An army of computer programmers scattered across the globe is set to attempt one of the biggest software upgrades the crypto sector has ever seen this week to reduce its environmentally unfriendly energy consumption.
Developers have spent years working on a more energy-efficient version of the ethereum blockchain, a digital ledger that underpins a multibillion-dollar ecosystem of cryptocurrencies, digital tokens (NFTs), games and apps.
Ethereum — the second most important blockchain after bitcoin — burns through more power each year than New Zealand.
Experts say the changeover, expected to take place between Tuesday and Thursday, would slash energy consumption by more than 99%.
Enthusiasts hope a greener ethereum will spur wider adoption, particularly as a way of enabling banks to automate transactions and other processes.
But so far the technology has been used largely to create speculative financial products.
The ING bank said in a recent note that the switchover might help ethereum gain acceptability among policymakers and regulators.
“This in turn may provide a boost to traditional financial institutions’ willingness to develop ethereum-based services,” the bank said.
The switchover, dubbed “the merge,” will change the way transactions are logged.
At the moment, so-called crypto miners use energy-guzzling rigs of computers to solve puzzles that reward them with new coins — a system known as “proof of work.”
The new system will get rid of those miners and their computer stacks overnight.
Instead, “validators” will have to put up 32 ether (worth about $55,000) — ethereum’s cryptocurrency — to participate in the new “proof of stake” system where they earn rewards for their work.
But the merge process will be risky.
Blockchain company Consensys called it a “monumental technological milestone” and the biggest update to ethereum since it was launched in 2015.
Critics have questioned whether such an upgrade will pass off without incident, given the sector’s history of instability.
Ethereum went offline in May for three hours when a new NFT project sparked a surge in buyers that overwhelmed the network.
Several exchanges and crypto companies said they would halt transactions during the merge process.
The upgrade also faces a possible rebellion from crypto mining companies whose business will be severely damaged.
They can try to hijack the process or create a “fork,” basically a smaller blockchain that would continue with the old mechanism.
And even if the “merge” is successful, ethereum will still face major hurdles before it can be more widely adopted.
For example, it is expensive to use and the update will not reduce fees.
And the wider crypto sector is beset by wildly fluctuating prices, security flaws and an array of scams.
Crypto lawyer Charles Kerrigan from the firm CMS told AFP that ethereum was “decentralized and complicated” and had not yet been tested enough for governments and banks to get onboard.
“There have been questions about how easily it could deal with upgrades of the type that traditional software vendors provide to customers,” he said. “A successful merge will answer those questions.”
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«Навмисні й цинічні ракетні удари по цивільній критичній інфраструктурі. Жодних військових об’єктів»
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The body of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II has been taken from Balmoral Castle in Scotland, where she died Thursday, to Edinburgh. Over the coming days, members of the public will have the opportunity to visit the coffin and pay their respects to Elizabeth, who held the British throne for seven decades.
The hearse, accompanied by royal officials and security personnel, left Balmoral Castle shortly before midday Sunday, the beginning of Elizabeth’s long and final journey to lay in peace.
Balmoral
The convoy tracked slowly through the majestic Scottish hills, a landscape treasured by the late monarch, where she spent her final peaceful weeks of life. In years past, the queen was frequently seen visiting these remote Scottish villages when she resided at Balmoral Castle, an area she loved – and she was well loved in return.
Residents gathered on the roadside to glimpse her for the last time and to say goodbye. The silence spoke of the shock that is still felt at her passing – and the respect in which the late queen was held in communities across Britain.
Some onlookers threw flowers as the hearse passed by; many in the crowd shed tears. Gentle ripples of applause followed as the convoy continued southward.
Emotional farewell
“We’ve known (her) for all our lives. So, it’s been the one constant thing in the whole of our lives – the queen,” said Stephanie Cook, a resident of the village of Ballater, close to Balmoral.
After a six-hour journey, the hearse crossed the River Forth toward the Scottish capital, Edinburgh. Along the Scottish capital’s Royal Mile, thousands waited to see the cortege.
Fiona Moffat traveled from Glasgow to witness the moment. She fought back tears as she described her emotions.
“A very historic moment. I am quite speechless actually. She was a lovely lady. Great mother, grandmother. She did well. I am very proud of her,” Moffat told The Associated Press.
Elaine Robertson, visiting Edinburgh from her home in Ayr on Scotland’s west coast, was also in tears. “I think it is just important to be here. Just important to say goodbye. She has been on the throne for a long time. So, yes, it means a lot,” Robertson said.
Lie in state
The coffin will lie in Edinburgh’s St. Giles Cathedral, where members of the public will be invited to pay their respects.
On Tuesday, the queen’s body will be flown to London. It will first be taken to Buckingham Palace, and then transferred in a public procession led by Elizabeth’s son, King Charles III, to the 11th-century Westminster Hall, where she will lie in state for four days. The hall will be open 23 hours a day for visitors. It will be guarded by soldiers from the royal household.
Tens of thousands of people are expected to travel to Westminster to pay their respects.
“She has been an exemplary head of state in terms of her devotion to her people and to her job,” said royal historian and author Robert Lacey. “And then I think the other thing to take away, which is inevitable in all these crowds and expressions of emotion, it’s the enduring command that the British monarchy holds over the emotions of people in Britain,” Lacey told The Associated Press.
The funeral is scheduled for Monday, September 19 at Westminster Abbey. The coffin will then be taken to Windsor for the committal service, where the queen’s husband, Prince Philip, was laid to rest in April 2021.
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Макрон назвав головним джерелом ризику ядерної катастрофи присутність російських військ і зброї на АЕС
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Теракт 11 вересня 2001 року став найбільшим в історії за кількістю жертв – тоді загинули приблизно три тисячі людей
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«Ті, хто сумнівався в силі України, повинні вибачитися», вважає Ґабріелюс Ландсберґіс
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Britain’s Queen Elizabeth begins her return to London when her coffin is transported more than 280 kilometers by hearse from Balmoral, where she died Thursday, to Edinburgh. The approximately six-hour journey to the Scottish capital passes through the towns of Aberdeen, Dundee and Perth. Thousands of mourners are lining roads to honor the monarch. Her body will lie at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. The funeral service for the late monarch will be held in London at Westminster Abbey on Sept. 19.
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At a remote Scottish boarding school, King Charles spent his formative years developing a passion for the arts and environment, and according to one letter home a biographer quoted, dealing with bullies and wishing he could go home.
Charles, the new British monarch, was 13 when in May 1962 he began attending Gordonstoun, a private school on the north coast of Scotland where his late father Prince Philip had also studied and wanted his son to go.
“For everybody at Gordonstoun, it’s a huge sense of pride to have been the first school to educate an heir to the British throne,” current Gordonstoun principal Lisa Kerr told Reuters.
“What’s more powerful for us is knowing that many of the attributes which Prince Charles takes forward as monarch were developed here at Gordonstoun.”
Earlier generations of British royal children, including Charles’ late mother Queen Elizabeth, had been educated by tutors at home.
Charles found aspects of life hard at a school that had rugged practices such as sending pupils on early morning runs followed by a cold shower.
Novelist William Boyd, whose time at the school overlapped with Charles, said the monarch had detested his time there. In a biography to which the now king gave his blessing, Jonathan Dimbleby described the royal’s time there as an “incarceration.”
“As an adult, the Prince of Wales would insist that the decision to send him to Gordonstoun, which at the time he regarded as a prison sentence,’ was in fact beneficial, instilling in him the self-discipline sense of responsibility without which he might have ‘drifted’,” Dimbleby wrote in “The Prince of Wales: A Biography.”
According to Dimbleby, Charles once wrote home saying: “The people in my dormitory are foul. They throw slippers all night long or hit me with pillows … I still wish I could come home.”
Charles’ son Harry also suggested it had negatively impacted on Charles, talking during a discussion on parenting about “the pain and suffering” his father had suffered.
“I never saw it, I never knew about it, and then suddenly I started to piece it all together and go OK, so this is where he went to school, this is what happened, I know this bit about his life, I also know that is connected to his parents so that means he’s treated me the way he was treated,” Harry said in a 2021 podcast interview.
However, Charles himself has suggested his schooling was not as bad as is sometimes portrayed, praising what it taught him.
“I am always astonished by the amount of rot talked about Gordonstoun and the careless use of ancient cliché’s used to describe it,” he told the House of Lords in 1975.
“It was only tough in the sense that it demanded more of you as an individual than most other schools did — either mentally or physically. I am lucky in that I believe it taught me a great deal about myself and my own abilities and disabilities. It taught me to accept challenges and take the initiative.”
‘Studious young man’
Asked if Charles had been happy, principal Kerr said: “I suppose everyone’s schooldays have their ups and downs, and it’s probably no surprise that the downs are more interesting from a media perspective.
“But interestingly, Prince Charles himself has said that he’s always astonished at the amount of rot talked about Gordonstoun … in many speeches, he’s talked about the really positive impact that his time here had on his life.”
Describing him as a “studious young man” who went on to study at Cambridge University, Kerr said Charles, who has visited the school since leaving in 1967, would have mixed with people from a whole range of backgrounds.
She said he had enjoyed music and drama, taking part in several school productions.
At the time, Gordonstoun was a boys-only school and girls from a nearby high school joined their casts. One of those involved recalls the thrill of being on stage with the heir to the throne.
“Just to be involved in the Gordonstoun production was always exciting … And then when we discovered that Prince Charles was going to be involved too … it did make it more exciting,” said retired PE teacher Alison Stockley.
“We were quite used to him being up here. He was seen in shops. He was involved in other things in the community … We knew he was very musical.”
Stockley acted alongside Charles in shows including “The Pirates of Penzance”, in which Charles played the Pirate King.
“He carried it off very well,” she said. “[He was] just one of the boys … He just joined in as we all did.”
Since its foundation in 1934 by German educator Kurt Hahn, Gordonstoun students have got involved with the local community and Charles was a member of the coastguard, where he kept watch along the Moray coast.
The new British king is not the only famous alumnus from the school. Late actor Sean Connery and late singer David Bowie sent their sons to Gordonstoun.
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Росіяни, які зазнають репресій з боку влади, можуть подати заяву на притулок як біженці, а не їздити в Європу як туристи, каже президент Латвії
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Раніше Генштаб ЗСУ повідомив, що триває звільнення населених пунктів Куп’янського та Ізюмського районів Харківської області
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Britain’s new King Charles III is a committed environmentalist with a long history of campaigning for better conservation, organic farming and tackling climate change, which is likely to sit well with more eco-conscious younger Britons.
Interspersed between photos of official meetings and other royal duties, his Instagram account as Prince of Wales typically featured pictures showing him furthering environmental causes in Britain and beyond.
They included planting trees, showing off organic fruit and vegetables from his Clarence House residence and colorful flowers growing in the garden at his beloved Highgrove House in Gloucestershire, western England.
One photo even captured Charles — who has now passed the prince of Wales title to his son and heir William — on a visit to threatened mangrove swamps in St. Vincent and Grenadines in the Caribbean.
When Britain hosted the COP26 climate summit in Scotland last year, he gave the opening speech, urging world leaders seated in front of him to redouble their efforts to confront global warming and warning: “Time has quite literally run out.”
Since his first big public speech on the subject in 1970, Charles has “been raising awareness about all aspects of the environment for a very long time,” said Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
“In many ways he has been ahead of the public awareness and political awareness” on the issue, he told AFP.
Sustainability
At Highgrove, Charles has cultivated a garden, which is open to the public, as well as a fully organic farm.
It initially left some neighboring farmers skeptical but has gradually become a successful business and sells its produce under the “Duchy Organic” brand in the high-end supermarket chain Waitrose.
“His Royal Highness has taken many steps personally to live in a more sustainable way,” his official website for his tenure as prince of Wales said.
It noted about 90% of energy for office and domestic use now came from renewable sources, with around half that generated from on-site renewable sources such as solar panels, biomass boilers and heat pumps and the remainder from electricity and gas purchased from renewable sources.
For several years Charles has published his annual carbon footprint — including unofficial travel — which amounted to 490 tons in the year to March 2022.
His car, an Aston Martin owned for more than 50 years, has been modified to run on surplus English white wine and whey from the cheesemaking process.
It runs on a mixture of 8% bioethanol and 15% unleaded petrol.
The monarch has been president of the WWF-UK animal charity since 2011, emulating his late father, Prince Philip, who performed the same role from 1981-96.
He is also the patron of several other associations, such as “Surfers Against Sewage,” and made numerous speeches warning of the disappearance of biodiversity.
More recently, in April, he wrote an article for Newsweek magazine — and also graced its cover — headlined “our children are judging us.”
Sensitive
His vocal stances on issues including the environment have prompted some criticism that he is departing from constitutional norms which see the royal family remain politically neutral at all times.
Charles has repeatedly vowed to remain true to constitutional practices, as recently as this week when he ascended to the throne.
But he may not see environmental and conservation causes as overtly political.
“He would be very sensitive as a head of state,” predicted Ward.
“He must be very careful about being seen to act in a way that might be seen as putting pressure on the government. But I don’t expect him not to speak at all.”
Ruby Wright, a 42-year-old illustrator who came to Buckingham Palace to pay her respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, said on Friday that she hopes “he sticks to his guns.”
“I think he needs to be more modest and really push the environmental agenda and make that his legacy,” she told AFP.
“I know he’s not allowed to be political at all but this isn’t politics. This is the future of humanity.”
Laura Beirne, a 30-year-old fashion designer, agreed. “I think it’s positive he supports the environment. That’s important, I think, for my generation.”
As king, he will have less time for his passions of gardening and farming. He admitted in an interview in 1986 that he talked to plants, attracting some mockery.
But the baton has already been passed to his son William, who shares his commitment to the environment.
Last year William created the Earthshot prize, which rewards projects that propose solutions to the climate crisis.
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A passenger train and freight train collided Friday night in central Croatia, killing at least three people and injuring another 11 or more, authorities said.
The collision happened around 9:30 p.m. near the town of Novska, which is close to Croatia’s border with Bosnia, police said in a statement.
“The impact was huge,” said Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, who rushed to the scene with other government officials.
Plenkovic confirmed that so far the bodies of three people were found at the site of the accident, but he said more victims could still be found.
The injured have been hospitalized, some with serious injuries but none in life-threatening condition, he added.
“It’s nighttime, there is no light, we don’t know at the moment if there are more victims,” said Plenkovic.
The cause of the collision was not immediately clear.
The passenger train was a local line carrying 13 people, while only the engine driver was in the freight train, said Plenkovic. He said foreign citizens were among the injured.
Officials said both trains were pushed off the rails after the collision. An investigation has been launched to determine what caused the collision.
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Sweden is holding an election Sunday to elect lawmakers to the 349-seat Riksdag as well as to local offices across the nation of 10 million. Early voting began Aug. 24. Here are some key things to know about the vote.
What is at stake?
Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson is fighting to keep her center-left Social Democrats at the helm of a left-wing coalition but is facing a strong challenge from the right.
Sweden is known for being a cradle-to-grave welfare society and Andersson would like to preserve the social protections that have long defined Sweden, and reverse some of the market-oriented changes by an earlier government. Her party feels that some of the changes, like state subsidies going to private schools, are creating greater inequalities.
The once-mighty Social Democrats have been in power since 2014. But as the party’s popularity has sunk, it has presided over a weak government that relies more on other parties to pass laws, creating political instability for the past eight years.
Who is likely to win?
There are two major blocs: one with four parties on the left and another with four on the right. The polls leading up to the election say it is impossible to predict.
“It’s basically a coin toss. It’s 50-50 between the two different sides,” Zeth Isaksson, a sociologist in electoral behavior at Stockholm University, said Saturday.
Under Swedish law, the party that wins the most seats forms the next government. Polls show this is likely to be Andersson’s party, which will need to create a coalition with other parties.
But if the left has a poor showing, she might not be able to form a coalition. In that case, the baton would be passed to the second-largest party to try to form a government.
Which party is in the No. 2 spot?
In the last election in 2018, the Moderates led by Ulf Kristersson, a center-right party, won the second-highest number of seats. The conservative party promotes a market economy, lower taxes and a smaller role for government in a country with a generous welfare state supported by high taxes.
But like the Social Democrats and other mainstream parties across Europe, the Moderates have also seen their popularity decline amid a populist challenge coming from further right.
Who are the populists?
The Sweden Democrats, a populist right-wing party that takes a hard line on immigration and crime, first entered parliament in 2010 and has been growing steadily ever since.
The party won 13% of the vote in 2018, becoming the third-largest force in parliament. Polls show it is likely to improve on that showing Sunday.
Some Swedes compare the party to Trump-style populism and note it was founded by far-right extremists decades ago. They do not trust it in its reported transformation to a more traditional conservative party.
The party is led by Jimmie Akesson, a 43-year-old former web designer who has been the driving force in trying to moderate the party’s image.
The party has clearly tapped into the social mood, however, and other parties have been moving closer to its positions, as many Swedes believe that they can no longer bear the costs of the country’s generous refugee policies and are seeking a crackdown on crime.
Once a pariah, other conservative parties have grown increasingly willing to deal with the Sweden Democrats.
Andersson told reporters Saturday that “the rise of the far right” was partly the fault of the right-wing opposition, which she said, “spent so much time and effort to try to convince people that the Sweden Democrats aren’t the party that they actually are.”
How serious is crime in Sweden?
Some immigrants have had difficulties assimilating into Swedish society, leading to segregated neighborhoods with high crime rates.
Gang violence mostly takes place among criminal networks dealing drugs or involved in other illicit activity. But there have been recent cases of innocent bystanders being hurt. So far this year, 48 people have been killed by firearms in Sweden, three more than in all of 2021.
The fears triggered by shootings and explosions in disadvantaged neighborhoods have made crime one of the most pressing issues for Swedish voters.
“Shootings and explosions of bombs have increased in the last few years and (this violence) is now considered a great social problem,” said Anders Sannerstedt, a political scientist at Lund University in southern Sweden.
The gender factor
Andersson became Sweden’s first female prime minister less than a year ago — a milestone late in coming for a country that in many ways is an example of gender equality.
“I was really proud,” said Ulrika Hoonk, a 39-year-old who voted early in Stockholm on Friday, saying it took “far too long” for that to happen.
Polls show that Andersson’s party is especially popular with women, with men tending to vote more conservative.
Even though Andersson is the first prime minister, there are still many women represented in positions of authority. Four party leaders are women, and one party has a woman and a man sharing the leadership. In parliament, the gender balance has long been split roughly 50-50.
Several women voters interviewed this week said that finally having a woman in the top leadership job was very important for them, and one factor they considered when choosing which party to support.
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«Попереду 90 днів, які вирішать більше, ніж 30 років незалежності України. 90 днів, які вирішать більше, ніж усі роки існування Європейського союзу. Зима визначить наше майбутнє»
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