How close are scientists in the search for a vaccine?  What will be the long term impact?
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Декада зростання американської економіки різко закінчилася в першому кварталі 2020 року, за підсумками якого валовий внутрішній продукт (ВВП) найбільшої економіки світу скоротився на 4,8% внаслідок впливу пандемії COVID-19. Про це свідчать дані уряду США, оприлюлнені 29 квітня.

Це найбільше падіння ВВП за 12 років, пандемія змусила численні підприємства закриватися, зупиняючи закупівлі та інвестиції, повідомляє міністерство торгівлі США.

Раніше 29 квітня прогноз спаду економіки Німеччини на 6,3% за підсумками 2020 року оприлюднив міністр економіки країни Петер Альтмаєр.
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Veteran Bollywood actor Irrfan Khan, who rose to international acclaim with roles in such films as “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Life of Pi,” has died at the age of 54.A spokesman said Khan died Wednesday in a Mumbai hospital where he had been admitted earlier this week for a colon infection.  Khan sought treatment in Britain after he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in 2018.The native of India’s western desert state of Rajasthan broke into the Indian film industry in 1988 in the Academy Award-nominated drama “Salaam Bombay.”  Khan went on to star in a number of notable Bollywood films, including “The Namesake” “The Lunchbox” and “Paan Singh Tomar,” which earned him India’s National Film Award for best actor in 2012.In addition to “Slumdog Millionaire,” which won the 2008 Acadamy Award for Best Picture, Khan appeared in such Hollywood films as “The Amazing Spider Man,”“Jurassic World” and “Inferno.”His most recent role was the Bollywood film “Angraezi Medium,” a sequel to his hit 2017 film “Hindi Medium.” The new movie was released before India was placed under a nationwide lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.  
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Економіка Німеччини скоротиться на 6,3% у 2020 році через вплив коронавірусної інфекції. Такий прогноз оприлюднив 29 квітня міністр економіки Німеччини Петер Альтмаєр, відзначивши, що це буде найбільший спад у провідній економіці Європи з 1970 року.

«Наслідки пандемії коронавірусу підштовхнуть нашу економіку до рецесії після 10-річного зростання», – вказав Альтмаєр. Він додав, що уряд очікує на відновлення вже в 2021 році.

Раніше Німеччина продовжила дію попередження щодо закордонних подорожей до 14 червня, оскільки в багатьох країнах залишаються чинними обмеження для запобігання пандемії коронавірусної інфекції. Найбільша економіка Європи за останні чотири тижні повернула додому 240 тисяч туристів, і міністр закордонних справ Німеччини Гайко Маас відзначив, що «ми не збираємося знову вдаватися до таких дій улітку».

У Німеччині за минулу добу зафіксовано 1 тисячу 304 нових випадків захворювання на COVID-19, число смертей зросло на 202 порівняно з попереднім днем. Такі дані 29 квітня оприлюднив Інститут інфекційних хвороб Роберта Коха.

Зараз у найбільш густонаселеній країні Європи нараховується 157 тисяч 641 підтверджений випадок та 6 тисяч 115 смертей.

Німеччина вже почала послаблювати запроваджені через COVID-19 обмеження.
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Федеральна резервна система (у США вона виконує функції центробанку) 29 квітня завершить своє перше засідання від часу березневого зменшення базової процентної ставки до нуля, що мало стимулювати економіку за умов пандемії COVID-19.

Очікується, що голова ФРС Джером Пауелл надасть детальнішу інформацію про програми кредитування, а також розповість про особливості програми викупу боргів.

Американський регулятор відкрив засідання 28 квітня на тлі попередніх ознак того, що закриття бізнесів та накази залишатися вдома можуть поступово скасовуватися, але є багато ознак економічних наслідків, спричинених обмеженнями.

Понад 26 мільйонів американців подали заяви про безробіття з моменту останнього засідання комітету. Роздрібні продажі знизилися рекордно швидкими темпами, і багато підприємств ще не відкрилися. Скорочення економіки США очікується на рівні, який не спостерігався впродовж десятиліть.

Інвестори прагнуть почути від ФРС, наскільки глибокою буде рецесія і наскільки тривалим буде перебування відсоткових ставок біля нуля. На своєму засіданні минулого місяця регулятор заявив, що це відбуватиметься, «поки не буде впевненості, що економіка витримала останні події».
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Just across the river from downtown Ho Chi Minh City, a tract of land is being turned into a bustling financial center. It’s still mostly dirt and concrete, but less than a decade ago, the tract was dense marshland where it was easy to spot goats and pigs.  Fast urbanization all over Southeast Asia is changing humans’ relationship to wildlife, and now COVID-19 shows how this process can pose a risk to public health, environmentalists say. They argue that, while climate-harming deforestation has long been known to be a problem for animals, the pandemic highlights more than ever that it can be harmful to humans, too. Scientists now believe humans contracted the virus from an animal, likely passing from a bat to a pangolin, which was then touched by a human in China. There are multiple ways COVID-19 is affecting climate change debates. In Southeast Asia this includes the destruction of forests as humans develop areas for habitation, bringing them into places recently inhabited by animals. “Evidence shows that deforestation and urbanization increase our risk of catching infectious diseases like coronavirus,” said Sarah Elago, a congresswoman in the Philippines, where the state is introducing tougher laws against wildlife trafficking in the wake of the pandemic. She pointed out that Southeast Asia has a particularly high rate of deforestation, having lost more than 32 million hectares of trees since 1990. The region’s deforestation is coupled with urbanization to accommodate its high economic growth. Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous nation, is now moving its capital city from Jakarta to the island of Borneo, which will inevitably require clearing land. Cambodia has lost more forestland per hectare than almost any other nation on the planet, according to the NASA Earth Observatory. Singapore became the most modern city in the region after converting swampland.Boats float along the river in Bangkok, which is facing rising sea levels and sinking land. (VOA News)The region’s megacities also face rising sea levels and sinking land, according to JLL Global Cities Research, a property firm. “Southeast Asia has some of the world’s fastest growing and most dynamic cities,” Jeremy Kelly, lead director at JLL Global Cities Research, said. “With mass migration and greater urbanization, many cities here are stretched when it comes to resources.” Besides the encroachment onto forestland, humans are coming into contact with animals in other ways in the region. Wet markets, like the one in China where COVID-19 is believed to have emerged, are common in Southeast Asia. These nations are also a frequent transit hub for the trafficking of wildlife products. Such trafficking has made it more likely for epidemics to occur, said Ngo Thi Thanh Thao, media manager at Vietnam’s CHANGE, an environmental organization.  In addition to deforestation, there are other issues linked to climate change that are getting renewed attention because of the pandemic. Asia’s economic growth has increased air pollution, a problem that Dr. Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum of the World Health Organization said has generally weakened people’s health, which makes COVID-19 more severe for them if they contract it. However, there are silver linings, too. With humans at home, more wild animals are emerging, such as the turtles that have reappeared on Thailand’s beaches. And carbon emissions have decreased with fewer people driving vehicles and working at factories.  To fight viral infections, particularly from animals, authorities need to regulate economic development as it affects Mother Nature, Philippines Congresswoman Elago said.  “Our governments have to act swiftly against deforestation by increasing protected areas and environmental safeguards against investment projects if we want to reduce the risk of reliving COVID-19-like epidemics,” she said. One of those governments is Vietnam, which this month tabled a draft amendment to its Law on Environmental Protection, including to increase fines for environmental crimes. National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan said there should not be a tradeoff between environmental and economic benefits.  “Increasing budget spending for environmental protection is necessary,” she said. 
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Asian markets are trading higher Wednesday as many countries continued with efforts to ease restrictions imposed at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Hong Kong, Seoul, Shanghai and Sydney all enjoyed significant gains by late Wednesday afternoon, while Japan’s benchmark Nikkei index is closed due to a national holiday.  Oil prices are also back on the upswing, with U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude trading at $13.53 per barrel, up 9.6%, while Brent crude, the international benchmark, was trading at $21.16, an increase of 3.4%.   Oil markets have been struggling since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, with government imposed quarantines choking off demand and causing a massive glut of supplies. U.S. crude prices plunged last week below $0 per barrel last week for the first time in history.   The latest selloff in U.S. crude came Tuesday after the United States Oil Fund, a popular exchange-traded fund, announced it would sell all of its contracts for June.
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Національний банк України 3 червня введе в обіг монети номіналом 10 гривень, які поступово замінять відповідні банкноти, повідомила 29 квітня пресслужба НБУ.

«На першому етапі Національний банк планує увести в обіг понад 5 мільйонів 10-гривневих монет, що будуть розподілені між підрозділами Національного банку в регіонах. Тож з 3 червня 2020 року банки зможуть отримувати оновлені грошові знаки в Національному банку й видавати їх своїм клієнтам. Національний банк подбав про максимальну зручність обміну відповідних банкнот на нові монети – громадянам непотрібно спеціально обмінювати банкноти номіналом 10 гривень на обігові монети цього номіналу. Вони зможуть необмежений період часу розраховуватися одночасно і новими грошовими знаками, і попередніми банкнотами цього номіналу», – йдеться в повідомленні НБУ.

За даними регулятора, поступово, у результаті природного зношення, 10-гривневі банкноти будуть замінюватися в обігу монетами.

«Нова обігова монета номіналом 10 гривень – невелика за розміром, легка. Її діаметр становить 23,5 мм, вага – 6,4 грама. Вона виготовлена із цинкового сплаву з гальванічним покриттям нікелем. Завдяки своїм збільшеним габаритним розмірам (діаметр, товщина та гурт) нова 10-гривнева монета суттєво відрізняється від обігових монет номіналом 1, 2 та 5 гривень… На реверсі монети номіналом 10 гривень зображено портрет українського гетьмана Івана Мазепи; на аверсі в центрі в обрамленні давньоруського орнаменту розміщено номінал монети», – йдеться в повідомленні.

За даними НБУ, станом на 1 квітня 2020 року в  обігу перебувало 179,3 мільцйонів банкнот номіналом 10 гривень.

В Україні з 2014 року триває процес оптимізації та оновлення банкнотно-монетного ряду гривні, щоб забезпечити головним чином обіг більш захищених від підроблень банкнот і зручність готівкових розрахунків. Введення в обіг нових обігових монет номіналом 10 гривень, як очікується, завершить цей процес.
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Joe Biden won Ohio’s presidential primary Tuesday, clinching a contest that was less about the Democratic nomination and more about how states can conduct elections in the era of the coronavirus. The primary was the first major test of statewide elections via mail amid an outbreak. There were reports of confusion but no widespread disruption. It wasn’t like Wisconsin earlier this month, when voters were forced to overlook social distancing guidelines to stand in line wearing masks to cast ballots. “Within the context of the threat of the virus, it’s a decision that we will have made the best of,” Republican Ken Blackwell, a former Ohio elections chief who chairs the bipartisan International Foundation for Electoral Systems, said of mail-in balloting. Overall turnout was surprisingly strong, said Secretary of State Frank LaRose. While his office said about 1.5 million votes had been cast as of midday Saturday, down sharply from the 3.2 million cast in Ohio’s 2016 presidential primary, he said some larger counties received tens of thousands of additional ballots Tuesday. “It was better than OK. It was great,” he said. The primary, originally scheduled for March 17, was delayed just hours before polls were supposed to open. Citing a “health emergency,” Republican Gov. Mike DeWine recommended that in-person balloting not be held until June 2. But amid legal challenges, officials moved balloting to this week while converting to a mail-in process since the state remains under a stay-at-home order. Most Ohioans casting absentee ballots had to run at least three pieces of mail — an application, a blank ballot and a completed one — through the U.S. Postal Service. Only homeless and disabled people were initially encouraged to cast in-person ballots at county election board offices, though anyone not receiving ballots by mail in time to participate could also turn up in person. Lynne Marshall, of Sylvania, opened her mailbox Tuesday and was disappointed to see that her ballot had not arrived. She then agonized over whether to cast a vote in person at the election board and put her health at risk or stay home and skip an election for the first time she can remember. “What should I do?” she asked. “I’m just really disgusted with it all. Of course, I’ll feel guilty if I don’t vote.” LaRose said that after he raised concerns last week, the Postal Service relocated a sorting facility into Ohio, searched meticulously for all in-transit election mail and deployed top-level executives to sites to oversee the effort. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law said it fielded calls and complaints. It called on Ohio to mail ballots directly to eligible voters in the future, as other states do, a proposal so far rejected by the Republican-controlled state Legislature. With his last competitor, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, leaving the race weeks ago, Biden has emerged as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, and the Ohio results were never in doubt. Still, moving to a mail-in primary on the fly was watched around the country as states with upcoming elections grapple with how to fulfill one of the most basic functions of American democracy, voting, while battling the coronavirus’s spread.Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders speaks to the press after loosing much of super Tuesday to former Vice President Joe Biden the previous night, in Burlington, Vermont on March 11, 2020.Some governors have suggested they would consider moving to an all-mail voting system for the November general election, something President Donald Trump has strongly opposed. Polling suggests that Democrats are now more in favor of their states conducting elections exclusively by mail than Republicans are — a partisan divide that has grown amid the coronavirus outbreak and may have been exacerbated by Trump’s opposition. Five states currently conduct all elections entirely by mail: Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Utah, but none had to adopt such practices amid a pandemic. Maryland was also balancing balloting and voter safety on Tuesday for a special election to finish the term of the late Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings. Democrat Kweisi Mfume, a former NAACP leader, defeated Republican Kimberly Klacik, returning to the seat that he held before Cummings. Most of the focus, though, was on Ohio, which also held congressional primaries. It’s traditionally a battleground state that has shifted to more consistently Republican in recent cycles. Trump won it by a surprisingly high 8 percentage points in 2016, after Barack Obama, with Biden as his running mate, carried the state twice. Jen Miller, the head of the League of Women Voters in Ohio, said it will be impossible to know how many people stayed home because they didn’t get a ballot in time. “We’ve had people waiting weeks and weeks,” Miller said. Meanwhile, Ohio’s early voting began Feb. 19, meaning Sanders was in a position to still pick up some of its delegates —though he was held to just a handful in Ohio. The senator has reminded his supporters that his name will be on the ballot in all upcoming races and urged them to vote for him so he can amass delegates and better shape the Democratic Party platform at its national convention in Milwaukee in August. But Sanders has endorsed Biden, and a group of his top advisers announced Tuesday that they were forming an outside political committee to promote the former vice president and progressive values. The efforts at unification of Democratic forces against Trump in November could defuse tensions heading into the party’s convention. Blackwell, the former Ohio election chief, said he didn’t see Tuesday’s results setting a precedent. “My opinion going forward is that no serious thought should be given to converting to mail-in balloting for the November election,” Blackwell said. “You lick an envelope and mail in a ballot, there’s all kinds of evidence that would suggest that there would be ballots lost, and because you’ve taken out the bipartisan oversight at the basic community level, you lose a degree of almost guaranteed legitimacy.” 
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The coronavirus crisis risks becoming an existential crisis for the European Union, say diplomats and analysts, as the EU struggles to coordinate a financial response to the pandemic. 
 
Last week, the EU’s national leaders struck an interim agreement on a recovery deal with an emergency fund of about $581 million (a half-billion euros), which the hardest hit member states can tap into for immediate assistance.  
 
But the wrangling over how to cope with the economic impact of the pandemic is far from over, and the overall $2 trillion-plus economic package mooted last week by the national leaders includes the budget costs of the EU itself for the next seven years.  
 
In fact, no final numbers, aside from the emergency fund, have yet been agreed upon, according to analysts. Members states already were at loggerheads over money before the coronavirus appeared, with sharp arguments between them about how to make up for the loss of Britain’s financial contribution to the EU.   
 
The emergency relief package came after an ill-natured squabble and warnings by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte that the EU project itself was in jeopardy unless the wealthier northern states help bail out their poorer southern neighbors. It also has left unresolved whether aid from the emergency fund to countries like Italy and Spain will be in the form of loans, which must be paid back, or grants, which won’t.Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte delivers his message to the Lower House of Chambers of the Italian Parliament, in Rome, April 21, 2020.Another key issue is whether the eurozone countries will eventually have to mutualize their debt by issuing jointly so-called “coronabonds” to meet health-care costs and mitigate the impact of a deep economic slump, one that could rival the Great Depression almost a century ago. 
 
As the behind-scenes quarreling continues over money, euro-skepticism, which before the pandemic appeared to be ebbing, is rising once again. It’s being fueled by southern Europeans smarting over what they see as an absence of solidarity by the more affluent nations, reminiscent, they say, of the debt crisis following the 2008 financial crash that nearly tore the EU apart. The pandemic is opening up the wounds of that crisis, which also saw a sharp split between the north and south. 
 
“The coronavirus pandemic could well be the ultimate acid test of its resilience as a community based on solidarity and common values,” according to Stefan Lehne of Carnegie Europe, a think tank based in Brussels. In a posted commentary, he wrote: “The mindset of everybody for itself, which is so tempting under the acute stress of the crisis, must be countered by stepping up cooperation and mutual assistance among the member states. Otherwise, the EU will be in great danger.” 
 
A poll published last found 40 percent of Italians would now support exiting the EU and scrapping the euro as its official currency. A further 6.1 percent would support just quitting the EU, while 7.3 percent support remaining in the bloc but replacing the euro with the lira. Just 41.7 percent agreed the status quo should be maintained. 
 
Last month another poll found 88 percent of Italians felt let down by their European neighbors in terms of health-care support for the country’s overwhelmed hospitals. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen apologized to Italians earlier this month for the lack of solidarity shown to Italy, offering “a heartfelt apology” during a speech to the European Parliament. “Too many were not there on time when Italy needed a helping hand at the very beginning,” she said.A man walks along Naples promenade, Italy, Monday, April 27, 2020. Italian factories, construction sites and wholesale supply businesses can resume activity as soon as they put safety measures into place aimed at containing contagion with COVID-19.On Tuesday, Italy became the first country to apply for financial aid from an emergency fund of $581 million. Others will be making their applications shortly, including Spain. But the emergency funds on offer are likely to fall short of what is needed, admits Klaus Regling, director-general of the European Stability Mechanism, an EU agency that provides financial assistance, in the form of loans, to eurozone countries. 
 
He told Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera: “I would say that for the second phase we need at least another €500 billion [$ half-trillion] from the European institutions, but it could be more.” He has warned that economic recovery from the virus will be “long and costly.” Italy—along with France and Spain—are demanding another $1 trillion be earmarked for emergency aid. 
 
So far, Germany, Finland and the Netherlands are resisting the idea of joint debt issuance, which would combine securities from different European countries. But Conte and other south European leaders have been doubling down on the demand for pooling debt, mainly underwritten by the EU’s northern states. 
 
A former adviser to France’s Emmanuel Macron, economist Shahin Vallée says greater financial and political integration will be the only way out of the impasse, which could include pooling taxes. Otherwise, only the countries with strong balance sheets able to subsidize their industries and households will recover quickly, further adding to the north-south divide.  
 
Vallée acknowledges, though, there is little political will to go down this route. The economic recovery plan so far “is incomplete and unbalanced, and it is planting the seed of profound divergence between member states,” he has warned. 
 
Others worry that further mutualizing eurozone debt and integrating more will allow Brussels to demand even more power over the fiscal and political affairs of member states, its due as the loan broker. That, in turn, could fuel the ire of the continent’s populist nationalists, who want nation states less hedged in by the EU.  
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The Ethiopian community in the Washington D.C. area is mourning the loss of a mother who died from coronavirus earlier this month shortly after giving birth. The woman never got to see her newborn baby. Reporter Tsion Girma attended the funeral in Virginia and Salem Solomon has the story.
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