У концесійному конкурсі щодо майнового комплексу держпідприємства «Херсонський морський торговельний порт» перемогла компанія, яка надала «найкращі умови», – ТОВ «Рисоіл-Херсон», повідомила 21 січня пресслужба Кабінету міністрів.

«Концесія дозволить залучити інвестиції не лише в порт, а і в об’єкти місцевої інфраструктури», – процитували в уряді слова прем’єр-міністра Олексія Гончарука.

Повідомляється, що інвестиційні зобов’язання компанії складають майже 300 мільйонів гривень.

Олексій Гончарук повідомив, що компанія-інвестор вкладе понад 18 мільйлонів гривень в місцеву інфраструктуру.

«Концесія – це форма державно-приватного партнерства, що передбачає надання інвестору права на будівництво та модернізацію потужностей, залишаючи об’єкт у державній власності», – додав голова уряду.

12 вересня минулого року Міністерство інфраструктури оголосило про проведення концесійних конкурсів з передачі в концесію майна ДП «Херсонський морський торговельний порт».

За даними уряду, у січні уряд оголосив 87 аукціонів у межах «малої приватизації».
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Incendiary balloons Palestinians launched from the Gaza Strip recently were a signal to Israel to accelerate unofficial “understandings” meant to ease the crippling blockade on the Hamas-ruled territory, a senior official from the Islamic militant group said Tuesday.
The resumption of flammable balloons and other explosive devices flown across the border broke a month of calm that has largely prevailed since Hamas suspended its weekly protests along the Israeli-Gaza frontier.
The quiet is meant to bolster an informal truce between Israel and Hamas being negotiated by international mediators.
Speaking to journalists, Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya accused the Israelis of moving too slowly.
He said the balloons had been launched by disgruntled individuals, not Hamas. But he said his group was “satisfied” with the launches and is ready to send more “if the occupation doesn’t pick up the message.”
Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade on Gaza after Hamas, a militant group that seeks Israel’s destruction, seized control of the territory in 2007. The blockade, combined with Hamas mismanagement, has devastated the local economy.
After three wars and dozens of smaller skirmishes, the bitter enemies have been working through Qatari, Egyptian and U.N. mediators to reach a series of “understandings” that would ease the blockade in exchange for guarantees of quiet. Al-Hayya said Hamas expects Israel to allow in more medical supplies, unlimited trade between Gaza and the world, help create more jobs and extend Qatari payments for electricity and poor families.
The incendiary balloons have not caused any damage or injuries on the Israeli side. But last week, an Israeli military helicopter struck an alleged Hamas target in Gaza in response to the resumption of the launches.
The U.N.’s Mideast envoy, Nickolay Mladenov, called the renewed balloon launches “concerning and regrettable” in a briefing to the Security Council on Tuesday. “These actions are a risk to the civilian population,” he said.
For the past 20 months, Hamas organized weekly demonstrations along the fence, demanding an end to the blockade.
The protests often turned violent, including burning of tires, throwing of explosives and launching of hundreds of incendiary balloons that torched large swaths of Israeli farmland. Over 200 Palestinians, mostly unarmed, were killed by Israeli fire during the marches and hundreds of others were badly wounded. Israel, which drew international accusations of using excessive force, has said it is defending itself from attacks and attempts to breach the border.
Hovering around 50%, Gaza’s unemployment rate is one of the world’s highest and most of of its 2 million people rely on humanitarian assistance.  
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The impeachment trial of U.S. President Donald Trump began in full Tuesday in the U.S. Senate, with the expectation of a spirited debate over the rules governing the third such trial in U.S. history over whether a president should be ousted from the White House for allegedly violating his oath of office.One of the first pieces of business for the Republican-led Senate is an hours-long debate on Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s proposed timeline and parameters for the trial. Democrats are sharply contesting McConnell’s plan, denouncing it as a “coverup” and “national disgrace”,  although McConnell says he has enough Republican votes to push through the schedule he wants.It is a plan that could lead to Trump’s acquittal as soon as next week. A two-thirds vote in the Senate would be needed to convict Trump to oust him from the White House, but no Senate Republican has called for his removal.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., speaks before the impeachment trial against President Donald Trump begins in the Senate at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 21, 2020.Proposed rules McConnell’s resolution would give Democratic impeachment managers from the House of Representatives – who will act as prosecutors – and Trump’s legal team 24 hours each over two days to present their cases. The resolution calls for decisions on whether to subpoena White House documents related to Trump’s efforts to press Ukraine to launch investigations to benefit himself politically or to call witnesses to be put off until after the House managers present their case and Trump’s lawyers respond with their defense.McConnell and the Republicans have made no secret of wanting the trial to be as quick as possible and ending in Trump’s acquittal.”Here in the Senate, the president’s lawyers will finally receive a level playing field with the House Democrats, and will finally be able to present the president’s case,” the majority leader said on the Senate floor Tuesday.Hours ahead of Tuesday’s session, the lead House impeachment manager, Congressman Adam Schiff, derided McConnell’s call for potential 12-hour trial sessions from Wednesday through Saturday this week and refusal, at least initially, to admit mounds of evidence against Trump collected by House impeachment investigators during their weeks-long inquiry late last year.”This is part and parcel of trying to hide the president’s conduct,” Schiff, a Democrat, said. He said that McConnell, in planning trial sessions that could last late into four straight evenings, “is hoping the American public will not be watching.”Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called McConnell’s plan “a national disgrace” and a “blueprint for an impeachment trial on fast forward.”The Democratic leader said that if McConnell has “nothing to hide, why won’t he present it when the sun is shining instead of the dead of night?”Senate minority leader, Charles Schumer, D-NY.,at podium gestures as Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Il., left, and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., right, listen during a news conference in the Senate media room at the Capitol, Jan. 21, 2020, in Washington.Fight to call witnesses
Schumer said he would offer amendments during the Senate debate to subpoena White House documents and force testimony from Trump aides familiar with his efforts to press Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate one of Trump’s chief 2020 Democratic rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden’s work for a Ukrainian natural gas company and a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 U.S. election to undermine Trump’s campaign.Trump made his requests to Zelenskiy in a late July phone call at the same time he was temporarily blocking release of $391 million in military aid to Kyiv that it wanted to help fight pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Trump, after a 55-day delay, released the assistance in September without Zelenskiy launching the Biden investigations. That was proof, Republicans say, that Trump did not engage in a reciprocal, quid pro quo deal — the Biden investigations in exchange for the military aid.Schumer said, “Republican senators will face a choice of getting the facts or joining Leader McConnell and President Trump in covering them up.”President derides process
Trump has almost daily assailed the impeachment effort against him, including in Davos, Switzerland, where he is attending the World Economic Forum.“That whole thing is a hoax,” Trump told reporters. “It goes nowhere because nothing happened. The only thing we’ve done is a great job. … That whole thing is a total hoax, so I’m sure it’s going to work out fine.”In the hours ahead of the Tuesday session, the House managers told Trump’s lead defense attorney, White House counsel Pat Cipollone, that he might be a material witness during the trial since his office played a role in handling some of the Ukraine-related issues as they emerged in the latter half of 2019. The Democratic lawmakers said Cipollone should disclose what role he played.  Trump’s lawyers are assailing the impeachment case against him as a “dangerous perversion of the Constitution,” asserting he did “absolutely nothing wrong” in pressing Ukraine to launch investigations to benefit himself politically.The lawyers say Democrats pushing for Trump’s removal are not trying to find the truth about Trump’s Ukraine-related actions, but are looking to overturn his 2016 election and interfere with his 2020 re-election campaign.The charges
The House of Representatives impeached Trump on two articles. One alleges he abused the presidency by pressing Zelenskiy for the Biden investigations and the others is that he allegedly obstructed Congress in its investigation of his Ukraine-related actions.Democratic lawmakers had earlier said it was clear that the “evidence overwhelmingly establishes” that Trump is guilty of both charges.The Trump lawyers, in their 110-page filing on Monday, said that the president was conducting normal foreign policy affairs in dealing with Zelenskiy.They said he did not commit a crime, even though conviction of an impeached U.S. president and removal from office does not depend on a specific violation of a criminal law. Rather, it is how the 100 members of the Senate, acting as jurors, interpret the standard for conviction set out in the U.S. Constitution, whether a president has committed “high crimes and misdemeanors.”  No matter the legal arguments for and against Trump, he almost certainly will be acquitted by the Republican-majority Senate. At least 20 of the 53 Senate Republicans would have to join all 47 Democrats to convict Trump, and no Republican has called for his ouster.The White House predicts Trump’s acquittal within two weeks. But the trial could last much longer if Democrats succeed in persuading four Republicans to join them in calling for testimony from key Trump aides about the president’s Ukraine-related actions.FILE – In this Sept. 30, 2019, file photo, former national security adviser John Bolton gestures while speakings at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. They are the ghosts of the House impeachment hearings. Vice…Key witness testimony
Democrats want to hear testimony from former national security adviser John Bolton, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, and others about Trump’s actions.Trump has said he wants to call the Bidens as witnesses at his trial, along with the still-unidentified whistleblower who first disclosed that Trump in a July phone call asked Zelenskiy to launch the Biden investigations. But on Twitter Monday, he seemed averse to hearing testimony from Bolton, whom he ousted in September.Democrats, Trump said, “didn’t want John Bolton and others in the House” to testify. “They were in too much of a rush. Now they want them all in the Senate. Not supposed to be that way!”House Democrats had sought testimony from Bolton and others in Trump’s orbit. But the potential witnesses complied with the president’s edict to not cooperate with their investigation, although others ignored it and testified. Democratic lawmakers abandoned efforts to subpoena some witnesses out of fear that the legal fights over their testimony would extend for months and instead moved ahead to adopt the impeachment articles without hearing them testify under oath.Bolton now says he is willing to testify at Trump’s impeachment trial if he is subpoenaed by the Senate.US impeachment history Two other presidents — Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998 were impeached by the House but acquitted in Senate trials and remained in office.U.S. President Richard Nixon faced almost certain impeachment in 1974 in the Watergate political scandal, but resigned before the House acted.Sorry, but your player cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
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Гривня вперше за чотири банківські дні пішла на зміцнення, свідчать дані на сайті Національного банку України.

Станом на 12:00 регулятор визначив довідкове значення курсу гривні до долара на рівні 24 гривень 25 копійок. Це на вісім копійок менше порівняно з курсом долара, встановленим на 21 січня.

За останній місяць долар зміцнився на гривню: 21 грудня 2019 року долар коштував 23 гривні 33 копійки.
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Regional officials in Ethiopia on Tuesday confirmed 10 deaths and 250 people injured after a wooden platform collapsed during a religious event the day before.Thousands of people attended the colorful Epiphany celebration known as Timkat in the northern city of Gondar.”Ten people have lost their lives,” the Ethiopian Press Agency quoted the city’s police chief, Ayalew Teklu, as saying. “Thirteen people have sustained serious injuries, including four members of the security services.”Ashenafi Tazebew with Gondar University Hospital said more than 250 people had received medical care. Some 80 people remained at the hospital, Ashenafi said.The collapse occurred inside the Emperor Fasilides Bath in the city where several thousand Ethiopians and tourists attended the celebration commemorating the baptism of Jesus.The Ethiopian News Agency reported that more than 15,000 foreigners attended the event in Gondar.UNESCO late last year added Ethiopia’s Epiphany festivities to its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, which attracted more attendees. 
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Opening another front in their battle against the French government, union militants said they cut power to thousands of Parisians on Tuesday, plunging homes into darkness and closing down train services to one of the capital’s two main airports.
The deliberate outage lasted around two hours and hit users in the southern suburbs of Paris, said Franck Jouanno, a local leader of the leftist CGT union. That area includes the Orly international airport and the massive Rungis market that supplies food to the Paris region.  Jouanno said militants targeted the area because it is one of “the economic lungs of Europe.”
“It’s symbolic,” Jouanno said of the power cut, speaking in a telephone interview. “It made a buzz and that’s what everyone wants.”
The CGT is pushing for a complete withdrawal of the French government’s plans to overhaul the country’s pension system. The planned reforms have triggered six weeks of protests and crippling transport strikes.
But with many striking transport workers now returning to work, and train services largely restored in Paris and nationwide, militants are looking for other methods to keep up the pressure on President Emmanuel Macron and his centrist government.
Jouanno described the Paris households that lost power when families were stating their day as “collateral damage.”
“It bothers me, but unfortunately there is always an impact and a power cut isn’t the end of the world,” he told broadcaster BFM-TV.
The outage cut power to the automated shuttle train that serves Orly airport. The shuttle’s operator, the RATP, said thousands of users were impacted and that it “firmly condemns this act of malice.” Buses were used to transport passengers to the airport instead.
At the Rungis market, generators took over and maintained power during the outage.
Julien Denormandie, a deputy minister, condemned the power  cut  as “scandalous, irresponsible.”
Macron, who is trying to blend scores of separate pension systems and rules into a universal French pension, says his plan will be fairer to all French workers and will be sustainable as the country ages. Transit workers, who now can sometimes retire earlier than the official age of 62, don’t want to lose their special privileges and French workers in general fear the government will raise the pension age.
Macron’s government will present the pension reform bill to the Cabinet on Friday ahead of a debate in parliament next month.  
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Iran acknowledged on Tuesday that its armed forces fired two Russian anti-aircraft missiles at a Ukrainian jetliner that crashed after taking off from Tehran’s main airport earlier this month, killing all 176 people on board. The new preliminary report by Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization however stopped short of blaming the TOR-M1 for the crash of the Boeing 737-800, flown by Ukraine International Airways. For days after the Jan. 8 shootdown, Iran denied that it fired missiles at the plane, initially blaming a technical malfunction and engine fire for the crash. However, after the U.S. and Canada blamed missile fire for the crash, Iran’s armed forces said anti-aircraft fire from the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard had downed the flight.The new report identified the missiles fired at the aircraft as coming from the TOR-M1. In 2017, Iran received the delivery of 29 TOR-M1 units from Russia under a contract worth an estimated $700 million.However, the report said “the impact of these missiles on the accident and the analysis of this action under is under investigation.”Surveillance footage earlier obtained by The Associated Press  showed two missiles were fired at the plane. The two minutes of black-and-white footage purportedly shows one missile streaking across the sky and exploding near the plane. Ten seconds later, another missile is fired. Some 20 seconds after the first explosion, another strikes near the plane. A ball of flames then falls from the sky out of frame.The footage corresponded with AP reporting, appeared genuine and matched geographic features of the area. It also explained how so many people filmed the shoot down: the first explosion drew their attention so they turned their mobile phone cameras to the predawn sky.The Tor short-range air defense system, code-named the SA-15 by NATO, was designed during Soviet times to shoot down aircraft and precision guided weapons.It is mounted on a tracked vehicle and carries a radar and a pack of eight missiles. Each vehicle can operate independently. Tor has a range of up to 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) and can hit aerial targets at altitudes of up to 6 kilometers (about 19,700 feet). Tor missiles explode near their target, taking it down with shrapnel that devastates engines, fuel tanks and other vital components. In other developments on Tuesday, South Korea Defense Ministry announced its anti-piracy unit operating in the Gulf of Aden was temporarily expanding its mission to the Strait of Hormuz. A ministry statement said the decision was meant to help ensure the safe passage of South Korean vessels and nationals through the waterway. It said the unit’s expanded operation will include the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf.The ministry said the unit will conduct an independent operation but will cooperate with a U.S.-led coalition if necessary. Already, a U.S.-led operation is surveilling the strait, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of all the world’s oil passes. A French-led naval coalition is also being created.The missions began after mysterious explosions last summer targeted oil tankers near the strait, attacks the U.S. blamed on Iran. Tehran denied being involved, though it did seize tankers amid wider tensions with the West over its unraveling nuclear deal with world powers.
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China is raising pressure on Indonesia over rights to use a contested tract of sea and challenging the militarily weaker Southeast Asian country to consider options from friendly dialogue to strong protests.
  
Indonesia spotted as many as 63 “trespassing” Chinese vessels in 30 locations within its maritime exclusive economic zone last month, the research platform East Asia Forum says in a January 15 report.  Another spate followed in early January.  Chinese coast guard vessels had escorted some, media reports from Jakarta say.
  
Though not a first between the two big Asian countries, this escalation near Indonesia’s Natuna Islands raises the specter of a new flash point in a normally quiet part of the broader, heavily disputed South China Sea.”On the Indonesian side, I think that there’s a growing sense at the security level that China is becoming a more problematic actor,” said Stephen Nagy, a senior associate professor of politics and international studies at International Christian University in Tokyo.
  
China may hope Indonesia will bargain over the tract of sea that’s near the 272 tiny Natuna islands northwest of Borneo, possibly in exchange for economic aid, Asia scholars say.
  
But if Indonesia fears talks would validate China’s claim, it might instead make diplomatic protests instead or get help from powerful Western-allied countries that already resent China’s maritime expansion.”I think you’ll see a lot more of China pushing not just on us but on Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines and others through incursions and get us to eventually acknowledge their right to a negotiation, and I think this is why we’re still very much resisting the notion that we should come and talk to the Chinese about this,” said Evan Laksamana, senior researcher for the Centre for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Jakarta.”And I think China also doesn’t want to make (the coordinates of its claim) that clear yet, so that’s why these are kind of gradual, low-level incursions, that of course I think will escalate if Indonesia doesn’t respond strongly and forcefully and provide actual diplomatic protest notes so that under international law we always challenge China’s incursions,” Laksamana said.South China Sea Territorial Claims  
China vies separately with Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines over parts of the 3.5 million-square-kilometer South China Sea north of the Natuna Islands. China uses a nine-dash line, sourcing it to maritime records from dynastic times, to claim about 90% of the waterway that multiple countries value for its fisheries and undersea fossil fuel reserves. The nine dashes cut into the Indonesian exclusive economic zone, or EEZ.
  
Indonesia and China are in a new phase of testing each other’s bottom line, said Oh Ei Sun, senior fellow with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. Competing ship movements will continue “for a while”, he believes. “In recent years, I think both China and Indonesia came to the realization that the Natuna Island EEZ and nine-dash line, they do intersect one another, so they are literally testing the water now,” Oh said.
  
Friction between the two sides dates back to 2016, when Indonesian President Joko Widodo showed signs of taking a harder line in the maritime dispute compared to his predecessors.Authorities in his government have burned dozens of foreign fishing boats found in the EEZ.   Vessels from the two countries entered a standoff   in 2016 when Indonesian authorities tried to arrest a private boat operator but a Chinese coast guard vessel intervened. Indonesia said then that China had officially included waters near the Natuna Islands on a territorial map. Two years later Indonesia opened a Natuna Islands military base for up to 1,000 personnel.
  
China hinted this month that the two sides should talk. “I can tell you that China and Indonesia have always carried out dialogue through diplomatic channels,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a news briefing January 7 as quoted on his ministry’s website. “We believe the Indonesian side also can see the issue from the vantage of bilateral relations and regional stability and resolve disputes with the Chinese side.”
  
China often offers aid and investment to ease rifts with smaller countries.  Before Widodo took office in 2014, Indonesia normally said little about Chinese vessels near the Natuna Islands. China had invested in Indonesia’s infrastructure and bought oil from its palm plantations. Indonesian officials today have been cautious on any deals to accept infrastructure aid under Beijing’s $1 trillion, Belt and Road Initiative aimed at building trade routes across Asia.   
  
Indonesia indicated it would assert its maritime claim without dialogue.Maritime and Fisheries Minister Edhy Prabowo made a working visit January 15 to the Natuna Islands “in order to follow up President Jokowi’s instructions that Indonesian sovereignty is not negotiable,” according to a statement on the ministry’s website. Jokowi is the president’s nickname.
  
Indonesia protested diplomatically over the December ship movements and China replied that it had rights to use those waters.
  
Jakarta might look to Australia, Japan and the United States for help such as “capacity building”, Nagy said. Eventually, he said, nothing will be settled. That way China can show it’s not being influenced by smaller countries and Indonesian people won’t see their government as a pushover, he said.
  
China would avoid any moves that might incite anger among Indonesian people, the source of deadly anti-Chinese riots in 1998, Nagy added.
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