Iran’s parliamentary elections Friday were marred by low voter turnout as hundreds of activists used social media to ask people to boycott the ballots in a sign of protest against the regime. Iranian authorities have reportedly barred hundreds of moderate candidates in favor of hardliners supported by the regime. 
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U.S. President Donald Trump will visit India early next week to meet his counterpart, Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Both sides are already managing expectations by saying they will not be signing a big trade deal. Still, the visit will be full of pomp and circumstance, with Trump already touting the massive crowds expected to turn up for him. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara takes a look at what we can expect in this meeting between leaders of the world’s two most populous democracies.
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U.S. and Afghan officials have announced a reduction-in-violence agreement with the Afghan Taliban, in which both sides agree to stop offensive battles against each other. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb maps out the road ahead.
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Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is condemning any Russian efforts to interfere in the 2020 U.S. election. The Vermont senator issued a statement immediately after The Washington Post reported U.S. officials told Sanders that Russia was trying to help his campaign. The statement did not confirm the report. Sanders wrote: “I don’t care, frankly, who Putin wants to be president. My message to Putin is clear: Stay out of American elections, and as president I will make sure that you do.” Sanders continued: “Unlike Donald Trump, I do not consider Vladimir Putin a good friend. He is an autocratic thug who is attempting to destroy democracy and crush dissent in Russia. Let’s be clear, the Russians want to undermine American democracy by dividing us up and, unlike the current president, I stand firmly against their efforts, and any other foreign power that wants to interfere in our election.” 
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Гривня зміцнилася на 5 копійок щодо долара порівняно з курсом напередодні, заявляє Національний банк України.

За даними регулятора, 21 лютого долар коштував 24,47 гривні проти 24,52 20 лютого. У понеділок 24 лютого офіційний курс становитиме 24 гривні 45 копійок.

Довідкове значення курсу НБУ 21 лютого становить 24 гривні 45 копійок, що на 3 копійки сильніше за дані 20 числа.

Читайте також: Держбюджет у січні недоотримав 13,8 мільярда гривень – Мінфін​

Торги на міжбанківському ринку у п’ятницю закрилися на позначці близько 24,44-46 гривні за долар, повідомляє профільне видання «Мінфін».

Як заявив 21 лютого прем’єр-міністр Олексій Гончарук, те, що курс гривні виявився вищим за закладений у бюджеті, стало однією з причин перегляду макроекономічного прогнозу, а відтак – перегляду державного бюджету на 2020 рік.
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Italian officials ordered schools, public buildings, restaurants and coffee shops closed in a tiny town in northern Italy Friday after six people tested positive for the new virus, including some who had not been to China or the source of the global health emergency.
    
The new cases represented the first infections in Italy acquired through secondary contagion and tripled the country’s total to nine. The first to fall ill met with someone in early February who had returned from China on Jan. 21 without presenting any symptoms of the new virus, health authorities said.
    
Authorities think that person passed the virus onto the 38-year-old Italian, who went to a hospital in the town of Codogno with flu-like symptoms on Feb. 18 but was sent home. He returned to the hospital after his conditions worsened and is now in intensive care, Lombardy region public welfare director Giulio Gallera said.
    
The man’s wife and a friend who did sports with him have also tested positive for the virus. The Italian Health Ministry ordered anyone who came into direct contact with the three to be quarantined for 14 days. About 150 people, including medical personnel, were in isolation undergoing tests.
    
Another three people in the Lombardy region also tested positive Friday, the health ministry said later.
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U.N. agencies report around three million civilians are trapped in Idlib, unable to escape to other countries because borders with Syria have been closed. As a consequence, they say most of the displaced are moving into increasingly crowded areas toward the border between Idlib and Turkey.Spokesman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Jens Laerke says about one-third or 330,000 of the displaced have fled to nearby areas in northern Aleppo, which also are under fire.”The frontlines and relentless violence continue to move closer to these areas, which are packed with displaced people, with bombardments increasingly affecting displacement sites and their vicinity.  We call for an immediate cease-fire to prevent further suffering and what we fear may end in a bloodbath,” Laerke said.FILE – Civilians flee from Idlib toward the north to find safety inside Syria near the border with Turkey, Feb. 15, 2020.As safe space in Idlib continues to shrink, Laerke said the newly displaced are finding it increasingly difficult to find shelter. This, he said, is forcing tens of thousands of people to live in the open or in just partially covered buildings.”More than 280,000 are staying in camps, which are already stretched beyond capacity, or in makeshift camps where they set up individual tents but where there are no basic services such as latrines. In the freezing winter, many people have resorted to burning their spare clothes, pieces of furniture or other materials that let out toxic fumes,” Laerke said.Aid agencies report seven children, including a seven-month-old baby, have frozen to death in the sub-zero temperatures.The United Nations says it plans to scale up humanitarian operations in northwest Syria to provide emergency aid for 1.1 million people over the next six months.  For that, it says it will need $500 million.
 
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The seven-day “reduction of violence” deal promised by the Taliban will begin on Friday night, a senior U.S. State Department official said, without specifying the exact time. That will start the countdown to the signing of a peace agreement between the Taliban and the United States at the end of the month.
    
That peace agreement, to be signed in Doha, Qatar, on Feb. 29, will pave the way for a withdrawal of U.S. troops and intra- Afghan negotiations. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the peace agreement will also lead to an eventual permanent cease-fire.
    
“We are preparing for the signing to take place on February 29,” Pompeo said in a statement. “Intra-Afghan negotiations will start soon thereafter, and will build on this fundamental step to deliver a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire and the future political road map for Afghanistan.”
    
The State Department official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the deal.
    
But the road ahead is fraught with difficulties.
   
It’s still not clear who will represent Kabul at the negotiation table for the intra-Afghan talks, considered a key pillar in finding a lasting peace in the war-torn country. The Afghan election commission earlier this week declared President Ashraf Ghani the winner of the presidential elections held in September but his rivals quickly denounced his win.
    
The Taliban have refused to talk to Ghani’s government and also denounced the election results, saying they will talk to government representatives but only as ordinary Afghans
    
Pompeo’s statement did not say who would participate in the intra-Afghan negotiations from Kabul, saying only that “intra-Afghan negotiations will start soon” after the signing in Doha “and will build on this fundamental step to deliver a comprehensive and permanent cease-fire and the future political road map for Afghanistan.”
    
The Taliban issued their own statement on the reduction of violence deal.
    
“Both parties will now create a suitable security situation in advance of agreement signing date, extend invitations to senior representatives of numerous countries and organizations to participate in the signing ceremony, make arrangements for the release of prisoners, structure a path for intra-Afghan negotiations with various political parties of the country and finally lay the groundwork for peace across the country with the withdrawal of all foreign forces,” the Taliban said in a statement Friday.
    
The Taliban added that they will not allow “the land of Afghanistan to be used against security of others so that our people can live a peaceful and prosperous life under the shade of an Islamic system.” 
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel says “everything will be done” to investigate the killings of the nine people killed in a Frankfurt suburb earlier this week.Merkel said Thursday there are many indications that the suspect acted on “right-wing, extremist, racist motives.”  Germany’s federal prosecutor, Peter Frank, confirmed the suspect had placed extremist videos and inflammatory rhetoric online that have since been taken down.In the posts the gunman said Germany now has “ethnic groups, races or cultures in our midst that are destructive in every respect,” He called for a “rough cleaning” followed by a “fine cleaning” that he said could cut the world’s population in half.German flags fly at half-staff for the victims of a shooting that left several people dead in Hanau near Frankfurt, in front of the Reichstag building, the seat of the lower house of parliament Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany, Feb. 21, 2020.Merkel pledged “everything will be done” to investigate the killings.”The German government and all state institutions stand for the rights and the dignity of each individual human being in our country. We do not differentiate citizens based on their origin or religion. We will vehemently and decisively confront all those who are trying to divide in Germany.”Racism is a poison,” the chancellor said. “Hatred is a poison and this poison exists in our society and it is to blame for already far too many crimes.”Most of the victims were of Kurdish or Turkish descent, and were shot Wednesday at two hookah (shisha) bars in Hanau. The suspected gunman, 43-year old Tobias Rathjen, was later discovered dead in his home along with the body of his mother.A police spokesman said witnesses identified a vehicle used in the shooting, which led investigators to the suspect’s home.Kadir Kose, who operates a cafe near one of the shootings, told the Associated Press he was shocked by the bloodshed. “This is a whole other level, something we hear about from America,” Kose said.Law enforcement officials said they were trying to determine if Rathjen was associated with any groups and were not looking for other suspects.
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