Germany’s closely watched impending decision on whether and to what extent to allow Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, to enter its next generation telecommunications infrastructure may yield a result as early as Tuesday, sources tell VOA.The decision “is imminent,” says Emily Haber, German ambassador to the United States, in answer to a question raised by VOA Monday afternoon concerning the German government’s stance with regard to Huawei.“Any decision we take will factor in the relevance of the trustworthiness of the provider,” Haber added.VOA has since learned from diplomatic sources that “imminent” could mean as early as Tuesday February 11th when German lawmakers convene in Berlin.Jacob F. Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, thinks Germany could end up following Britain’s precedence and reach a compromise solution “between Merkel’s permissive ‘few limits suggestion and the more restrictive line called for by many backbench MPs, led by Norbert Roettgen,” Kirkegaard told VOA.Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel is seen as wanting to work with Beijing in order to secure German business interests in China, while Roettgen, also a member of the governing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and chairman of the influential Foreign Affairs Committee in the Bundestag, has made  no secret of his mistrust of Huawei.Roettgen pinned his tweet from November 23rd following a CDU vote in which he declared the unanimous vote a huge victory and an unambiguous declaration of where CDU stands on this issue.Unser #Initiativantrag zu #5G wurde beim #cdupt19 einstimmig beschlossen – ein Riesenerfolg! Die Debatte kommt in den #Bundestag. Klare Position der @CDU gegen Einfluss ausländischer Staaten in deutsche kritische Infrastruktur & für eine europäische Lösung! pic.twitter.com/W3uvLAxWJU— Norbert Röttgen (@n_roettgen) November 23, 2019CDU position “against foreign influence in critical German infrastructure” as well as its determination to find a European solution are “clear,” he tweeted, “next comes the parliamentary debate” which could take place Tuesday in Berlin, sources tell VOA.In Kirkegaard’s opinion, Germany could also impose a ceiling on Huawei’s market share and attempt to prevent the company from supplying “core network” components, a measure Britain has recently announced, in spite of Washington’s strong objection.He nonetheless points out that given the 5G technology’s largely “cloud”-based feature, it remains “technically unclear” how core and peripheral distinction could be meaningfully established.Should the German parliament vote Huawei out of Germany’s 5G telecommunications infrastructure, it would be a huge surprise to many, including Kirkegaard. Should it happen, it would constitute a “huge defeat for Merkel,” he says, even as Merkel’s party is thrown into turmoil as her designated successor Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer announced her decision to step down as chairman of the CDU on Monday.It remains to be seen whether the latest development within the CDU could affect the German parliament’s debate on Huawei.Speaking along with the German ambassador at an event hosted by the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies Monday afternoon, Piotr Wilczek, Poland’s ambassador to the United States, said “there’s been a big effort” on the part of all EU countries “to provide Brussels with our positions” on the issue of Huawei.“Now we’re in the process of discussing this in more detail,” Wilczek said, in answer to VOA’s question on his country’s position with regard to Huawei. “Poland and I believe Romania are the only countries that have signed a declaration with the United States, stating just that we’ll be very careful in choosing providers and providers should be very reliable,” he added, without naming any company by name.“This is a very complicated issue … a difficult decision,” he says, “because it’s about the quality of services, of various providers; we know some of them are very much advanced, and some of them are not so much advanced but perhaps more reliable.”Earlier, Norbert Roettgen, the German lawmaker who has openly expressed his concerns about Huawei, stated that when it comes to which providers to be let in, “You don’t just need technical certainty, you need the suppliers to be politically trustworthy, too.” A bill that Roettgen helped draft requires that any company designated as “untrustworthy” be excluded “from both the core and peripheral networks.”Roettgen tweeted on February 8 that the United States and the EU “could team up to counter China’s 5G dominance.”  “We share the same security concerns and should cooperate to expand alternatives.”  He added that “but to do so, we must know that tariffs against Brussels are off the table.  Partners don’t threaten one another,” in a reference to tariffs U.S. President Donald Trump has said he would impose on a number of European imports, including on German automobiles.The #USA & EU could team up to counter #China’s #5G dominance. We share the same security concerns & should cooperate to expand 🇪🇺 alternatives. But to do so we must know that tariffs against Brussels are off the table. Partners don’t threaten one another. https://t.co/ZPvZFKWNYq— Norbert Röttgen (@n_roettgen) February 8, 2020Huawei has repeatedly denied that it is beholden to the Chinese government and its political demands. China’s top envoy to Berlin has made it clear that Beijing “will not stand idly by” should Germany’s decision on Huawei turns out to be unfavorable to Beijing. “If Germany were to make a decision that led to Huawei’s exclusion from the German market, there will be consequences,” Wu Ken is quoted as saying. Whichever way Germany decides, its decision likely will have significant impact on the other European Union countries. Political influence aside, the fact that Germany takes up about 30% of the EU’s 5G market is “enough for pan-EU operators to follow its lead,” according to the Peterson Institute’s Kirkegaard.
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A Belfast couple were on Tuesday set to become the first same-sex couple to get married in Northern Ireland after a change in the law.Robyn Peoples, 26, and Sharni Edwards, 27, were due to wed at 2:00 pm (1400 GMT) in Carrickfergus, near Belfast, after the new legislation came into effect on Monday.It followed campaigning by Amnesty International and partner organizations in the “Love Equality” campaign, which hailed the occasion “a landmark moment for equality in Northern Ireland.””We didn’t set out to make history — we just fell in love,” Edwards said ahead of the nuptials in a statement released by the campaign.”We are so grateful to the thousands of people who marched for our freedoms, to the Love Equality campaign who led the way, and the politicians who voted to change the law.”Without you, our wedding wouldn’t have been possible. We will be forever thankful.”Her soon-to-be wife Peoples added: “While this campaign ends with Sharni and I saying ‘I do,’ it started with people saying ‘no’ to inequality. By standing together, we’ve made history.”British MPs in London passed legislation last July, while Northern Ireland’s devolved government was suspended, to allow gay marriages and same-sex civil partnerships.The move, which brought the province into line with the rest of the UK, was opposed by a group of local lawmakers but they failed in a last-minute bid in October to block its implementation.London spent the intervening months drawing up new regulations to apply to the marriages and partnerships — with the first permitted to happen this week.In the meantime, Northern Ireland’s political parties also agreed to restart power-sharing in Belfast.Activists, British MPs including Northern Ireland Secretary of State Julian Smith, and others will celebrate the occasion at a parliamentary event in London later on Tuesday.Sara Canning, the partner of journalist Lyra McKee who was killed by dissident republicans in the Northern Irish city of Londonderry last year, helped to campaign for the change.”Of course, this historic moment is a little bittersweet. It had been our dream too. Lyra and I should have been an engaged couple now, planning our own wedding day,” she said in the statement.
 
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Using geotagged tweets, researchers were able to predict, within a few kilometers, where the first coronavirus case in the United Kingdom would appear.”When we saw the map for the first time, I can tell you that we were kind of shocked,” Donal Bisanzio, senior epidemiologist at A man wears a protective mask as he looks at his mobile phone, following the outbreak of the new coronavirus, in Hong Kong, China, Feb. 10, 2020.Are you ready?In addition, 10 Twitter users from Wuhan appeared in cities in the United States, including near Seattle, Los Angeles and Tucson, Arizona. All of those cities have reported coronavirus cases.Though the tweets and the coronavirus cases were separated by years, three-quarters of the posts came from within 15 kilometers of where a coronavirus patient later turned up. Travel patterns did not change much in that time, he said.Bisanzio cautioned that just because a traveler from Wuhan showed up in a city six years ago, “that doesn’t mean that you have high risk of getting the virus.””But, of course,” he added, “it also means, be careful. Are you sure that your country is ready?”For the past decade or so, researchers have been using mobile phone data to draw detailed maps of where and when people travel, whether it’s between countries or within cities. They’re generally not looking to track individual people. Rather, they aim to understand broad patterns and pathways of population movement.This information has helped scientists understand the spread of A man wearing a face mask checks his mobile phone while riding a subway in the morning after the extended Lunar New Year holiday caused by the coronavirus outbreak, in Beijing, Feb. 10, 2020.Surveillance stateResearchers are required to strip identifying information out of the data before they work with it, and the data is often a year or more old.In China, however, authorities are using mobile phone information as well as facial recognition software to monitor individual patients and suspected cases in real time, according to The Wall Street Journal. Officials tracked one infected person across the city of Nanjing minute by minute and published the details of the patient’s travels on social media to warn residents that they may have been infected if they crossed paths.”We’re at an interesting moment,” said Steve Feldstein, an expert on technology and repression at Boise State University and a nonresident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.While China’s surveillance state is generally considered a tool of repression, “the same set of systems can provide a lot of useful, granular, real time information when it comes to the spread  of a very fast moving and unsettling epidemic,” he said.Liberty vs. healthIn the United States, experts say mobile phone data would likely be fair game for public health and law enforcement officials if the outbreak were to spread here.The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that officials need a really good reason to collect that data, given how sensitive it is.”You’re contemplating a potential deprivation of liberty” for the person whose data is being collected, said Sharon Bradford Franklin, policy director of the Open Technology Institute at New America, a policy research organization. “You could have your travel restricted, you could be under quarantine, which is a real deprivation of liberty, just like being locked up in jail.””A public health crisis, like this coronavirus seems to be, might provide the sufficient compelling public interest,” she added, but there would need to be strong limits on who could access the data and why, and limits on how long officials could hold onto it.”You might want to permit it, but only with justification and with robust safeguards,” Franklin said.
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Democratic presidential contenders are making a furious last minute push for votes ahead of Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary.  Polls show Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders leading the field in New Hampshire followed by former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.  Battling for third place are Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and former vice president Joe Biden.  VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has a preview from Washington.
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Національний банк України встановив на 11 лютого офіційний курс 24 гривні 52 копійки за долар, це на 2 копійки менше за курс на 10 лютого.

За даними Finance.ua, станом на 16:15 котирування просіли ще нижче – до 24 гривень 45,5–48,5 копійки за долар.

Як інформує сайт «Мінфін», найактивніша частина торгів минула за приблизної рівноваги попиту і пропозиції. Про участь у торгах НБУ експерти не повідомляють.

Національний банк України знизив облікову ставку на 2,5% – до 11% з 31 січня 2020 року. «Національний банк продовжує пом’якшення монетарної політики, щоб забезпечити інфляцію на рівні цілі 5% та підтримати стійке економічне зростання», – заявили в НБУ.

Наступне засідання правління Національного банку України з питань монетарної політики відбудеться 12 березня 

Облікова ставка є одним із інструментів, за допомогою якого Нацбанк встановлює для комерційних банків орієнтир щодо вартості кредитів і депозитів. Опосередковано цей параметр впливає і на функціонування валютного ринку, регулюючи приплив валюти від нерезидентів.
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U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders formally requested the Iowa Democratic Party recount some of the state’s results from last week’s caucus, citing 28 precincts where the campaign believes he was shorted delegates.“While a recanvass is just the first step in the process and we don’t expect it to change the current calculations, it is a necessary part of making sure Iowans can trust the final results of the caucus,” Bernie 2020 Senior Advisor Jeff Weaver said.Sanders narrowly lost to rival Pete Buttigieg in the Feb. 3 nominating contest, which took days to settle after a technical meltdown led to delays in determining the winner.
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President Donald Trump’s administration has agreed to speed up the cases of some former interpreters for the U.S. military in Iraq and hundreds of other refugees whose efforts to move to the United States have been in limbo since he announced his travel bans three years ago.The news was contained in a settlement filed in federal court in Seattle on Monday. It concerned more than 300 refugees who were on the verge of being permitted to come to America in 2017 when their applications were halted as part of Trump’s efforts to restrict travel from several mostly Muslim nations.Some of those affected are close relatives of refugees who are already in the U.S., while others are from 11 countries, including Egypt, Iran and Somalia, that Trump singled out, citing security reasons.”The government tried to keep refugee families apart under the pretense of national security,” said Lisa Nowlin, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, which sued along with several other organizations. “This settlement aims to undo the harmful effects of the illegal and misguided ban on refugees.”The restrictions on refugees from the 11 countries and on relatives of those already in the U.S. — known as “follow-to-join” refugees — were companion measures to Trump’s broader travel ban on those seeking visas to enter the U.S., which the Supreme Court eventually allowed.U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle — the same judge who blocked Trump’s initial, broader travel ban in early 2017 — blocked the companion refugee restrictions late that year in consolidated lawsuits that were brought by the ACLU, Jewish Family Services, International Refugee Assistance Project and other organizations. They alleged that the refugee bans were discriminatory and arbitrary and that they violated due process rights.By the time Robart agreed to block the bans, hundreds of refugees had their cases upended, leaving them in administrative limbo. For many, background checks, medical clearances or other required documentation had expired by the time the bans were revoked. That meant they had to begin the process over again.The plaintiffs included former interpreters for the U.S. military in Iraq, who sued under pseudonyms because they could face threats if their identities became public. Others were refugees who had petitioned to have their spouses and children join them in the U.S. from camps in Kenya, Uganda and elsewhere.One plaintiff, Allen Vaught, an Iraq war veteran from Dallas, said the refugee ban “derailed efforts to get my last surviving Iraqi translator, who served bravely alongside U.S. military forces for many years, to the United States.”Under the settlement, the refugees won’t automatically be admitted to the U.S., but the government agreed to move their cases to the front of the line for processing.”What the administration did really messed up their cases,” said Mariko Hirose, litigation director of the New York-based International Refugee Assistance Project. “This settlement is aimed at making sure that people who were affected by the ban are able to get their cases adjudicated and hopefully come to the U.S. very quickly.”
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