Американське космічне агентство NASA 13 лютого офіційно оголосило про припинення функціонування марсохода Opportunity, що потрапив у 2018 році в найпотужнішу пилову бурю на Червоній планеті і відтоді не виходив на зв’язок.
«Місія Opportunity завершена», – заявив помічник голови NASA з питань науки Томас Зурбучен.
NASA повідомило 12 лютого, що зробить фінальну спробу зв’язатися з марсоходом Opportunity. Востаннє зонд виходив на зв’язок вісім місяців тому.
Opportunity сів на Марсі в 2004 році і подолав там близько 45 кілометрів.
У червні 2018 року NASA повідомило, що припинило виконання наукових операцій марсоходом Opportunity через пилову бурю. Буря перешкоджала проникненню сонячних променів крізь атмосферу і позбавляла марсохід джерела енергії, а працював він на сонячних батареях.
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The Somali government says it will award exploration licenses to foreign oil companies later this year, despite calls from the opposition to wait until laws and regulations governing the oil sector are in place.
Seismic surveys conducted by two British companies, Soma Oil & Gas and Spectrum Geo, suggest that Somalia has promising oil reserves along the Indian Ocean coast, between the cities of Garad and Kismayo. Total offshore deposits could be as high as 100 billion barrels.
The government says it will accept bids for exploration licenses on November 7, and the winners will be informed immediately. It says production-sharing agreements will be signed on December 9, with the agreements going into effect on January 1, 2020.
“We have presented our wealth and resources to the companies,” Petroleum Minister Abdirashid Mohamed Ahmed told the VOA Somali program Investigative Dossier. “We held a roadshow in London [last week], and we will hold two more in two major cities so that we turn the eyes of the world to contest Somalia.”
But several lawmakers have expressed concern the government is moving too quickly. Last week, the head of the National Resource committee in the Upper House of Parliament accused President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed’s government of a “lack of due diligence” and violating the constitution.
Barnaby Pace, an investigator for the NGO Global Witness, which exposes corruption and environmental abuses, says Somalia, after decades of internal conflict, does not have the legal and regulatory framework to handle oil deals and the problems they can cause, such as environmental abuses, corruption, and political fights over revenue.
“There is not a clear consensus about how the oil sector could be managed in Somalia,” he said. “And once Somalia makes deals like the one it’s proposing, it may be locked in for many years and find it difficult to renegotiate or change them to best protect itself.”
Former oil officials speak out
Somalia’s parliament passed a Petroleum Law to govern oil sector in 2008 when the country operated under a transitional charter. But constitutional experts say that law was nullified after a constitution was ratified in 2012.
A proposed new law is now before parliament for debate. The bill says negotiations for oil-related contracts will be the responsibility of the Somali Petroleum Agency, which would not be formed until the law is passed.
Ahmed said government’s timetable for awarding licenses is just “tentative,” though he believes the government can keep to its schedule.
But Somali lawmakers and opposition leaders are worried the government is in a needless rush.
Jamal Kassim Mursal was permanent secretary of the Somali Petroleum Ministry until last month when he resigned.
He says when the government came to power in 2017, the ministry was informed that bids for oil exploration licenses would not be considered until the Petroleum Law was passed and “we are ready with the knowledge and skills.”
Since then, he told VOA, “Nothing has changed — petroleum law is not passed, tax law is not ready, capacity has not changed, institutions have not been built.”
Abdirizak Omar Mohamed is the former petroleum minister who signed the 2013 seismic study agreement with Soma Oil & Gas.
Mohamed said the country needs political consensus and stability before oil drilling. He notes that a resource-sharing agreement between the federal government and Somali federal states has yet to be endorsed by the parliament.
“No company is going to start drilling without agreement with regions,” says Mohamed. “So why rush? It’s not good for the reputation of the country.”
Soma and Spectrum’s advantage
Mursal also objects to an agreement that gives first choice of oil exploration blocks to Soma Oil & Gas, one of the companies that conducted the seismic studies.
According to the agreement, Soma Oil & Gas will choose 12 blocks or 60,000 square kilometers to conduct oil exploration. Among these are two blocks believed to contain large oil reserves near the town of Barawe.
He says the government needs to renegotiate and offer just two blocks instead.
“This is the one that is causing the alarm,” he said. He predicts that if Soma Oil & Gas gets to choose 12 blocks, the company will “flip” some of the blocks to the highest bidder.
In 2015, Soma Oil & Gas was caught up in controversy after allegations of quid pro quo payments to the Somali Ministry of Petroleum. The payments were termed as “capacity building.” The following year, Britain’s Serious Fraud Office closed the case because it could not prove that corruption took place.
Somalia’s current prime minister, Hassan Ali Khaire, was working for Soma Oil & Gas at time. Somali officials say that since taking office, Khaire has “relinquished” his stake in the company, said to be more than 2 million shares.
The other company that conducted seismic surveys, Spectrum, also made payments to the Somali Ministry of Finance, according to Mursal.
Mursal told Investigative Dossier that between 2015 and 2017, Spectrum paid $450,000 every six months to the ministry.
A senior official who previously was involved in the Ministry of Petroleum told VOA that Spectrum paid $1.35 million in all. He said the payment was “consistent,” though, with the advice of the Financial Governance Committee, a body consisting on Somali and donors which gives financial advice to Somalia.
Spectrum has not yet responded to Investigative Dossier requests for an interview.
Current Petroleum Minister Ahmed said the government will do what is best for Somalia, but needs to have a law governing the oil sector in place.
“The parliament has the petroleum law,” he said. “Without it being passed, we can’t touch anything.”
your ad hereA new report finds the world’s unemployment rate has dropped to five percent, the lowest level since the global economic crisis in 2008. The International Labor Organization reports the jobs being created, however, are poor quality jobs that keep most of the world’s workers mired in poverty.
Slightly more than 172 million people globally were unemployed in 2018. That is about 2 million less than the previous year. The International Labor Organization expects the global unemployment rate of five percent to remain essentially unchanged over the next few years.
The ILO report — World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2019 — finds a majority of the 3.3 billion people employed throughout the world, though, are working under poor conditions that do not guarantee them a decent living.
ILO Deputy Director-General for Policy, Deborah Greenfield says many people have jobs that do not offer them economic security, lack material well-being and decent work opportunities.
“These jobs tend to be informal and characterized by low pay, insecurity and little or no access to social protection and rights at work. Worldwide, 2 billion workers, or 61 percent, were in informal employment,” she said.
Over the past 30 years, the report finds a great decline in working poverty in middle-income countries. But the situation remains serious in low- and middle-income countries. The report says one-quarter of those employed there do not earn enough to escape extreme or moderate poverty.
Regionally, the ILO reports only 4.5 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa’s working age population is unemployed, with 60 percent employed. ILO Director of Research, Damian Grimshaw, says these good statistics are deceptive.
“In sub-Saharan Africa we find 18 of the top 20 countries with the highest rates of poverty. And they are also the countries with very, very high informal employment. So, higher than 80 percent in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, despite having some of the lowest unemployment rates in the world,” he said.
Grimshaw says the unemployment rate is not a good measure of labor market performance or economic performance in countries with high rates of informality.
ILO experts also highlight the lack of progress in closing the gender gap in labor force participation. They note only 48 percent of women are working, compared to 75 percent of men.
Another worrying issue is high youth unemployment. The ILO says one in five young people under 25 are jobless and have no skills. It warns this compromises their future employment prospects.
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Віце-президент Європейського інституту омбудсмена Ніна Карпачова після відвідин у московському СІЗО «Лефортово» захоплених біля берегів Криму українських моряків заявила, що стан тих, хто був поранений, викликає «серйозне занепокоєння». Про це Карпачова сказала в інтерв’ю кореспонденту Радіо Свобода після спільних відвідин бранців із уповноваженою з прав людини в Росії Тетяною Москальковою.
«З точки зору морального стану, як говорять моряки, воно позитивне. Вони тримаються, це хлопці, які вміють мобілізуватися в будь-яких ситуаціях. Що стосується їхнього фізіологічного здоров’я, після поранень, воно, звичайно, викликає серйозне занепокоєння, особливо в майбутньому», – сказала Карпачова.
За її словами, керівник СІЗО заявив, що готується три клопотання в Управління охорони здоров’я Москви для того, щоб по кожному із поранених українських моряків було ухвалене рішення, в який профільний медичний заклад Москви можна було б їх вивезти для того, щоб провести професійне дообстеження.
«В умовах слідчого ізолятора «Лефортово» провести медичні дообстеження, які мають проводитися на високотехнологічному медичному обладнанні, просто неможливо. Щоб чітко визначити діагнози і тактику подальшого лікування, безумовно, це треба зробити, поза межами «Лефортово», – заявила Карпачова.
За її словами, побутові умови в камерах СІЗО, де перебувають моряки, «відповідають міжнародним стандартам».
25 листопада російські прикордонники у Керченській протоці відкрили вогонь по трьох українських кораблях і захопили їх і екіпажі. Підконтрольні Кремлю суди в Криму заарештували 24 моряків. Троє з них зазнали поранень. Зараз вони перебувають у Москві. Українська влада визнає їх військовополоненими, як то визначає міжнародне право.
Країни Заходу засудили дії Росії. В Євросоюзі закликали до «стриманості і деескалації», а генеральний секретар НАТО Єнс Столтенберґ оприлюднив заяву з вимогою до Росії звільнити військовополонених і захоплені кораблі.
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Кабінет міністрів України припинив дію угоди, якою у 1992 році створювалася Консультативна економічна робоча комісія при Раді глав держав і Раді глав урядів Співдружності незалежних держав.
Згідно з повідомленням на сайті уряду, за результатами спільного аналізу Мінекономрозвитку та МЗС відповідна угода втратила своє практичне значення у 1992 році у зв’язку зі створенням Координаційно-консультативного комітету СНД, який припинив свою діяльність у грудні 2000 року.
19 травня 2018 року президент Петро Порошенко своїм указом ввів у дію рішення Ради національної безпеки й оборони України про остаточне припинення участі країни у роботі статутних органів Співдружності незалежних держав (СНД).
Наразі Україна денонсувала шість неактуальних та застарілих договорів у межах СНД.
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The Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential field continued to grow this week with the formal entry of Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.
But a new poll suggests good news for two men who are not yet in the race, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who ran in 2016, and former Vice President Joe Biden.
The Morning Consult survey found Biden atop the Democratic field with 29 percent support, followed by Sanders at 22 percent and California Senator Kamala Harris in third place at 13 percent. That is good news for Harris, who is among several Democratic newcomers who have launched campaigns in recent days, and she has gained some traction in several recent surveys.
Klobuchar’s bid
Klobuchar is the latest entrant into the quickly expanding field and she hopes to gain momentum as a moderate, deal-making Democrat who can draw support from working class voters in the Midwest.
“I don’t have a political machine. I don’t come from money. But what I do have is this: I have grit,” Klobuchar said to supporters gathered in a snowstorm Sunday in Minnesota at her official launch.
A day earlier, Warren made her candidacy official before a large crowd gathered in front of a mill building in Lawrence, Massachusetts, a city north of Boston.
Warren emphasized bridging the economic gap in the country between the very wealthy and America’s middle class.
“This is the fight of our lives. The fight to build an America where dreams are possible and an America that works for everyone!”
Another early contender who has been making the rounds in the early caucus state of Iowa is New Jersey Senator Cory Booker. He is emphasizing national unity in his pitch to Democratic voters.
“I am running for president because that garment, that fabric, has been ripped and torn and we must repair it. We must stitch it together, each of us,” Booker told a group of Democrats in Mason City, Iowa.
Diverse field
The Democratic field includes several women and minority candidates and is already shaping up as one of the most varied in history, according to Brookings Institution political scholar Elaine Kamarck.
“A lot of diversity in the field, which reflects what the Democratic Party is today. It is a pretty good field. “You have serious people who are serious about government. I don’t know who will manage to rise above the others. But so far it is a pretty solid field.”
So far, nine Democrats have either officially declared their candidacy or formed a presidential exploratory committee, and several more are expected to join the field in the weeks ahead.
Liberal views
Most of the Democratic contenders hold liberal views on the economy, the environment and social issues. Many, for example, support an approach known as “Medicare for All,” which would expand government health care coverage.
Others favor what is known as the “Green New Deal,” an environmental program that would emphasize renewable energy sources and drastically move away from fossil fuels.
Analysts say that in a field that could eventually expand to 15 or 20 candidates, the Democratic contenders early on will be looking for ways to set themselves apart from the rest of the field.
“I think the key candidates, the ones who will do well, will have a constituency either in the progressive wing of the party that is really fighting Donald Trump or especially in the African American community,” said John Fortier of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington.
Target Trump
The candidate field may be diverse, but grassroots Democratic voters will likely be focused on one key unifying goal, according to University of Virginia expert Larry Sabato.
“When you get right down to it, what is the most important thing to Democrats? If I am to believe what I am hearing, and I do, it is that they want to pick the candidate who has the best chance of beating Donald Trump,” Sabato said via Skype.
For his part, President Trump is eager to bash the Democratic presidential field as too far to the left, as he did at his Monday night border rally in Texas.
“The Democrat Party has never been more outside of the main stream. They are becoming the party of socialism, late-term abortion, open borders and crime,” Trump said to cheers from supporters in El Paso.
More Democrats are expected to join the race in the weeks ahead and that list could include Biden, Sanders, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke.
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Senators Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts are the latest Democrats to formally join the 2020 race for the White House. So far, nine Democrats have either officially declared their candidacy or formed a presidential exploratory committee, and several more are expected to join the field in the weeks ahead. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington.
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Міністр закордонних справ Росії Сергій Лавров застеріг США від «втручання у внутрішні справи» Венесуели. Як повідомило МЗС Росії, Лавров сказав про це в телефонній розмові з державним секретарем США Майком Помпео 12 лютого.
У Державному департаменті США наразі не підтвердили інформацію про цю телефонну розмову.
За повідомленням МЗС Росії, Лавров сказав Помпео, що Росія готова до консультацій щодо Венесуели.
Читайте також: 10 країн ЄС визнали Хуана Гуайдо тимчасовим президентом Венесуели
В останні роки Москва надала багатомільярдну допомогу урядові венесуельського лідера Ніколаса Мадуро. Допомога надходила і тоді, коли в країні почався економічний хаос.
Водночас Вашингтон підтримує опозиційного лідера Хуана Гуайдо і закликає інші держави також визнати його тимчасовим президентом країни.
Венесуела, що володіє найбільшими запасами нафти, роками потерпає від браку харчів і медикаментів. У 2018 році показник інфляції в країні перевищив позначку в мільйон відсотків. Від 2014 року в країні регулярно спалахують вуличні протести проти президента. Три мільйони людей, близько десятої частини населення, залишили країну за останні роки.
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Американське космічне агентство NASA повідомляє, що зробить фінальну спробу зв’язатися з марсоходом Opportunity. Про це оголосили 12 лютого.
Востаннє зонд виходив на зв’язок вісім місяців тому.
Opportunity сів на Марсі в 2004 році і подолав там близько 45 кілометрів.
У червні 2018 року NASA повідомило, що припинило виконання наукових операцій марсоходом Opportunity через пилову бурю. Буря перешкоджала проникненню сонячних променів крізь атмосферу і позбавляла марсохід джерела енергії, а працює він на сонячних батареях.
У NASA заявили, що 13 лютого проведуть брифінг, на якому, ймовірно, офіційно оголосять про кінець місії.
your ad hereOn a cold day in January, Ivanka Angelova was at home with her daughter and four grandchildren when the village mayor arrived and advised them to leave.
Two neighbors – brothers aged 17 and 21 – were accused of beating up a local resident. The victim, a soldier, had been hospitalized.
Angelova, who like the brothers is from Bulgaria’s minority Roma community, said the mayor told her that villagers were out for revenge. He was concerned her family might be attacked.
She and most of the 76-strong Roma community fled Voyvodinovo village that evening, Jan. 6, and headed 10 kilometers to Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second-largest city.
“We were spread all over the place like a broken egg,” said Angelova, a widow, wiping away tears.
Bulgaria, which joined the European Union in 2007 and is its poorest member, has one of the bloc’s largest Roma minorities.
As in other EU countries, many Roma live on the fringes of society and struggle for work – with those in small settlements facing legal problems when it comes to land ownership, says the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC), a human rights group.
After Angelova and her family fled, the authorities started to demolish the cluster of 17 small homes at the village’s edge.
When the Thomson Reuters Foundation visited three days later, three houses had been destroyed and several others damaged.
Notices were pasted to the other homes to notify residents that theirs would be demolished too.
No Title, Few Rights
According to the 2011 census, there were 325,000 Roma people comprising about 5 percent of Bulgaria’s 7.3 million people. The European Commission, however, estimates there are more than twice as many Roma – about 750,000 people.
In the week following the assault on the local resident, nationalist and far-right groups held nightly gatherings in Voyvodinovo.
And at a Jan. 8 press conference, Krasimir Karakachanov – the deputy prime minister and head of the nationalist VRMO party – referred to the incident when he said “gypsies … have grown exceedingly insolent.”
In a statement posted on its Facebook page, the BHC expressed “grave concern about multiplying cases of racist hate speech from Bulgarian government officials and frequent collective punishments for Roma communities.”
The BHC said the local authorities’ treatment in this case mirrored “many similar cases” of forced evictions of “illegal Roma settlements without providing adequate alternative housing, leaving those people homeless.”
Election Links
Other rights groups are also concerned about how the Roma people are treated in Bulgaria.
The Equal Opportunities Initiative Association (EOIA), which works on Roma development and rights issues, said in a 2017 study that one in four Roma homes were “illegal” – lacking land title, building permits or both. It noted other researchers had put the figure far higher.
Between 2012-2016, the EOIA said, information provided by three in every five municipalities revealed that 399 out of 444 housing demolition orders affected the sole residences of Roma families.
Daniela Mihaylova, a lawyer who co-authored the report, said in an interview that the data showed a correlation between the timing of elections and the number of demolition orders carried out – with nationalist parties using “the general anti-Roma trend in society to motivate more voters.”
Such targeting of the Roma by the right-wing alliance of United Patriots were “part of a strategy of distraction” and a way to deflect attention from corruption scandals, said Ognyan Isaev, country facilitator for The Roma Education Fund, and a Roma rights activist.
Retaliation
BHC chairman Krassimir Kanev said he was shocked that residents were chased from their homes in sub-zero temperatures, and that the demolitions were hastily carried out without allowing time for residents to gather their belongings.
He said Bulgarian law required residents be given notice, time to prepare an appeal, and the right to demolish their own homes and salvage the materials.
He said the BHC had helped residents appeal the removal orders. In the meantime, the municipality was forced to stop demolishing homes until the court considers the appeal. That could take weeks, he said.
In a case brought by the BHC to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the court ruled in 2012 that in seeking to evict Roma from a community in the capital Sofia, the Bulgarian authorities had violated one’s “right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.”
Kanev said the ECHR recognized that “you cannot evict people on an arbitrary basis leaving them without any shelter.”
In 2015, the ECHR called on the Bulgarian authorities to halt forced evictions of Roma families or provide them with alternative housing, the Open Society noted at the time.
However, they have repeatedly failed to do so, said Kanev.
Meanwhile, he added, a number of other cases brought by Roma are pending adjudication at the ECHR.
‘Nowhere to Go’
Angelova said she had lived in her home since childhood.
But, said the mayor of Voyvodinovo, Dimitar Tosev – a former police chief – the land belonged to the municipality, and the Roma families had been warned they would have to move.
And, he added, villagers had demanded the municipality solve what they regarded as a long-standing problem.
“There have been a lot of issues – issues like integration,” he said.
“(Villagers) wanted to see action from the municipality,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, adding that the Roma had been left alone until the fight sparked outrage, and he felt compelled to act.
Those whose homes had been demolished, he said, “have places to go, and they will go where they should go.”
In Angelova’s case, she headed to Plovdiv’s Stolipinovo district, where 50,000 people inhabit densely-packed apartment blocks and small houses.
She and her family are staying at a friend’s apartment that is now crowded with 18 people.
In the village, she said, she and her Roma neighbors worked on an occasional basis earning 2.50 Bulgarian levs ($1.45) an hour harvesting crops. There she had a home and a life.
“(Now) we have nowhere to go, we have no work and no money … I don’t know how I will survive,” she said.
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Democrats pushed on Tuesday for a nationwide paid family leave system in the United States, the only developed nation that does not guarantee pay to workers taking time off to care for children or other relatives.
The proposal would establish a national insurance program to provide workers with up to 12 weeks paid leave per year for the birth of a child, adoption or to care for a seriously ill family member.
The lack of paid family leave takes a particular toll on women who tend to care for children and aging relatives, and the proposed Family Act would bring national policy in line with other countries, supporters say.
The United States is one of only five nations that have no guaranteed paid maternity leave, the other four being Lesotho, Liberia, Papua New Guinea and Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, according to the World Policy Analysis Center, a research group at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Family leave legislation has been introduced in the U.S. Congress in previous years but been unsuccessful.
Now, with Democrats controlling the lower House of Representatives and a record 127 women in the House and Senate, it could have a fighting chance, said Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, a sponsor of the bill.
“Now we have a majority. We have a real shot at getting this passed, and I am so optimistic we can get this done,” said Gillibrand in a statement.
Gillibrand recently announced her intention to seek the Democratic Party’s nomination for president. Guaranteed paid leave exists in a handful of states but not on the national level.
President Donald Trump has voiced support for six weeks of paid leave but his proposal does not cover care for sick family members.
Opponents say paid leave could be too costly for small businesses to shoulder. Supporters of the Family Act say it could be funded through paycheck deductions at an average weekly cost of $1.50 to workers.
“It’s shameful that America has lagged behind for so long on paid maternity leave,” Toni Van Pelt, head of the National Organization for Women, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The Center for American Progress, a Washington-based policy institute, estimates more than $20 billion in U.S. wages are lost each year due to workers lacking access to paid family and medical leave.
One in every four U.S. mothers returns to work 10 days after giving birth, according to Paid Leave for the United States, a group promoting family leave.
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A 2015 agreement to bring peace to Ukraine’s volatile east remains largely unimplemented and civilians are paying the highest price, with more than 3,300 killed and 3.5 million needing humanitarian aid this year, U.N. officials said Tuesday.
Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in early 2014 and support for separatist rebels in the east triggered a conflict with Ukrainian government forces that the U.N. says has also injured up to 9,000 civilians and displaced 1.5 million people.
Assistant Secretary-General Miroslav Jenca told the Security Council that negotiations “appear to have lost momentum,” with Russia and Ukraine unable or unwilling to agree on key steps forward or too distracted to focus on implementing the 2015 agreement.
Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia and Ukrainian Ambassador Volodymyr Yelchenko blamed each other for the failure to implement the agreement signed in the Belarus capital, Minsk.
Jenca, who is in charge of European affairs, stressed that the conflict in eastern Ukraine is not dormant. “It is a conflict in the heart of Europe which continues to claim victims,” he said.
Jenca said the main parties have committed to over a dozen cease-fires since the start of the conflict, but “each one was regrettably, short-lived.”
The Organization for Security and Cooperation’s monitoring mission in Ukraine reports that the military positions of both sides are coming closer to each other in the “gray areas” near the so-called “contact line,” he said. “The use of heavy weapons and their deployment in the proximity of the contact line is a reality.”
Ursula Mueller, the U.N.’s deputy humanitarian chief, said the conflict is causing severe humanitarian problems, noting that many of the 3.5 million people who need aid are elderly, women and children.
“Many are struggling to access schools, hospitals and other essential services,” she said. “Many have lost their jobs, homes, family members and friends.”
Mueller said the U.N. has appealed for $162 million this year to aid 2.3 million people.
Ertugrul Apakan, chief of the OSCE monitoring mission in Ukraine, told the council by video that many people use checkpoints in eastern Donetsk and Luhansk to receive pensions and see families separated by the conflict. Since December, he said, there have been “14 cases of people who died from natural causes while waiting at the checkpoints.”
Mueller said most of those who died this year were elderly. People wait for several hours in freezing temperatures to cross the contact line, and she urged better conditions and additional crossing points, especially in Luhansk where there is only one.
Before the meeting, eight former and current European Union members of the Security Council issued a joint statement urging humanitarian access to areas not under Ukrainian government control.
They called on Russia “to immediately stop fueling the conflict by providing financial and military support” to the separatists and reiterated their opposition to Moscow’s annexation of Crimea. Nonetheless, they said, they “remain convinced that a peaceful resolution of the conflict is possible.”
Nebenzia said Russia called the council meeting to discuss implementation of the 2015 agreement, declaring that the situation in southeastern Ukraine “remains explosive” with positions now “too close to each other at some locations.” He said Ukraine “comprehensively and consciously ignores and sabotages the Minsk agreements and our Western partners cover up for all of its unlawful acts.”
Ukraine’s Yelchenko countered that “it is only Russia and its ongoing military activity in the occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine as well as in Crimea that constitute for now an unsurmountable obstacle for the peaceful resolution of the conflict.”
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American whiskey makers are feeling the pain after their major overseas markets imposed hefty duties on their liquor in retaliation against President Donald Trump’s tariffs on aluminum imports.
U.S. global whiskey exports, which include rye and bourbons, recorded a nifty 28 percent year-over-year increase in the first six months 2018, the Distilled Spirits Council said on Tuesday.
But once levies from Canada, Mexico, China and the European Union took effect, the collective whiskey exports from 37 U.S. states fell by 8 percent in the period from July to November last year, compared with the same five months in 2017, according to the Washington-based industry trade group.
The tariff-induced drop wiped out the overseas sales gain the industry had enjoyed in the first half of 2018, the group’s data showed.
“Tariffs are starting to have a negative effect on exports,” Christine LoCascio, the group’s senior vice president of international trade, told a press conference. “Many of the small distillers have felt the effect on day one.”
In 2017, American whiskey producers exported $1.1 billion worth of their products. Nearly 60 percent was shipped to the EU, 12 percent to Canada and the rest to other countries, including China.
On the other hand, the distillers fared better at home.
In 2018, American whiskey rang up a 6.6 percent increase in revenues from a year earlier to $3.6 billion, the group’s data showed.
In the wake of the EU’s imposing 25 percent tariffs last June, U.S. whiskey exports fell 8.7 percent in the following five months, compared with the same period in 2017.
Canada’s 10 percent duties that took effect on July 1 resulted in an 8.3 percent sales decline in that country for American whiskey producers in the July-November period compared with the same period a year earlier, the group said.
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Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell traveled Tuesday to a historically black university in the Mississippi Delta to deliver a message that the nation’s prosperity has not been felt in many such areas around the country.
Powell said that many rural areas had been left out and needed special support, such as access to affordable credit to start small businesses and high-quality education to train workers.
In his comments, Powell did not address the future course of interest rates or the Fed’s decision last month to announce that it planned to be “patient” in its future interest rate hikes. That decision triggered a big stock market rally from investors worried that the Fed was in danger of pushing rates up so much it could bring on a recession.
Addressing the current economy, Powell said that economic output remained solid and he did not feel the possibility of a recession “is at all elevated.” He noted that unemployment is currently near a 50-year low.
“We know that prosperity has not been felt as much in some areas, including many rural places,” Powell said in an address to a conference on economic development at Mississippi Valley State University. “Poverty remains a challenge in many rural communities.”
He noted that 70 percent of the 473 counties in the United States designated as having persistent levels of poverty were in rural areas. Among the problems being faced in the Mississippi Delta, Powell said, were the loss of jobs in agriculture and low-skilled manufacturing because of automation and outsourcing of manufacturing jobs.
Powell said many rural communities have limited access to education resources.
“Mississippi is one of several mostly rural states where nearly half of residents lack access to good quality childcare, which is the main source of early childhood education,” Powell said.
Decades of research has shown that children who grow up in areas with better quality K-12 classes and with higher-quality teachers fare better later in life, Powell said. Rural areas also are at a disadvantage because of inadequate work training programs, he said.
“Rural areas where traditional industries are declining and where new employers may be moving in often experience a mismatch between the skills of local workers and those demanded by the new employers,” Powell said.
Powell also noted the impact from a long-term decline in the number of community banks due to consolidation in the industry. The Fed last year held discussions with community leaders in rural areas that had recently experienced the closure of a branch bank.
“We found that small businesses, older people and people with limited access to transportation are most affected,” Powell said.
He said the Fed had renewed its efforts to avoid unnecessary regulations on community banks to make sure federal rules were not contributing to the decline in community banks.
Asked about the Community Reinvestment Act, the 1977 law that requires the Fed and other federal banking regulators to encourage financial institutions to help meet the credit needs of low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, Powell said the Fed was committed to finding ways to provide better delivery of credit to under-served communities and not weaken the law.
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