September began a strike against poor working conditions, including unpaid salaries, bedbugs, unsafe food and inadequate transport to the site. Security forces rounded up hundreds of workers and formally arrested nearly 30, among them union leaders. The company said it was working to improve conditions.
Megaprojects in northern Istanbul like the airport, the third bridge connecting Istanbul’s Asian and European shores and Erdogan’s yet-to-start plans for a man-made canal parallel to the Bosporus strait are also impacting the environment. The environmental group Northern Forests Defense said the new airport has destroyed forests, wetlands and coastal sand dunes and threatens biodiversity.
These projects are spurring additional construction of transportation networks, housing and business centers in already overpopulated Istanbul, where more than 15 million people live. Samsunlu, the airport executive, said an “airport city” for innovation and technology would also be built.
The five Turkish companies that won the $29 billion tender in 2013 under the “build-operate-transfer” model have been financing the project through capital and bank loans. IGA will operate the airport for 25 years.
Financial observers say lending has fueled much of Turkey’s growth and its construction boom, leaving the private sector with a huge $200 billion debt. With inflation and unemployment in Turkey at double digits and a national currency that has lost as much as 40 percent of its value against the dollar this year, economists say Turkey is clearly facing an economic downturn.
Despite those dark financial clouds, the airport consortium hopes the world’s growing aviation industry will generate both jobs and billions of dollars in returns.
“Istanbul New Airport will remain ambitious for growth and we will carry on mastering the challenge to be the biggest and the best. That’s our motto,” Samsunlu said.
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Представник ОБСЄ з питань свободи преси Арлем Дезір закликав владу Росії скасувати рішення про штраф у розмірі 22 мільйони рублів, який був накладений на видання The New Times, яке зараз публікується лише в інтернеті.
У поширеній 28 жовтня заяві представник ОБСЄ назвав штраф «надзвичайно високим», а рішення суду про його призначення – «безпрецедентним». За словами Дезіре, це рішення «шкодить свободі ЗМІ» в Росії. Він висловив надію, що скасування штрафу ухвалить апеляційна інстанція.
Суд в Москві оштрафував видання The New Times і його головного редактора Євгенію Альбац на 22 мільйони 250 тисяч рублів і на 30 тисяч рублів відповідно, визнавши їх винними в несвоєчасному поданні в «Роскомнагляд» даних про зарубіжне фінансування.
За словами Альбац, претензії влади пов’язані з тим, що фонд, через який виданню жертвували гроші, був визнаний «іноземним агентом». Вона зазначила, що оскаржуватиме постанову суду, але майже не вірить у можливість перегляду рішення, оскільки вважає його політичним замовленням.
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In the hours before his arrest, as federal authorities zeroed in and secretly accumulated evidence, Cesar Sayoc was in his element: spinning classic and Top 40 hits in a nightclub where he’d found work as a DJ.
As he entertained patrons from a dimly lit booth overlooking a stage at the Ultra Gentlemen’s Club, where Halloween decorations hung in anticipation of a costume party, he could not have known that investigators that very evening were capitalizing on his own mistakes to build a case against him.
He almost certainly had no idea that lab technicians had linked DNA on two pipe bomb packages he was accused of sending to prominent Democrats to a sample previously collected by Florida state authorities. Or that a fingerprint match had turned up on a separate mailing the authorities say he sent.
And he was probably unaware that investigators scouring his social media accounts had found the same spelling mistakes on his online posts — “Hilary” Clinton, Debbie Wasserman “Shultz” — as on the mailings he’d soon be charged with sending.
Wealth of clues
In the end, prosecutors who charged Sayoc with five federal crimes Friday say the fervent President Donald Trump supporter unwittingly left behind a wealth of clues, affording them a critical break in a coast-to-coast investigation into pipe bomb mailings that spread fear of election-season violence. The bubble-wrapped manila envelopes, addressed to Democrats such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and intercepted from Delaware to California, held vital forensic evidence that investigators say they leveraged to arrest Sayoc four days after the investigation started.
“Criminals make mistakes so the more opportunities that law enforcement has to detect them, the greater chance they’re going to be able to act on that, and that appears to be what happened here,” said former Justice Department official Aloke Chakravarty, who prosecuted the Boston Marathon bombing case.
First package
But it wasn’t always clear that such a break would come, at least not on Monday when the first package arrived: a pipe bomb delivered via mail to an estate in Bedford, New York, belonging to billionaire liberal activist George Soros. That same day, Sayoc, still under the radar of law enforcement, retweeted a post saying, “The world is waking up to the horrors of George Soros.”
Additional packages followed, delivered the next day for Clinton and Obama and after that to the cable network CNN, former Attorney General Eric Holder, former Vice President Joe Biden and other Democratic targets of conservative ire.
Each additional delivery created more unease. But together they also provided more leads for the FBI, which mined each pipe bomb for clues at a laboratory in Quantico, Virginia.
A breakthrough
As the packages rolled in, technicians got a breakthrough: a fingerprint and DNA left on a package sent to Rep. Maxine Waters, a California Democrat and one of the intended pipe bomb recipients, and DNA on a piece of pipe bomb intended for Obama. The FBI said it had identified no other possible matches on the evidence it had examined.
Besides that, the FBI said, his social media posts that traffic in online conspiracy theories, parody accounts and name-calling include some of the same misspellings as were noticed on the 13 packages he was charged with sending.
The clues, authorities say, led them to a 56-year-old man with a long criminal history who’d previously filed for bankruptcy and appeared to be living in his van, showering on the beach or at a local fitness center.
As the FBI worked around the clock, and as Americans were busy debating the hard-edged political climate and whether Trump had fanned the flames with his rhetoric, it was business as usual for Sayoc as he took to Twitter to denigrate targets like Soros. That was not uncommon for the amateur body builder and former stripper whose social media accounts are peppered with memes supporting Trump and posts vilifying Democrats.
‘We don’t talk politics’
On Thursday from noon to 9 p.m. as law enforcement grew ever closer, descending on a postal sorting facility in Opa-locka, Florida, Sayoc was working as a disc jockey at a West Palm Beach nightclub where he’d found work in the last two months. There, he spun his music from inside a small dimly lit booth overlooking a stage with performers dancing below. Autographed photos of scantily clad and nude adult entertainers were plastered across the walls like wallpaper.
“I didn’t know this guy was mad crazy like this,” said Stacy Saccal, the club’s manager. “Never once did he speak politics. This is a bar. We don’t talk politics or religion in a bar, you know?”
But Scott Meigs, another DJ at the club, had a different experience.
He said Sayoc had been talking about politics to everybody at the club for the last two weeks, preaching the need to elect Republicans during the November elections.
“I just figured he was passionate about the upcoming elections,” Meigs said.
The next morning, Sayoc was taken into custody near an auto parts store in Plantation, Florida, north of Miami. Across the street, Thomas Fiori, a former federal law enforcement officer, said he saw about 50 armed officers swarm a man standing outside a white van with windows plastered with stickers supporting Trump and criticizing media outlets including CNN.
They ordered him to the ground, Fiori said, and he did not resist.
“He had that look of, ‘I’m done, I surrender,”’ Fiori said.
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