International and regional powers agreed at talks on Tuesday to intensify a military campaign against Islamist militants in the West African Sahel region, with French President Emmanuel Macron saying victory over the jihadists was within grasp. Militant attacks in the Sahel have increased over the last two years, especially in the tri-border region of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali known as Liptako-Gourma, where local authorities have been overrun. Mauritania hosted a meeting of the leaders of five Sahel nations plus France and Spain to plot future strategy in the scrubland south of the Sahara where since 2013 thousands of French troops have been helping countries counter insurgencies. “The heads of state stressed the need to intensify the fight on all fronts by national and international forces against terrorist groups,” the final communique said. French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during the closing press conference at the G5 Sahel summit on June 30, 2020, in Nouakchott.The so-called G-5 Sahel nations comprise Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad — all former French colonies. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez also attended the summit, while other EU leaders joined by video. “We are all convinced that victory is possible in the Sahel. We are finding our way there thanks to the efforts that have been made over the past six months,” Macron said after the summit. Ahead of the summit, a joint statement by the United Nations and a group of aid organizations painted a dark picture of the situation on the ground. “The security situation in the Sahel countries has deteriorated considerably in recent months. Conflicts prevailing in the region are having unprecedented humanitarian consequences,” it said. The joint forces, led by France’s 5,100 troops, have so far targeted the regional affiliate of Islamic State, concentrating military efforts on Liptako-Gourma. French forces said this month that they had killed al Qaeda’s North Africa commander Abdelmalek Droukdel. But the G-5 force has been hampered by a lack of funding, equipment and coordination. France has long called for more help from its European allies for the mission, which it sees as essential to protecting the security of Europe’s southern flank. 
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Міністерство фінансів повідомляє про чергове розміщення облігацій внутрішньої державної позики, якими залучило до державного бюджету понад 1,27 мільярда гривень.

На торгах, які відбулися 30 червня, Мінфін розмістив шість кодів облігацій, їхня точна кількість не вказана. Терміни їпогашення коливаються від 91 до 959 днів.

Найраніша дата погашення – 30 вересня 2020 року, найпізніша – 15 лютого 2023-го. Номінальний рівень дохідності зворотньо пропорційний періоду до погашення і коливається від 17,25% до 9,84%.

Читайте також: За І квартал року державні банки заробили на 37% більше, ніж торік – Мінфін​

25 червня Мінфін повідомив, що активність інвесторів на ринку ОВДП протягом травня відновлювалася. До того навесні Міністерство фінансів кілька разів скасовувало аукціони з розміщення облігацій.

Облігації внутрішніх державних позик – це державні цінні папери, які Мінфін розміщує на внутрішньому фондовому ринку і які підтверджують зобов’язання України виплатити власникам таких паперів їхню номінальну вартість та дохід в термін, передбачений умовами розміщення.
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A 60-year-old U.K. citizen drove into a Detroit parking garage on a recent afternoon, lowered the window of her SUV to swear an oath, and left as a newly minted American.  It took less than 30 minutes.  Anita Rosenberger is among thousands of people around the country who have taken the final step to citizenship this month under COVID-19 social-distancing rules that have turned what has long been a patriotic rite of passage into something more like a visit to a fast-food restaurant.  “It was a nice experience in spite of the fact that I was in the car by myself with a mask on,” said Rosenberger, a sales manager for an electronics component company from suburban Detroit. “And I will say that I will remember this.”  Similar drive-thru ceremonies are being held around the country, but perhaps for not much longer. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says a budget crisis could force the agency to furlough nearly three-quarters of its workforce, severely curtailing operations as tens of thousands of people wait to become citizens. That could have potential political consequences, especially in states such as Michigan and Florida where the number of newly naturalized Americans already exceeds the narrow margin of victory for President Donald Trump in 2016. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you have several hundred thousand people who are not in a position to vote in this election but would have been if business had been progressing normally at USCIS,” said Randy Capps of the Migration Policy Institute. “That’s been everyone’s concern.”  In this June 26, 2020 photo, Vida Kazemi is sworn in as a U.S. citizen by Allen Chrysler, immigration services officer, during a drive-up naturalization ceremony in Laguna Niguel, Calif.The citizenship agency has not detailed publicly how it will operate if it doesn’t get $1.2 billion in emergency funding from Congress before Aug. 3. It said in a written response to questions that “all USCIS operations will be impacted by a furlough” that covers more than 13,000 workers. USCIS derives nearly all its $4.8 billion budget from fees it charges to people who apply to live or work in the country. Revenue was already in decline under Trump, whose administration has imposed a number of immigration restrictions. The agency says COVID-19 caused it to drop by half.  “The effects of the coronavirus pandemic are long reaching and pervasive, leaving few unscathed in its wake,” Acting Director Joseph Edlow said.  In written responses to questions, the agency says it would pay back the money it receives from Congress with a 10% surcharge on fees.  While the agency cites the pandemic for its budget woes, immigration experts and a USCIS employee union say other factors include administration policies of devoting more resources to vetting applications and searching for fraud. The administration has also halted a number of programs — including a recent freeze on H-1B visas for skilled workers — that provide an important source of revenue for USCIS.  “The agency has really moved away from its mission and become more of an enforcement agency that carries out the agenda of the Trump administration,” said Diego Iñiguez-Lopez, policy and campaigns manager for the National Partnership for New Americans, an immigrant advocacy organization. USCIS typically swears in 15,000 new citizens per week. The agency said there were about 110,000 people waiting to take the oath when they shut down in-person operations in March because of the virus. It said it expects to work through the backlog by the end of July, thanks in part to ceremonies like the one held at the federal building in Detroit or similar ones outside a minor league baseball stadium in Des Moines, Iowa, and a community recreation center near San Diego. Some in Congress have pushed to allow virtual swearing-in ceremonies, but the agency has refused. Behind those waiting for the ceremony are a long line of some 700,000 people who have submitted applications for naturalization, facing an average time to process that has risen to 10 months from six months in the last year of the Obama administration.  That backlog has a number of causes, including a surge in interest due to the election of a president who has made restricting immigration a centerpiece of his administration and the increased scrutiny of applications, said Capps, director of research for U.S. programs at the Migration Policy Institute. Acting Deputy Department of Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cuccinelli presided over a naturalization ceremony Monday in Washington for 20 people, including an Afghan interpreter credited with saving five U.S. soldiers. “Welcome to you and your country from a grateful nation,” he said later on Twitter. In this June 26, 2020 photo, U.S. District Judge Laurie Michelson, left, administers the Oath of Citizenship to Hala Baqtar during a drive-thru naturalization service in Detroit.Others who are sworn in are as varied as the country. Rosenberger, whose father brought her to the U.S. in 1968 so he could work for an electronics manufacturer, put off applying for citizenship for years in part because she liked having a U.K. passport. Then, when she did attempt it, her paperwork was lost. She re-applied in November. “I thought, the way this country is going I better get my citizenship now.”  Others are more recent arrivals. Mulugeta Turuneh came to the United States as a refugee from Eritrea in 2011 and settled in Iowa City, where he works as a truck driver. He took the oath Friday in Des Moines after a delay of several months because of the outbreak.  “God bless America,” Turuneh said afterward. “I’m so happy here. Everything is nice. Everything is cool.” Iris Lapipan, who came to the U.S. from the Philippines as a child in the 1990s, was among those naturalizing at a recreation center in El Cajon, California. She said she is looking forward to being able to travel outside the United States and participate in the election. She said she was leaning toward former Vice President Joe Biden. “I’m excited that I can vote, especially with what is going on now,” she said. Rosenberger is leaning the other way, saying she is generally conservative and would most likely support Trump. “Now that I’m a citizen I’m very excited about voting,” she said. “You have the right now, so use it.”   
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The U.S. Agency for Global Media has named longtime Voice of America journalist Elez Biberaj as VOA’s acting director.   
 
Biberaj’s appointment was announced in an email to staff Tuesday by recently installed USAGM CEO Michael Pack, who also named acting heads of other major U.S.-funded news networks.  
 
Biberaj has been VOA’s Eurasia Division director since 2006, making him responsible for VOA programming for audiences in Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia and the Balkans. He also has served as chief of VOA’s Albanian language service.   
 
He holds a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University and is the author of four books, including “Albania in Transition: The Rocky Road to Democracy.”    
 
The appointment comes at a time of heightened public scrutiny over VOA’s editorial independence. Biberaj’s predecessor at VOA, Amanda Bennett, and her deputy, Sandy Sugawara, resigned days before Pack fired the other heads of the U.S.-funded broadcasting networks comprising USAGM earlier this month.  
 
The leadership positions announced to staff Tuesday morning also named Jeffrey Scott Shapiro as principal deputy director of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting. Shapiro is a lawyer, legal analyst and reporter who worked for the Breitbart news website before becoming an adviser at OCB in 2017.  
 Parameswaran Ponnudurai, a vice president of programming at Radio Free Asia since 2014, was named acting president of RFA.  Kelley Sullivan, a senior executive at Middle East Broadcasting network, was named acting president. And Daisy Sindelar, a senior executive producer with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, who helped oversee RFE’s collaboration with VOA on the “Current Time” 24/7 Russian language digital news network, was named acting president of RFE/RL.  
Pack was confirmed by the Senate on June 4, nearly two years after being nominated for the job by President Donald Trump. He said the appointments announced Tuesday, “will serve critical roles in allowing our networks to become higher performing and to more effectively serve our audiences.”
 
Together, the five USAGM  news networks , including VOA, have a weekly global audience of more than 350 million listeners, viewers and internet users in 61 languages.
 
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Офіціний курс гривні щодо долара станом на 1 липня буде на понад 2 копійки міцнішим, ніж 30 червня, свідчить сайт Національного банку.

За даними регулятора, 30 червня долар коштує 26,6922 гривні, а 1 липня курс становитиме 26,6676 гривні.

Довідкове значення курсу національної валюти, яке НБУ встановив опівдні 30 липня, дорівнює 26 гривень 66 копійок.

За даними нішевого порталу «Мінфін», торги на міжбанківському ринку почалися вранці 30 червня з позначки 26 гривень 68-71 копійок. Протягом дня курс незначно посилювався, але до кінця торгів підходить на приблизно такому ж рівні – 26,68-70 гривні.

24 червня НБУ констатував, що офіційний курс гривні до долара США залишається стабільним уже майже три місяці – від кінця квітня.
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Scientists in China have identified a new strain of a flu virus in pigs that has the potential to infect humans and lead to a new pandemic.
 
In a paper published in the U.S.-based journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists say the new “G4” strain was discovered during a surveillance program of pig farms and slaughterhouses across 10 provinces between 2011 and 2018.   
 
The new virus is a variation of the H1N1 swine flu virus that killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world in 2009.   
 
The scientists discovered the G4 virus has already infected workers at various farms and slaughterhouses throughout China.  The new H1N1 strain can grow and quickly multiply in the cells that line the airways of humans, although there is no current evidence the illness can spread through human-to-human contact.   
 
But the researchers also found that although G4 is derived from H1N1, current flu vaccines do not provide any immunity from the new virus.
 
The research paper said that G4 have all the “essential hallmarks of a candidate pandemic virus.”  The scientists urged pig farmers to control the spread of the virus among pigs, and to closely monitor people who work with the animals.   
 
The study’s release comes as the world is in the grips of COVID-19 pandemic which has sickened over 10.2 million people worldwide and killed over 500,000 since it was first detected late last year in the central city of Wuhan.   
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Equatorial Guinea has agreed to pause the construction of a controversial border wall with Cameroon after talks between the two countries’ defense ministers in Yaoundé.  The two sides also agreed once again to withdraw troops from their disputed border after deadly clashes left at least seven people dead. An agreement earlier this month to withdraw forces failed to hold and some border traders are skeptical of this latest pact. After a second day of closed-door meetings in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea’s Defense Minister Leandro Bekale Nkogo said the two sides agreed to set aside their differences.Nkogo on Tuesday announced Equatorial Guinea would pause construction of its controversial border wall, which Cameroon’s government says violates its territory.  He says troops from the two countries that have been deployed to the border will return to their barracks and only come out to protect their civilians in times of crisis.  Nkogo says Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea will henceforth jointly combat their common enemies, who are poachers, pirates resurfacing in the Gulf of Guinea, and armed groups attacking and looting civilians in both countries.Nkogo said as neighbors, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea need each other for their security and development.  Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema ordered the border wall be built in 2019 to stop Cameroonians and West Africans from illegally entering the country.Cameroon deployed its army to stop what it called an intrusion of border markers, leading to armed conflicts and casualties.  An agreement earlier this month to pull back troops, and jointly demarcate the border, apparently failed.Cameroon says at least seven of its civilians were killed in border clashes that followed in the southwestern town of Kye-Ossi.  But Cameroon’s Defense Minister Joseph Beti Assomo on Tuesday said both sides were firm in seeking an end the border tensions. He says the wish of Cameroon’s President Paul Biya is to see Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea become the true brotherly and friendly nations that they were at the dawn of independence.  He says both countries have sociological, cultural and geographic relations that should encourage the people of the two states to live in peace and harmony.Despite the agreements Monday, not all traders along the border were convinced that the skirmishes will end.  40-year-old Cameroonian merchant Angelica Amende, who buys wine from Equatorial Guinea to sell back home, doubts the border dispute can soon be resolved.She says she does not think there is a political will to solve the crisis on Cameroon’s border with Equatorial Guinea.  She says it is not the first-time high-profile delegations have met on the instructions of the two heads of state and the border crisis is yet to end.Equatorial Guinea has often accused Cameroon of not doing enough to stop its citizens and other West Africans from crossing the border illegally.  In 2017, Equatorial Guinea sealed its border with Cameroon for six months after authorities on both sides arrested heavily armed foreigners and accused them plotting to overthrow Obiang. The two countries’ leaders are Africa’s longest-serving presidents.  Obiang has ruled Equatorial Guinea since 1979, while Biya has ruled Cameroon since 1982.Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea in 2017 joined four other states in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) in agreeing to lift visa requirements.  Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Gabon, and the Republic of Congo have since accused Equatorial Guinea of dragging its feet on allowing the free movement of people and goods.  
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Міжнародний аеропорт «Київ» розпочинає поетапне скорочення своїх співробітників, повідомляє пресслужба підприємства. Як ідеться в повідомленні, оприлюдненому 30 червня, це відбувається «на тлі глибокої кризи, в якій опинилася авіаційна галузь через пандемію коронавірусу, що сприяє різкому падінню авіаперевезень та зниженню пасажиропотоку».

«Накопичення проблем супроводжувалося і відсутністю будь-якої реакції та допомоги від уряду, профільного міністерства. Нагадаємо, що керівництво Міжнародного аеропорту «Київ» постійно звертається по допомогу до влади, але належної і своєчасної реакції так і немає», – вказано в пресрелізі. «Ми прогнозуємо повільне відновлення попиту на авіаперельоти і очікуємо повернення до докарантинного рівня лише за кілька років. На жаль, нам доведеться скоротити 50% персоналу, в тому числі висококваліфікованих фахівців галузі», – зазначив генеральний директор компанії «МАСТЕР-АВІА» Олег Левченко на зборах колективу підприємства.

Загалом в аеропорту «Київ» працює близько 2 тисяч людей, і ще 8 тисяч співробітників – у суміжних підприємствах, які співпрацюють з аеропортом.

Аеропорт «Київ» – це другий за пасажиропотоком аеропорт України, це майже 3 мільйони пасажирів і 30 тисяч рейсів на рік. Це другий платник податків серед комунальних підприємств української столиці. Банкрутство аеропорту «Київ» буде мати катастрофічні наслідки для міжнародного іміджу, авіаційної галузі України, економіки і ринку праці в цілому, інфіормує пресслужба.

Після майже тримісячного простою через пандемію коронавірусної інфекції пасажирське авіаційне сполучення в Україні стало відновлюватися лише в червні. Але кількість і заповненість рейсів нині є в рази меншою, ніж в аналогічний період минулого року. Тим часом, ВООЗ вказує на ризик другої хвилі COVID-19, що завдасть нового удару в тому числі і по авіаперевезеннях.

 
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A week after casting their ballots, voters in the U.S. state of Kentucky are set to learn Tuesday who won the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate. The winner goes on to face Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in the November general election. Former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath and state lawmaker Charles Booker have traded small leads since election day as local jurisdictions turned in their results from mail-in voting. Kentucky received requests for nearly 900,000 such ballots, an unusually high number that came in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.In this Tuesday, June 23, 2020 file photo, poll workers instruct a voter on where to go to fill out their ballot during the Kentucky primary at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville, Ky.A high volume of mail-in ballots is also playing a role in Democratic Party primaries for House of Representatives seats in the state of New York, which also held its in-person voting last week. Winners have yet to be declared in several key races with major ramifications for the Democrat-led chamber. Before counting the mail-in votes, Former middle school principal Jamaal Bowman, who had never run for office before, held a lead of 61% to 36% over Congressman Eliot Engel, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.  Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, held a slight lead over lawyer and activist Suraj Patel before the mail-in ballots were counted in their race. The ballots only had to be mailed as of election day, so election officials are still receiving and counting them. 
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Bahamas Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis strongly urged citizens against non-essential travel to countries where COVID-19 cases are spiking, including the United States, which is a primary tourism market for the Bahamas. During a national address Monday, Minnis told Bahamians, “I beg you. I implore you to stay at home. If you must fly, visit our Family Islands.” The Prime Minister’s plea comes as the Bahamas reopens its borders on Wednesday since closing in March because of the COVID-19 outbreak. Minnis said people traveling to the Bahamas must show they tested negative for the coronavirus within the past seven days starting July 7. He said people caught not wearing face mask face a $200 and or one month in jail. The Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF) will head a new COVID-19 Enforcement Unit to ensure compliance with and enforcement of emergency orders. The Bahamas has confirmed more than 100 cases and 11 deaths. 
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Верховна Рада цього тижня збирається розглянути законопроєкт про гральний бізнес, повідомив голова парламенту Дмитро Разумков.

«Цього тижня буде багато питань. Ви їх всі бачили. Одне з перших – це питання про так званий гральний бізнес. Його багато місяців опрацьовувала робоча група і в Офісі президента, і в профільному комітеті. Саме ці дві інституції є головними промоутерами цього напрямку», – сказав Разумков.

Верховна Рада ухвалила в першому читанні урядовий законопроєкт про легалізацію грального бізнесу 16 січня 2020 року. Його підтримали 260 народних депутатів.

Документ запроваджує кримінальну відповідальність за організацію азартних ігор без ліцензії. Також законопроєкт дозволяє розташовувати зали з гральними автоматами лише в готелях, які мають три, чотири або п’ять зірок. Крім того, згідно з документом, резидентам держави-агресора буде заборонено мати гральний бізнес на території України.

З 2009 року в Україні заборонений гральний бізнес, однак експерти вказують, що він просто перейшов працювати в «тіні».

 
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