Національний банк України встановив опівдні довідкове значення курсу 27 гривень 62 копійки за долар, це на 13 копійок менше за офіційний курс на 2 квітня. Регулятор уже вдруге цього тижня посилює національну валюту.

На українському міжбанківському валютному ринку гривня посилюється ще відчутніше. Торги відкрилися на позначках 27 гривень 67–74 копійки, але станом на 12:30, за даними Finance.ua, котирування опустилися до 27 гривень 55–58 копійок за долар.

Ухвалення Верховною Радою України узгоджених із Міжнародним валютним фондом законів щодо ринку землі та банківської сфери посприяло посиленню гривні на українському міжбанківському валютному ринку.

На валютному ринку ажіотажного попиту не спостерігається, відзначає цього тижня Національний банк України.

 
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Google on Thursday said it is pumping $6.5 million into fact-checkers and nonprofits as it ramps up its the battle against coronavirus misinformation.   Fact-checking organizations, which often operate on relatively small budgets, are seeing a surge in demand for their work as mistaken or maliciously false information about the pandemic spreads, according to Alexios Mantzarlis of the Google News Lab.   “Uncertainty and fear make us all more susceptible to inaccurate information, so we’re supporting fact-checkers as they address heightened demand for their work,” Mantzarlis said.   A Poynter Institute report last year on the state of fact-checking indicated that more than a fifth of fact-checking organizations operated with annual budgets of less than $20,000.   “We are supporting fact checking projects around the world with a concentration on parts hardest hit by the pandemic,” Mantzarlis told AFP.   “This can be a noticeable infusion of additional support at a time of stress.”   Google is also looking to use its products and “ecosystem” to bolster the battle against COVID-19 misinformation.   The Google News Initiative is increasing its support for nonprofit First Draft, which provides a resource hub, training and crisis simulations for journalists covering news during times of crisis, according to Mantzarlis.   Google is also supporting the creation of a public health resource database for reporters.   “We also want to do more to surface fact-checks that address potentially harmful health misinformation more prominently to our users,” Mantzarlis said.   “We’re experimenting with how to best include a dedicated fact-check section in the COVID-19 Google News experience.”   Google is conducting a test in India and Africa to explore how to use trends in what people are asking or searching for online to let fact-checkers know where a lack of reliable answers may invite misinformation.   “Unanswered user questions — such as ‘what temperature kills coronavirus?’ — can provide useful insights to fact-checkers and health authorities about content they may want to produce,” Mantzarlis said.   That test compliments an effort to train 1,000 journalists across India and Nigeria to spot health misinformation, according to the California-based internet titan.   “There is definitely an appetite for this stuff,” Mantzarlis said.   “We grasp for certainty, a glimmer of something we can do to protect ourselves and those we care about. It makes us more vulnerable to this kind of misinformation.”   Facebook has also supported fact-checking operations with AFP and other media companies, including Reuters and the Associated Press, under which content rated false is downgraded in news feeds so that fewer people see it. 
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The United States says it has delivered 128 anti-tank Javelin missiles to Estonia as part of a larger contract with the Baltic NATO member and the U.S. Department of Defense.
 
The U.S. Embassy in Tallinn said in a statement on Thursday that “the shipment will continue to build upon Estonia’s defensive capabilities and further strengthens our nations’ strategic integration” within NATO, of which Estonia has been a member since 2004.
 
Washington has provided Estonia, a staunch military ally, with over $100 million in joint defense cooperation over the past few years, the U.S. Embassy said.
 
The FGM-148 Javelin is an infrared-guided anti-tank missile that can be carried and launched by a single person. It is manufactured by a joint venture between Raytheon Company and Lockheed Martin Corp.
 
In December, the Estonian defense ministry said the United States has allocated $175 million in military aid to the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for 2020.
 
The three countries are all NATO members and all of them border Russia.
 
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В Офісі президента України повідомили про намір провести переговори з власниками автозаправних станцій щодо їхньої цінової політики на пальне в час карантину і обмежувальних заходів, пов’язаних з пандемією коронавірусу. Про це повідомила пресслужба Офісу президента за підсумками селекторної наради під головуванням президента Володимира Зеленського.

«На нараді вирішили провести переговори з власниками та керівниками автозаправних станцій задля зниження цін на пальне, які останнім часом зросли на кілька гривень», – йдеться в повідомленні.

Коли відбудуться такі переговори і які важелі впливу можуть бути використані в президентській канцелярії не вказали.

Антимонопольний комітет України днями анонсував заходи у кампанії щодо приведення цін на нафтопродукти до обґрунтованого рівня. 31 березня мала відбутися низка зустрічей із керівниками мереж АЗС, які працюють під брендами WOG, OKKO, Ukrnafta, Socar, UPG. Публічної інформації про те, чим завершилися такі зустрічі наразі немає.

 
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A Pakistani court Thursday overturned on appeal the death sentence of a man accused of kidnapping and beheading Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, sentencing him to seven years in prison for kidnapping only, and acquitted three of his co-accused.British-born Ahmed Omer Saeed Sheikh had been on death row since his conviction 18 years ago. Three others, Fahad Naseem, Salman Saqib, and Sheikh Adil, were serving life sentences.The prosecution could appeal the verdict in the Supreme Court.Defense attorney Khwaja Naveed Ahmed told VOA Sheikh was not even charged with murder at the time of his arrest in 2002, before news of Pearl’s murder became public. He was only charged with kidnapping and handing Pearl over to someone else. The charge of murder was added once a video of Pearl’s beheading surfaced, he said.“The prosecution’s story was that Sheikh became friends with Pearl because he could speak French and had graduated from the London School of Economics,” Ahmed said, adding that after today’s verdict he is expected to be released in a day or two.Pearl, the newspaper’s South Asia bureau chief, was kidnapped while investigating religious extremists in Karachi. His beheading made headlines around the world and the international outcry forced Pakistan to take swift action against the perpetrators.Later, a detailed report issued by a Georgetown University investigative journalism project called the Pearl Project, claimed Pearl had been beheaded by al-Qaida’s Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.Pearl’s story was later turned into a Hollywood movie starring actress Angelina Jolie as his wife, Mariane Pearl.            
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Australia’s High Court will deliver its ruling next week on Cardinal George Pell’s appeal of his conviction of child sexual abuse.The court announced Thursday that it will hand down its judgement Tuesday in the eastern city of Brisbane.The 78-year-old Pell was convicted by a court in Victoria state of molesting two choirboys at Melbourne’s St. Patrick Cathedral in 1996 while serving as the city’s archbishop.  He was sentenced the next year to six years in prison, making the former Vatican treasurer the highest-ranking Catholic clergy member to be convicted in connection with the Church’s decades-long scandal.The High Court could decide whether to reject the cardinal’s appeal, vacate the original verdict, or send the case back down to a lower court. Pell’s lawyer told the High Court during a hearing on his appeal last month that it would have been impossible for him to molest the boys considering the busy activity in the cathedral after Mass.
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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that anyone can be a coronavirus carrier even if they aren’t showing any symptoms.The CDC on Wednesday affirmed a study from Singapore that says 10 percent of new cases were spread by people who showed no signs of being sick. It said that even those who had the virus and appear to be recovered can still be contagious.The agency says this study reinforces the need for social distancing.The head of the CDC, Dr. Robert Redfield, warned in a radio interview Wednesday that there could be another wave of coronavirus in the late fall and that his agency is already preparing.World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus forecast Wednesday that the number of confirmed cases will hit 1 million soon.U.S. President Donald Trump said at his daily White House briefing Wednesday that the United States’ national strategic stockpile of medical protection equipment is nearly depleted.Lizette Torres holds a sign while fellow nurse and union member Tishna Soto, speaks to reporters as the prepare a small protest outside their work at the Las Palmas Del Sol Medical Center on April 1, 2020, in El Paso, Texas.Also Wednesday, a Russian transport plane filled with protective gear and medical equipment landed in New York, not long after Trump and President Vladimir Putin chatted by telephone.The official number of confirmed cases in Russia is about 2,300. But some Russian doctors suspect the real number is much higher.With so much still unknown about the coronavirus and the general unease of not knowing what will happen next, the number of background checks for new gun owners reached an all-time high of 3.7 million in March, the FBI said Wednesday.While gun rights advocates say Americans have a right to increase their safety and security in stressful times, those who favor gun control say they worry about weapons in the house when people are under lockdown and tense.Florida has become the latest state to order a 30-day lockdown. The sight of college students crowding Florida beaches during spring break last month – many of whom said they don’t care about the virus — angered many across the country.Meanwhile, Italy has extended its nationwide lockdown for 30 more days and Japan has extended its entry ban to Africa and the Americas, bringing the number of countries whose citizens are denied entry to 73. All foreign visitors to Japan must enter a two-week quarantine. 
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While U.S. health authorities are debating whether or not wearing masks will help slow the spread of COVID-19, Vietnamese authorities are handing out steep fines to those who disregard the mandate to wear them at all times, just about everywhere.Vietnam has one of the lowest coronavirus infection rates in the world, with 212 cases as of Wednesday, and according to the Ministry of Health in Hanoi, no deaths related to this disease.Vietnam, with a population of more than 96 million, A delivery man waits for online order outside a cafe in Hanoi, Vietnam, April 1, 2020.As the number of infections has skyrocketed in the United States, the CDC is considering recommending the general public to cover their faces when going out.Hanoi required all Vietnamese and foreigners to wear masks in crowded places as of March 16. At airports and train stations, free masks were handed out to those without them.Those who fail to comply with the government’s directive will incur a fine of up to $13.00. In Vietnam, the per capita income is $2,715 as of December 2019, A health worker in protective gear talks to a man as she gives him his COVID-19 test result at a makeshift testing facility in Hanoi, Vietnam on March 31, 2020.Even before the COVID-19 outbreak, people in Vietnam, and many other Asian countries, often wore masks to protect themselves and those nearby if they were ill.But for those Vietnamese and other Asians who have moved to the U.S., maintaining the custom has come with a cost.“I have absolutely no doubt that some Asians have experienced hostility for wearing a mask,” said Kim Fellner, a 71-year-old labor activist and freelance writer who lives in Washington, D.C. “President Trump has heightened hostility [to Asians] by calling the virus the ‘Chinese’ virus, and a minority of Americans are ignorant, bigoted, nationalistic and behave disgracefully.”During the week of March 16, Trump A delivery man waits for online order outside a cafe in Hanoi, Vietnam, April 1, 2020.Fellner said that the official policy about wearing masks has been “inconsistent” and she would not wear mask to take a walk if she feels fine.Ron Carver, a 73-year-old associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies who lives in Takoma Park, Maryland, has spent time in Vietnam, and is the author of “Waging Peace in Vietnam: U.S. Soldiers and Veterans who Opposed the War.” He said that while he does not wear a mask while out for a walk, he doesn’t think wearing a mask is strange.Both Fellner and Carver said they will wear masks when they go shopping or in other places where they would be in close contact with people. That is, if they can find masks, which are in short supply throughout the U.S.  
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