Довідковий курс гривні до долара станом на 12 годину дня 12 серпня становить 25,15 гривні за даними Національного банку.

Водночас 9 серпня довідковий курс становив 25,07 копійок. Таким чином, за цим показником гривня ослабла на 8 копійок.

За даними сайту «Мінфін», торги на міжбанківському ринку 12 серпня почалися з позначки 25,23 гривні за долар при купівлі, станом на 12 годину цей показник становить 25,14 гривні.

Водночас офіційний курс гривні порівняно з п’ятницею зміцнився на 22 копійки.

На 1 серпня НБУ встановив найвищий за останні три з половиною роки курс гривні до долара – 25,02 за одиницю американської валюти.
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In the United States town of Warrenton, Virginia there is a farmers market where people do their shopping and pay with what they have. Yahya Barzinji of VOA’s Kurdish Service visited the market. His story is narrated by VOA’s Kevin Enochs. 

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In one of her first moves as Puerto Rico’s new governor, Wanda Vazquez announced late Sunday that she is suspending a pending $450,000 contract that is part of the program to rebuild and strengthen the island’s power grid, which was destroyed by Hurricane Maria.

Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority, which is more than $9 billion in debt, had been expected to sign the contract with Stantec, a consulting firm based in Canada. Vazquez did not explain why she was suspending the deal, saying only that transparency is a priority for her administration. 

“We are evaluating all government contracts, no exceptions,” said Vazquez, who on Wednesday became Puerto Rico’s third governor in a week following popular protests over government corruption and mismanagement. “There is no room in this administration for unreasonable expenses.”

A Stantec official based in Puerto Rico did not respond to a request for comment.

However, a power company spokesman emailed a statement to The Associated Press saying that PREPA executive director Jose Ortiz planned to meet with Vazquez on Monday to explain why it was important to sign the contract. Ortiz said the contract has to be submitted before Oct. 6 so the U.S. territory can obtain federal hurricane recovery funds.

It is unclear whether Vazquez’s move will delay efforts to rebuild and bolster the power grid, which remains fragile and is prone to outages that have exasperated many of the island’s 3.2 million people. Power company spokesman Jorge Burgos said that he had no further details and that more information would be released after Monday’s meeting.

Puerto Rico’s power company has awarded several multimillion-dollar contracts since the Category 4 storm hit on Sept. 20, 2017, and many of those deals have come under intense scrutiny, with some being cancelled. Currently, Mammoth Energy Services’ subsidiary Cobra Acquisitions, which has some $1.8 billion in contracts with the power company, is facing a federal investigation.

Economist Jose Caraballo said he hopes Vazquez’s announcement is the first of more changes to come.

“I hope this isn’t a smoke screen and that there’s a real audit,” he said in a phone interview. “That’s what all these people who have lost trust in the government expect.”

Puerto Rico has been mired in political turmoil, with then-Gov. Ricardo Rossello resigning Aug. 2 following large protests. The island’s Supreme Court then ruled that his replacement was illegally sworn in, which left Vazquez, the justice secretary, next in line to become governor. The U.S. territory also is struggling to emerge from a 13-year recession and trying to restructure some of its more than $70 billion public debt load. 

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Conservative candidate Alejandro Giammattei has won the presidential runoff election in Guatemala. 

The election commission said late Sunday that with more than 90% of the polling places counted, Giammattei had won nearly 60% of the vote.  His opponent, former first lady Sandra Torres garnered 40%. 

Just moments after declaring victory, Giammattei said he would seek to revise a deal that current president Jimmy Morales made with U.S. President Donald Trump, requiring Hondurans and Salvadorans to seek asylum in Guatemala when crossing through the country to reach the U.S.  It will be up to Guatemala’s new president, who takes office in January, to sign or nullify the agreement.

The controversial migration pact is highly unpopular in Guatemala.  

Giammattei is a 63-year-old doctor.  He has campaigned for the presidency three times before this year, finally winning it on his fourth run. 

His opponent Torres is a business woman who has operated a textile and apparel company.  She married and divorced former President Alvaro Colom who was Guatemala’s president from 2008 to 2012.  

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Tanzania was in mourning Sunday, preparing to bury 69 people who perished when a crashed fuel tanker exploded as crowds rushed to syphon off leaking petrol.

President John Magufuli declared a period of mourning through Monday following the deadly blast near the town of Morogoro, west of Dar es Salaam.

He will be represented at the funerals by Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa, an official statement said.

“We’re currently mourning the loss of 69 people, the last of whom died while being transferred by helicopter to the national hospital in Dar es Salaam,” Majaliwa told residents in comments broadcast on Tanzanian television.

The number of injured stood at 66, he said.

The burials will start Sunday afternoon, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Jenista Mhagama announced during the morning after relatives identified the dead.

“The preparations for the burials have been completed. Individual graves have been dug and the coffins are ready,” Mhagama said, adding that experts would be available to offer psychological counselling to the victims’ relatives.

DNA tests would be carried out on bodies that were no longer recognizable, Mhagama said, adding that families could take the remains of their loved ones and organize their own burials if they preferred.

In the latest in a series of similar disasters in Africa, 39 seriously hurt patients had been taken to hospital in Dar es Salaam while 17 others were being treated in Morogoro, 200 kilometers (125 miles) west of the economic capital of Tanzania.

Footage from the scene showed the truck engulfed in flames and huge clouds of black smoke, with charred bodies. The burnt-out remains of motorcycle taxis lie scattered on the ground among scorched trees.

A video posted on social media showed dozens of people carrying yellow jerricans around the truck.

‘No-one wanted to listen’

“We arrived at the scene with two neighbors just after the truck was overturned. While some good Samaritans were trying to get the driver and the other two people out of the truck, others were jostling each other, equipped with jerricans, to collect petrol,” teacher January Michael told AFP.

“At the same time, someone was trying to pull the battery out of the vehicle. We warned that the truck could explode at any moment but no one wanted to listen, so we went on our way, but we had barely turned on our heels when we heard the explosion.”

President Magufuli called Saturday for people to stop the dangerous practice of stealing fuel in such a way, a common event in many poor parts of Africa.

He issued a statement saying he was “very shocked” by the looting of fuel from damaged vehicles.

“There are vehicles that carry dangerous fuel oil, as in this case in Morogoro, there are others that carry toxic chemicals or explosives, let’s stop this practice, please,” Magufuli said.

Last month, 45 people were killed and more than 100 injured in central Nigeria when a petrol tanker crashed and then exploded as people tried to take the fuel.

Among the deadliest such disasters, 292 people lost their lives in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in July 2010, and in September 2015 at least 203 people died the South Sudan town of Maridi.

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Myanmar troops and emergency responders scrambled to provide aid in flood-hit parts of the country Sunday after rising waters forced residents to flee by boat and a landslide killed at least 52 people.

Every year monsoon rains hammer Myanmar and other countries across Southeast Asia, submerging homes, displacing residents and triggering landslides.

But this season’s deluge has tested disaster response after a fatal landslide on Friday in southeastern Mon state was followed by heavy flooding that reached the roofs of houses and treetops in nearby towns.

Hundreds of soldiers, firefighters and local rescue workers were still pulling bodies and vehicles out of the muddy wreckage of Paung township on Sunday.

“The latest death toll we have from the landslide in Mon state was 52,” Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun told AFP.

As the rainy season reaches its peak, the country’s armed forces are pitching in and have readied helicopters to deliver supplies.

“Access to affected regions is still good. Our ground forces can reach the areas so far,” Zaw Min Tun said.

Heavy rains pounded other parts of Mon, Karen and Kachin states, flooding roads and destroying bridges that crumbled under the weight of the downpour.

But the bulk of the relief effort is focused on hard-hit Mon, which sits on the coast of the Andaman sea.

About two-thirds of the state’s Ye township remained flooded, an administrator said, as drone footage showed only the tops of houses, tree branches and satellite dishes poking above the waters.

‘We thought we were dead’

Families realized they had to leave in the early hours Sunday, packing possessions into boats, rowing towards higher ground or swimming away.

Than Htay, a 40-year-old from Ye town, told AFP that water rose to their waists around 02:00 am and she and her family members started shouting for help.

The heavy rains muffled their pleas but a boat happened to pass by and gave them a ride.

“That’s why we survived. We thought we were dead,” she said.

Another resident said this year’s flooding was the worst they had experienced.

Floodwaters have submerged more than 4,000 houses in the state and displaced more than 25,000 residents who have sought shelter in monasteries and pagodas, according to state-owned Global New Light of Myanmar.

Vice President Henry Van Thio visited landslide survivors in a Paung township village on Saturday and “spoke of his sorrow” while promising relief, the paper reported.

The search for victims continued later Sunday though the rain has made the process more difficult.

“We are still working. We will continue searching in the coming days as well,” Paung township administrator Zaw Moe Aung said.

Climate scientists in 2015 ranked Myanmar at the top of a global list of nations hardest hit by extreme weather.

That year more than 100 people died in floods that also displaced hundreds of thousands.

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Syrian government forces captured an important village in the northwestern province of Idlib on Sunday, drawing close to a major town in the last rebel stronghold in the country, state media and opposition activists said.

 The capture of Habeet opens up an approach to southern regions of Idlib, which is home to some 3 million people, many of them displaced by fighting in other parts of the country. Habeet is also close to the town of Khan Sheikhoun, which has been held by rebels since 2012, and to parts of the highway linking the capital, Damascus, with the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest.
 
Syrian troops have been trying to secure the M5 highway, which has been closed since 2012. Idlib is a stronghold for al-Qaida-linked militants and other armed groups.
 
Syrian troops have been attacking Idlib and a stretch of land around it since April 30. The three-month campaign of airstrikes and shelling has killed more than 2,000 people on both sides and displaced some 400,000.
 
The government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media said the Syrian army captured the village after fierce fighting with al-Qaida-linked militants.
 
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition-linked war monitor, described the capture of Habeet as “the most important advance” by government forces since April 30. It said the overnight fighting left 18 insurgents and nine pro-government gunmen dead.
 
Syrian troops have been pushing their way into Idlib and rebel-held northern parts of Hama province in recent weeks under the cover of intense airstrikes and shelling.
 
In Damascus, meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar Assad attended Eid al-Adha prayers in a mosque.
 
State news agency SANA showed Assad attending the Muslim prayers early Sunday at Afram Mosque along with top officials, including the prime minister and the country’s grand mufti.
 
Over the past few years, Assad’s forces have been able to capture most areas controlled by rebels in other parts of the country, including the eastern suburbs of Damascus.
 
Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of the Sacrifice, marks the willingness of the Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham to Christians and Jews) to sacrifice his son.

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Yemeni separatists have seized control of much of the city of Aden, inflicting a blow to the Saudi-led coalition that is trying to dismantle the country’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement. 
 
Yemeni security officials said Saturday that the separatists also had taken control of the presidential palace, a development confirmed by a spokesman from the Security Belt force, which is dominated by the separatists. 
 
Officials said all military camps in the southern port city also had been seized. 
 
The development complicated U.N. efforts to end the four-year war, which has killed tens of thousands of people and forced the poorest residents to the brink of famine. 
 
The latest fighting erupted Wednesday when separatists tried to break into the presidential palace after Hani Bin Braik, an ex-cabinet minister and deputy head of the so-called Southern Transitional Council, called on forces to “topple” President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi’s government.  
 
Braik accused the president and his forces of being loyal to the Yemeni branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which the United Arab Emirates and some other countries consider a terrorist group. 
 
The internationally recognized Yemeni government has accused Braik of provocations and has called on the Saudi and UAE governments to force the separatists to stop their attacks. 
 
Aden is the seat of power for Hadi, who has been residing in Saudi Arabia since the rebels took over the capital of Sanaa in 2014. 

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The second season of an AMC-TV drama series follows the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and a number of bizarre deaths haunting a community.

“The Terror: Infamy” is set to premiere Monday and stars Derek Mio and original “Star Trek” cast member George Takei as they navigate the forced internment and supernatural spirits that surround them.

It’s the first television series depicting the internment of Japanese Americans on such a massive scale and camps were recreated with detail to illustrate the conditions and racism internees faced.

The show’s new season is part of the Ridley Scott-produced anthology series.

Mio, who is fourth-generation Japanese American and plays Chester Nakayama, said he liked the idea of adding a supernatural element to a historical event such as Japanese American internment. He says he had relatives who lived on Terminal Island outside of Los Angeles and were taken to camps.

Residents there were some of the first forced into internment camps after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

“If you add the supernatural element, it’s a little more accessible and now it’s like a mainstream subject and it can open up more discussion about what really happened and what’s going on right now,” Mio said.

It was a role personal to him as well. “It’s not just another kind of acting job for me,” Mio said. “I really do feel a responsibility to tell this story that my ancestors actually went through.”

From 1942 to 1945, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans were ordered to camps in California, Colorado, Idaho, Arizona, Wyoming, Utah, Texas, Arkansas, New Mexico and other sites.

Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, forced Japanese Americans, regardless of loyalty or citizenship, to leave the West Coast and other areas for the camps surrounded by barbed wire and military police. Half of those detainees were children.

Takei, who was interned in a camp as a child, said he was impressed with the show’s research into recreating the camp.

“The barracks reminded me again – mentally, I was able to go back to my childhood. That’s exactly the way it was,” Takei said. “So for me, it was both fulfilling to raise the awareness to this extent of the terror. But also to make the storytelling that much more compelling.”

The series also involves others who are connected to historic World War II events. Josef Kubota Wladyka, one of the show’s directors, had a grandfather who was in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb dropped and managed to survive.

Max Borenstein, one of the show’s executive producers who lost relatives at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, said the show’s horror genre still doesn’t compare to the horror of the internment camp.

“It was important to do the research, the lived reality that people faced,” Borenstein said. “The fact of taking people who are citizens of the country and (putting them in camps) is a great stain of our country.”

Co-creator Alexander Woo, who is Chinese American, said he believes the series is especially relevant now given the debate over immigration in the U.S. and Europe.

“The struggle that immigrants go through of embracing a country that doesn’t embrace you back is a story, unfortunately, that keeps repeating,” Woo said. “There’s going to be some people who likely didn’t know of the internment. There will be some people who had relatives in camps. We have a responsibility to be accurate.”

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A cease-fire agreement has been reached to end fighting in the Libyan capital of Tripoli during the upcoming Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha.

Libyan National Army (LNA) chief Khalifa Haftar agreed to the United Nation’s-proposed cease-fire Saturday, his spokesman, Ahmad al-Mesmari, said at a news conference in Benghazi.

UN Calls for Eid Truce in Libya

U.N. envoy Ghassan Salamé warns that power grab for the capital, Tripoli, could plunge entire country into conflict and open door to terrorist groups who are already a threat inside Libya

Libya’s U.N.-supported government said earlier Saturday it had accepted the proposed cease-fire for the holiday, which begins Sunday.

Militias allied with the government have been fighting since April against an LNA campaign to seize the capital.  

More than 1,000 people have been killed in the fighting, according to the World Health Organization. More than 120,000 others have been displaced.

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SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO – Puerto Rico’s streets have remained so quiet since Wanda Vazquez took over as governor following weeks of turmoil that one can again hear the island’s famous coqui frog singing at night. 
 
The protests that led to the resignation of Gov. Ricardo Rossello a week ago and continued on a smaller scale until the Supreme Court removed his chosen successor have dissipated. Also gone are the sounds of cowbells and whistles, as well as most of the angry graffiti that covered streets in the colonial district of Puerto Rico’s capital that was ground zero for the demonstrations. 
 
People who took to the streets to express disgust with government mismanagement and corruption were united in focusing their anger on Rossello, but now he is gone and there isn’t a common thread on how to proceed. Some Puerto Ricans are urging more protests. Others say people should take a step back and analyze what they want from officials. Yet others wish for stability and say Vazquez should be given a chance. Some worry about who might replace her. 

Coming weeks are key
 
“Many people rose up, and after they accomplished what they did, they’re asking, ‘Now what?’ ” said Mario Negron Portillo, retired head of the school of public administration at the University of Puerto Rico. “In the next few weeks, we’ll really see if that sense of consciousness that was generated … is sustained and how it will be sustained.” 
 
Only a handful of people showed up for a planned protest early Friday evening in front of the governor’s mansion, though Vazquez has said she will not live there, preferring to stay in her own house. Such conciliatory statements — and her earlier insistence that she was not interested in becoming governor — have led many Puerto Ricans to go into wait-and-see mode, activists say. 
 
Some of those protesting politics as usual are also more worried about the alternative. Leaders of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party have suggested replacing Vazquez with Puerto Rico’s congressional representative Jenniffer Gonzalez, a heavyweight in the PNP as well as being head of the territory’s Republican Party. 
 

While Vazquez is also a member of the PNP, she’s a less prominent figure who entered the territory’s cabinet only two years ago as justice secretary. The governorship dropped on her almost accidentally because others in line to succeed Rossello had resigned or were disqualified by the court. 
 
Gonzalez said on Thursday that she was available for the governorship if Vazquez decided to step down, even as Vazquez said she would not do so. 
 
“There’s somewhat of a hiatus in the fight because there is still speculation whether Wanda Vazquez is passing through as governor or actually plans to finish the term [which ends next year],” said Ricardo Santos Ortiz, spokesman of the Socialist Workers’ Movement, which helped organize some of the demonstrations. “As that becomes more defined, people will be reacting in the streets.” 
 
‘A tense calmness’

Ortiz planned to join Friday’s protest and said more demonstrations could materialize in upcoming days. 

“It was unrealistic to think we were going to spend one month, two months, three months with the same intensity,” Ortiz said. “There’s a tense calmness, but people have not checked out.” 

Rossello and more than a dozen other officials resigned following anger about corruption, mismanagement of funds and the leak of an obscenity-laced chat in which they mocked women, gay people and victims of Hurricane Maria, among others. 
 
Since then, hundreds of Puerto Ricans across the island have been showing up at unofficial town hall meetings, often in public plazas, where people bring folding chairs or sit on the ground and debate what path Puerto Rico should take as a volunteer writes down ideas on a display board. No politicians have been invited. 
 
Karla Pesquera, an unemployed 30-year-old who has joined in the protests as well as the town halls, said the gatherings are meant to give power back to the people and take it from politicians. 
 
“People want to be adequately represented,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve very excited, very hopeful.” 

But Negron warned that if people attending these town halls want to enact their ideas, they will have to bring in legislators and mayors: “Otherwise … it’s just catharsis.” 

Special election
 
Some activists have been demanding a special election to choose a new governor, and the tiny Puerto Rican Independence Party introduced a constitutional amendment to allow for that. 
 
Social media posts reflect a certain waffling: Some have shared details of Friday’s protest to demand that Vazquez step down. Others shared a post that calls on Vazquez as governor to audit Puerto Rico’s more than $70 billion public debt load to detect possible corruption. 
 
And the hashtag #wandadontresign began popping up when PNP leaders began floating the idea of having Vazquez resign to let Gonzalez take over. 
 
Shariana Ferrer Nunez, a member of the Feminist Collective under Construction, which helped organize the protests, said activists are trying to identify common goals that most people can get behind. 
 
“That’s the challenge,” she said. “We have to figure out what we want.” 

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