На українському міжбанківському валютному ринку гривня залишається щодо долара США на рівні закриття торгів 22 липня. Опівдні котирування досягли рівня 25 гривень 65-67 копійок за долар – після ранкового посилення до 25 гривень 59-62 копійок, свідчать дані сайту «Мінфін».

Національний банк України встановив на 12:00 довідкове значення курсу на рівні 25 гривень 62 копійки за долар, це на дві копійки менше за офіційний курс на сьогодні.

Дворічного максимуму щодо долара США українська гривня досягла 10 липня. На той день НБУ встановив офіційний курс 25 гривень 49 копійок за одиницю американської валюти.
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Київський апеляційний суд задовольнив позов «Ощадбанку» і дозволив виконати рішення Міжнародного комерційного арбітражу щодо стягнення 1,1 мільярда доларів з Росії як компенсацію за вилучення українських активів в окупованому Криму. Відповідне рішення було ухвалене 17 липня, однак в Єдиному реєстрі його опублікували тільки 22 липня.

Своїм рішенням суд підтвердив вирок Міжнародного комерційного арбітражу у Парижі від 26 листопада 2018 року.

Київський суд також видав виконавчі листи про стягнення з Росії не лише вказаної суми, але й відсотків, що нараховуються з березня 2014 року.

Міжнародні організації визнали окупацію й анексію Криму незаконними і засудили дії Росії. Країни Заходу запровадили економічні санкції. Росія заперечує анексію півострова і називає це «відновленням історичної справедливості». Верховна Рада України офіційно оголосила датою початку тимчасової окупації Криму і Севастополя Росією 20 лютого 2014 року.
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Haitian Prime Minister Jean Michel Lapin resigned on Monday, according to a high-ranking government official who asked not to be named, presenting a shakeup at the highest levels of government in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation.

President Jovenel Moïse also wrote in a post on Twitter that a new prime minister will be announced shortly, saying he had been in consultations with congressional leaders about the matter.

Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste first reported on Monday that Lapin had offered his resignation to Moïse.

“I have made a choice for Haiti,” Lapin said in an interview with the newspaper.

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Strains of malaria resistant to two key anti-malarial medicines are becoming more dominant in Vietnam, Laos and northern Thailand after spreading rapidly from Cambodia, scientists warned Monday.

Using genomic surveillance to track the spread of drug-resistant malaria, the scientists found that the strain, known as KEL1/PLA1, has also evolved and picked up new genetic mutations which may make it yet more resistant to drugs.

“We discovered [it] had spread aggressively, replacing local malaria parasites, and had become the dominant strain in Vietnam, Laos and northeastern Thailand,” said Roberto Amato, who worked with a team from Britain’s Wellcome Sanger Institute and Oxford University and Thailand’s Mahidol University.

Malaria is caused by Plasmodium parasites which are carried by mosquitoes and spread through their blood-sucking bites.

Almost 220 million people were infected with malaria in 2017, according to World Health Organization estimates, and the disease killed 400,000 of them. The vast majority of cases and deaths are among babies and children in sub-Saharan Africa.

Malaria can be successfully treated with medicines if it’s caught early enough, but resistance to anti-malarial drugs is growing in many parts of the world, especially in Southeast Asia.

The first-line treatment for malaria in many parts of Asia in the last decade has been a combination of dihydroartemisinin and piperaquine, also known as DHA-PPQ. Researchers found in previous work that a strain of malaria had evolved and spread across Cambodia between 2007 and 2013. This latest research, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal, found it has crossed borders and tightened its grip.

“The speed at which these resistant malaria parasites have spread in Southeast Asia is very worrying,” said Olivo Miotto, who co-led the work.

“Other drugs may be effective at the moment, but the situation is extremely fragile and this study highlights that urgent action is needed,” he said.

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The lights have gone out across much of Venezuela, snarling traffic in the capital and reviving fears of the blackouts that plunged the country into chaos a few months ago.

The power in the capital went out after 4 p.m. (2000 GMT) and immediately backed up traffic as stop lights and the subway stopped working during rush hour.

“This is horrible, a disaster,” Reni Blanco, a 48-year-old teacher, said as she joined a crush of people who flooded into the streets of the capital trying to make it home before nightfall.

Authorities have yet to comment and it was unclear the scale of the outage.

But there were reports on social media that 19 of 24 Venezuelan states were also affected. Netblocks, a group monitoring internet activity, said network data showed most of Venezuela was knocked offline with national connectivity at just 6% after the latest cuts. The normally non-stop state TV channel, a key way for the government to keep people informed, was also off the air, leaving frustrated Venezuelans to wonder how long they would be left in the dark.

Blackouts roiled the country in March, leaving much of the capital without power and water for almost a week. President Nicolas Maduro blamed the outage on a U.S.-sponsored “electromagnetic attack” against the nation’s biggest hydroelectric dam. More recently, as power service in the politically crucial capital has improved amid widespread rationing in the interior, officials have even taken to downplaying the outages as similar to recent ones in Argentina and even one that knocked off the power for several thousand residents of Manhattan for a few hours amid the summer heat.

But his opponents said the outage laid bare years of underinvestment in the nation’s grid by corrupt officials who mismanaged an oil bonanza in the nation sitting atop the world’s largest crude reserves.

“They tried to hide the tragedy by rationing supplies across the country, but their failure is evident: they destroyed the system and they don’t have answers,” opposition leader Juan Guaido said on Twitter.

Guaido, who the U.S. and more than 50 other nations recognize as Venezuela’s rightful leader, reiterated an earlier call for nationwide protests on Tuesday.

“We Venezuelans won’t grow accustomed to this,” he said.

Much of the government’s focus since the March blackouts has been  on repairing transmission lines near the Guri Dam, which provides about 80 percent of Venezuela’s electricity.

Jose Aguilar, a power expert who lives in the U.S. but hails from Venezuela, said that alternative power plants running on diesel fuel and gas are unable to make up the difference.

“Venezuela simply doesn’t have enough megawatts available,” he said on Twitter. “Any failure shuts down the entire system.”

Despite the risks of another extended collapse, some Venezuelans were taking the blackout in stride.

Cristian Sandoval, a 37-year-old owner of a motorcycle repair business, said he is more prepared for a prolonged outage having equipped his home with a water tanks and a generator for his worship. As Venezuela’s crisis deepens, the sale of electric generators is one of the few growth industries in a country ravaged by six-digit inflation and cratering public services.

“If the blackout continues we’ll have another round of dessert,” he chuckled while sharing a piece of chocolate cake with a friend at a cafeteria growing steadily dark as the night began to fall.

“But it’s very difficult for the people,” he conceded. “This creates a lot of discomfort.”

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Президент України Володимир Зеленський підписав зказ «Про заходи щодо протидії рейдерству», повідомили в Офісі президента.

«Питання рейдерства стало одним із найболючіших для бізнесу. За різними оцінками, протягом останніх шести років відбулося понад три тисячі захоплень. Зазвичай це зміна власника через підробку документів, через реєстраторів, яких не існує, або «дірки» у реєстрі. Схеми різні, а суть одна. Сьогоднішнє рішення – це реальний крок, щоб покласти цьому край», – повідомив заступник керівника Офісу президента Олексій Гончарук.

За його словами, указ, серед іншого, передбачає розробку та ухвалення найближчим часом законопроекту про зміни до програмного забезпечення державних реєстрів, що «істотно зменшить ризики та частоту рейдерства», додав Гончарук.

У червні сервіс Опендатабот (портал з моніторингу реєстраційних даних українських компаній та судового реєстру для захисту від рейдерських захоплень – ред.) повідомляв, що щорічно в Україні відбувається близько 400 рейдерських атак, лідерами за кількістю є Київ і Київська область. Всього, за даними сервісу, за останні сім років в Україні відбулося 3242 рейдерських захоплень.
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Президент України Володимир Зеленський підписав указ про розвиток регіону українських Карпат.

Як йдеться на сайті Офісу президента, указ підписаний «з метою стимулювання соціально-економічного розвитку, підвищення інвестиційної привабливості, розбудови рекреаційного, туристичного та етнокультурного потенціалу регіону українських Карпат».

Згідно з документом, уряд має у двомісячний термін затвердити програму розвитку Карпат до 2022 року і передбачити в бюджеті на «наступні роки».

Повідомляється, що указ набирає чинності з дня його опублікування.

На початку квітня уряд схвалив Концепцію розвитку гірських територій українських Карпат, яка покликана сприяти збільшенню кількості робочих місць, підвищенню транспортної та інформаційної доступності гірських територій, охороні довкілля тощо.

 
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На українському міжбанківському валютному ринку 22 липня гривня посилюється щодо долара США. Станом на 13:00 торги відбуваються на рівні 25 гривень 63-66 копійок за одиницю американської валюти, свідчать дані сайту «Мінфін».

Національний банк України опівдні встановив довідкове значення курсу 25 гривень 64 копійки за долар. Це на 18 копійок менше за офіційний курс на 22 липня і на 15 копійок більше за дворічний максимум, встановлений 10 липня.

Валютний ринок позитивно відреагував на результати парламентських виборів в Україні, за результатами яких пропрезидентська партія «Слуга народу» може самостійно сформувати більшість.
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The party of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy won the most votes in Sunday’s parliamentary election giving the president a mandate to carry out sweeping changes in the country beset by conflict and high-level corruption. The former comedian and TV celebrity won a landslide victory in the April 21 presidential election and has called for snap elections to gain parliamentary support.  His party, Servant of the People, is named after his popular TV show, which satirized government corruption. Another new party, Voice, is headed by Ukraine’s most popular singer. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke rports the two may join to form a ruling coalition.

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From mobile phones, tablets and laptop computers to all the different types of social media out there, modern day society as a whole is distracted in a way it never has before.  Scientists have noticed that as technology becomes more prevalent, people are also getting fatter.  VOA’s Elizabeth has the details on a Rice University study examining whether there is a link between technology habits and obesity.

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Education has been a key issue for Democratic candidates running for president in the 2020 race, especially as they seek the support of younger Americans who have now replaced Baby Boomers as the country’s largest voting bloc. But education is not the only concern for these young voters.  Other social issues are likely to motivate them to go to the polls in 2020.  Sahar Majid has more in this report for VOA narrated by Kathleen Struck. 
 

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India will make a second attempt Monday to send a landmark spacecraft to the Moon after an apparent fuel leak forced last week’s launch to be aborted.

The South Asian nation is bidding to become just the fourth nation — after Russia, the United States and China — to land a spacecraft on the Moon.

The mission comes 50 years after Neil Armstrong became the first person to step foot on the moon, an occasion celebrated by space enthusiasts globally on Saturday.

The fresh launch attempt for Chandrayaan-2 — Moon Chariot 2 in some Indian languages including Sanskrit and Hindi — has been scheduled for 2:43 pm (0913 GMT) on Monday, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said.

“Chandrayaan 2 is ready to take a billion dreams to the Moon – now stronger than ever before!” it said on Thursday.

The first launch attempt was scrubbed just under an hour before the scheduled lift-off because of what authorities described as a “technical snag.” Local media, citing ISRO officials, said that issue was a fuel leak.

The agency tweeted Saturday that a rehearsal for the launch was completed successfully.

Chandrayaan-2 will be launched atop a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) MkIII, India’s most powerful rocket.

Experts said setbacks were to be expected in such missions given their complexity, and that it was more prudent to delay the launch instead of taking risks that may jeopardise the project.

“In such an ambitious and prestigious mission like Chandrayaan, one cannot take a chance even if a small flaw is detected,” Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, head of space policy at the New Delhi think tank the Observer Research Foundation, told AFP.

Former NASA scientist Kumar Krishen said India’s space agency should be praised for taking on ambitious projects like Chandrayaan-2.

“We should keep in mind that space exploration is risky as many systems have failed in the past and many lives lost,” he told AFP.

National pride

Aside from propelling India into rarefied company among spacefaring nations, Chandrayaan-2 also stands out because of its low cost.

About $140 million has been spent on preparations for the mission, a much smaller price tag compared with similar missions by other countries — whose costs often run into billions of dollars.

Chandrayaan-2, and India’s space program as a whole, are a source of national pride in India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has outlined an ambitious plan to launch a crewed space mission by 2022, and India hopes to seek out commercial satellite and orbiting deals.

The new mission comes almost 11 years after the launch of India’s first lunar mission — Chandrayaan-1 — which orbited the Moon and searched for water.

The rocket carrying Chandrayaan-2 will launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, an island off the coast of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.

The spacecraft will carry an orbiter, lander and a rover, which has been almost entirely designed and made in India.

The orbiter is planned to circle the Moon for about one year, imaging the surface and studying the atmosphere.

The lander, named Vikram, will head to the surface near the lunar South Pole carrying the rover. Once it touches down, the rover will carry out experiments while being controlled remotely by ISRO scientists.

It is expected to work for one lunar day, the equivalent of 14 Earth days, and will look for signs of water and “a fossil record of the early solar system”.

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As drought-hit towns across New South Wales and Queensland edge closer to completely running out of water, federal and state governments in Australia are trying to come up with ways to guarantee supplies into the future. But on the other side of the continent, the city of Perth is leagues ahead in its water efficiency following a long-term decline in rainfall. Part of its survival plan relies on recycled water from toilets, a move that many consumers elsewhere still consider to be unpalatable.

Since 2017, residents in the Western Australian city of Perth have been drinking water recycled from sewage. It is filtered using a process called reverse osmosis, which is similar to forcing water through a giant sponge. It is then disinfected with ultra-violet light at a treatment plant, pumped into natural aquifers, and extracted.

Perth is a city of two million people, and Clare Lugar from Western Australia’s Water Corporation said it has had to get used to climatic changes.

“We know from the mid-70s onwards Perth’s rainfall has been declining by about 20 percent, and that has had a huge impact on our water sources that are dependent on the climate.”

Lugar said convincing residents of the benefits of drinking recycled sewage did take time.

“So, it is only a small percentage of the water that comes into the plant is actually from our toilets. But getting over that perception, that kind of image you might be drinking the water that you flushing down the toilet – that was probably one of our big challenges initially,” said Lugar.

Two desalination plants supply about half of Perth’s water. Aquifers are also crucial, but recycling produces only two percent of the total. But that figure is soon expected to rise.

Ian Wright, an expert in environmental science at Western Sydney University, believes other parts of Australia should embrace recycling.

“In Sydney that is probably 150 liters per day per person of waste water that is completely wasted, and, yes, we have the availability of desalination on the coast, but Canberra does not have desalination and then the poor drought-stricken towns like Tamworth and Dubbo, and Broken Hill, they could really, really use that now,” he said.

Australia is the world’s driest inhabited continent. Water is precious, and, in many places, scarce. More than 95 percent of New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, is officially in drought, and the next three months are forecast to be drier than average.

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British Treasury chief Philip Hammond said Sunday that he will quit if _ as widely expected — Boris Johnson becomes prime minister this week on a promise to leave the European Union with or without a divorce deal.
 
Hammond said Johnson’s vow to press for a no-deal Brexit if he can’t secure a new agreement with the EU is “not something that I could ever sign up to.”
 
Hammond was almost certain to be removed from office by the new leader in any case. He has angered Brexit-backers, who now dominate the governing Conservative Party, with his warnings about the economic pain that leaving the EU could cause.
 
Hammond told the BBC that if Johnson wins, “I’m not going to be sacked because I’m going to resign before we get to that point.”
 
Johnson is the strong favorite to win a two-person runoff to lead the Conservative Party and the country. The winner is being announced Tuesday, with the victor taking over from Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday.
 
Britain is due to leave the EU on Oct. 31 but Parliament has repeatedly rejected the divorce deal struck between May and the bloc. Both Johnson and his rival Jeremy Hunt, the current foreign secretary, say they will leave the EU without an agreement if the EU won’t renegotiate.
 
Most economists say quitting the 28-nation bloc without a deal would cause Britain economic turmoil. The U.K.’s official economic watchdog has forecast that a no-deal Brexit would trigger a recession, with the pound plummeting in value, borrowing soaring by 30 billion pounds ($37 billion) and the economy shrinking 2% in a year.
 
But Johnson, who helped lead the “leave” campaign in Britain’s 2016 EU membership referendum, says a no-deal Brexit will be “vanishingly inexpensive” if the country prepares properly.
 
The EU insists it won’t reopen the 585-page divorce deal it struck with May.
 
Irish Deputy Prime Minister Simon Coveney said Sunday that the bloc is “simply not going to move away from the Withdrawal Agreement.”
 
“If the approach of the new British prime minister is that they’re going to tear up the Withdrawal Agreement, then I think we’re in trouble,” he told the BBC. “We’re all in trouble, quite frankly, because it’s a little bit like saying: ‘Either give me what I want or I’m going to burn the house down for everybody.'”
 
Hammond is the third U.K. minister within a week to quit or say they will resign in order to try to prevent a cliff-edge Brexit. Britain looks set for a fall showdown between the new Conservative government and British lawmakers determined to thwart a no-deal exit.
 
“I am confident that Parliament does have a way of preventing a no-deal exit on October 31 without parliamentary consent and I intend to work with others to ensure parliament uses its power to make sure that the new government can’t do that,” Hammond said.
 

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