В Українській плодоовочевій асоціації (УПОА) 8 вересня повідомили, що, попри завершення сезону баштанних, в Україні продовжують знижуватися ціни на кавуни.

«Так, за останній тиждень «смугаста ягода» подешевшала в середньому на 20% і сьогодні відвантажується в ціновому діапазоні від 1,2 до 3 грн/кг. Таким чином, на початку вересня ціни на кавуни в Україні досягли свого мінімуму за сезон. Основною причиною зниження цін на кавуни є сезонне збільшення пропозиції цих ягід на ринку. Наразі завершується збір кавунів пізніх сортів в основних регіонах виробництва – Херсонській та Миколаївській областях, і виробники повідомляють, що урожай саме пізніх сортів кавунів в цьому році майже не постраждав. Відповідно, сьогодні продукція на ринок поступає без перебоїв, а пропозиція місцевих кавунів на внутрішньому ринку – на досить високому рівні», – йдеться в повідомленні УПОА.

В асоціації також зазначили, що під кінець сезону «значних цінових стрибків в сегменті кавунів» не очікується.

За даними експертів, через аномально холодний травень та проливні дощі в червні виробники втратили частину врожаю ранніх сортів кавунів.

«За попередніми оцінками зниження виробництва ранніх сортів кавунів досягло 50%. Відповідно, через брак пропозиції, Україна в червні вимушена була імпортувати значні обсяги баштанних культур. За перше півріччя 2020 року Україною було імпортовано 2,1 тис. тонн баштанних культур, загальною вартістю $1,97 млн. Для порівняння роком раніше закордонні закупівлі кавунів та динь були в 3 рази нижчі, як в натуральному, так і у вартісному виразі», – йдеться в повідомленні.

За даними УПОА, цьогоріч кавуни в Україні все ж реалізовуються в середньому на 65-70% дорожче ніж в аналогічний період минулого року – на початку вересня 2019 року кавуни відвантажувалися в діапазоні від 0,9 до 1,5 грн/кг.

 
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Asian markets rebounded strongly Tuesday as investors anticipated the return of trading on Wall Street after the long U.S. Labor Day holiday. Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei index gained 0.8%.  The S&P/ASX index in Sydney rose one percent.  Shanghai’s Composite index and Seoul’s KOSPI index finished 0.7% higher, and the TSEC index in Taipei gained 0.4%.   Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index is up 0.3% in late afternoon trading, and Mumbai’s Sensex is 0.8%. In commodities trading, gold is trading at $1,937.50 an ounce, up 0.1%.  U.S. crude oil is selling at $38.82 per barrel, down 2.3%, and Brent crude is selling at $41.79 per barrel, down 2%.   In futures trading, the Dow Jones and S&P 500 are trending positively, while the Nasdaq is down. 
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Dr. Ahmed el-Rabii spent years treating Palestinians wounded by Israeli fire during wars and clashes in the Gaza Strip. Now that the coronavirus has reached the blockaded territory, the 37-year-old physician finds himself in the unfamiliar role of patient.  El-Rabii is the first Gaza doctor diagnosed with COVID-19 and is among dozens of health-care workers infected during the local outbreak, which was detected late last month. The spread among front-line workers has further strained an already overburdened health-care system. Speaking from one of the two hospitals designated to treat coronavirus cases, el-Rabii said the threat in many ways is more terrifying than war. During fighting, “you only fear being hit by shrapnel by mistake,” he said. “But with the virus, you constantly worry because you do not know how or from where it will hit you: from a patient, from your colleague, or by touching the elevator or any other surface.”  Since 2007, Gaza has been under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade meant to isolate Hamas, the Islamic militant group that seized control of the territory that year from the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority. The blockade is believed to have played a key role in slowing the arrival of the coronavirus. Few people can move in and out of the territory, and Hamas placed anyone returning to Gaza into mandatory quarantine centers for three weeks. Before last month, the handful of Gaza’s coronavirus cases were confined to the isolation facilities. But on Aug. 24, the first cases were detected among the general population, and the numbers have multiplied since.   Despite limited testing capacity, over 1,000 active cases have already been detected. Nine people have died. The outbreak has been especially hard for Gaza’s medical workers. For more than a decade, they have been on the front lines treating injuries during conflicts with Israel. They have worked in an ailing health system gutted by the blockade and intra-Palestinian political feuding that left doctors, nurses and other medical workers with only partial salaries. Now, the virus is straining medical workers physically, mentally and financially. Ahmed Shatat, a Health Ministry official, said at least 68 medical workers have been infected.   Experts have warned that a wider outbreak in Gaza, home to some 2 million Palestinians, could be catastrophic because of the fragile health sector.   “Gaza’s health system is woefully underequipped to cope with a large outbreak, with only enough intensive care beds and ventilators to cope with a few dozen serious cases,” the International Committee of the Red Cross warned last week. Shatat said there already was a shortage of medical workers even before the outbreak. To help alleviate a staffing crunch, the Health Ministry has shortened the mandatory quarantine times for doctors and nurses who may have been exposed to the virus, from three weeks to two weeks. But it is still struggling to sufficiently staff the quarantine centers and isolation hospitals. Hundreds of workers are in protective isolation due to possible exposure, and pregnant workers and those with underlying health issues are excluded.Palestinian doctors wear protective clothes as they work at the emergency room of the al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City, Sept. 7, 2020.“Advanced health systems in the world could not sustain the outbreak, so how could our fragile, besieged, aid-dependent health system stand up to the crisis?” Shatat said.   After graduating medical school in Egypt in 2008, el-Rabii returned home to Gaza to grim prospects, and the only jobs available were in the Hamas-run administration. In 2010, he was offered a job, but the cash-strapped government could not afford to pay his full salary.   “Mostly, we got 40% of our salaries. This makes the doctor look for extra work at private clinics and hospitals,” he said. Before he caught the virus, el-Rabii used to work 24 hours in full personal protective equipment in the sweltering summer heat. He would go home for a two-day break and return to the hospital for another 24-hour shift. “It was exhausting,” he recalled.   “Now, with the coronavirus, everything has shut down, and work at private clinics has stopped so you are only left with the public job,” he explained. El-Rabii has worked at Gaza’s main hospital, Shifa, for the last 10 years. After the coronavirus outbreak, he was assigned to a team treating people with respiratory disorders. A female patient tested positive for the coronavirus. Immediately, all doctors and nurses were tested, and el-Rabii was found to be infected. “It was a shock, especially since we know little about the spread of the virus in Gaza,” he said. At a newly opened hospital funded by the Turkish government, el-Rabii spends most of his time confined in his room, reading the Quran, praying, and answering phone calls from friends and family members.   Haitham Ibrahim, a laboratory specialist, has been doing nonstop tests for the past two weeks at the lab of Khan Younis hospital in the southern Gaza Strip, the second hospital where COVID-19 patients stay.   He doesn’t do coronavirus tests, but the 34-year-old lab technician does regular blood exams to monitor the status of infected patients.   “I often fall asleep from extreme exhaustion,” he said in a phone interview. “We take rests between shifts, but when you get off the heavy protective clothes you feel as if your body has melted.” Ibrahim says he sometimes believes the patients are in a better situation than the medical workers. “The patient comes for 20 days and he recovers, but we will stay under this pressure, unsure when the virus will hit you, indefinitely.”   Because of potential exposure during a two-week stint at work, Ibrahim is now spending two weeks in a quarantine center. When he returns home, he will have to remain in self-isolation for an additional 14 days before returning to the lab for another work cycle.   The lengthy separation from his family meant that he missed his youngest daughter’s first steps. “I have five children and when I call them, I evade their questions about when I will come back home,” he said.   Like most public workers, Ibrahim has only been receiving 40% of his base salary for years. This month, Hamas’ government announced a 10% pay increase — giving him an extra 100 shekels, or $30.   “We hope our work will be rewarded after the crisis ends. Now it’s time to focus on the work and overcome the pandemic,” he said. 
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Two Australian journalists left China overnight Monday to Tuesday, fearing they would be arrested, their employers said Tuesday. Bill Birtles, Beijing correspondent for the ABC channel, and Michael Smith, Shanghai correspondent for the Australian Financial Review, took refuge for several days in Australia’s embassy in Beijing, before leaving China accompanied of Australian diplomats. They arrived in Sydney on Tuesday morning, according to ABC. The hasty departures come after the arrest last month for undetermined reasons of an Australian business journalist working for the Chinese state-run English-language channel CGTN, Cheng Lei. This arrest greatly strained relations between Beijing and Canberra. According to ABC, Birtles was advised last week to leave the country by the Australian Foreign Office. But shortly before his return to Australia, scheduled for last Thursday, seven Chinese police officers came to his home in the middle of the night and informed him that he was going to be questioned on a “national security matter” and that he had no right to leave the country. After this, the journalist took refuge in his embassy in Beijing. Birtles was subsequently questioned by Chinese police, in the presence of two Australian diplomats, and allowed to leave the country. Smith was also visited by police at his home the same night, according to AFR, which added pressure on the two journalists was linked to the arrest of Cheng last month. Smith took refuge in Australia’s Shanghai consulate. Relations between Australia and China have deteriorated sharply over the past two years. Canberra then decided to act against what was seen as Beijing’s growing interference in the affairs of Australia. Canberra also caused fury in Beijing a few months ago for its requests to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, first discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan. China has since taken steps to reduce Australian imports and encouraged its students and tourists to avoid Australia. 
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In April, during the height of the coronavirus lockdown, Trump administration health experts hailed a test that would confirm if someone had already had the virus and therefore couldn’t get sick again. The antibody test would show who might have “the wonderful, beautiful immunity,” President Donald Trump said was needed to get the nation working again. Months later, the tests exist but haven’t fulfilled their promise of allowing Americans to reclaim their lives, said Dr. Jennifer Rakeman of New York City’s Public Health Laboratory. In fighting off the virus, the body makes antibodies, which the tests measure. Unfortunately, scientists are still figuring out how well and for how long antibodies provide the immunity that protects against another infection by the coronavirus.  An Indian girl cries as a medical worker collects her swab sample for a COVID-19 test at a rural health center in Bagli, outskirts of Dharmsala, India, Sept. 7, 2020.In truth, “there’s no easy path to this knowledge” about immunity, Marc Jenkins of the University of Minnesota said. Long-term human or animal studies are usually needed to reach answers about immunity. Much of that work is done by the National Institutes of Health and universities, but they are occupied developing a vaccine against the coronavirus. Until more is known, antibody tests should not be used to determine when it is safe to return to work or school, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Medical Association. But the tests are useful in large studies to see how widely the coronavirus has spread and to screen people who have recovered and could donate their blood plasma for use as a treatment for those in the throes of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. WHO: Learn from pandemicEarlier Monday the World Health Organization (WHO) said that countries that built up their health care systems in recent years fared better amid the COVID-19 pandemic. People pack the Ipanema beach amid the new coronavirus pandemic in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sept.6, 2020.As of Monday, the United States leads the world with about 6.3 million confirmed cases and more than 189,000 deaths, according to the A nurse prepares an injection for a COVID-19 patient in the ICU of the National Hospital in Itagua, Paraguay, Sept. 7, 2020.The other vaccine is a joint project between AstraZeneca and Oxford University currently in late-stage trials. Morrison said Monday that CSL will manufacture that vaccine as well for distribution in Australia, and that he expects 3.8 million doses to be available in January or February 2021. Israel is beginning partial nighttime lockdowns in 40 cities and towns with the country’s highest infection rates. Schools in those areas will also be closed, and gatherings will be limited to 10 people inside and 20 outdoors. “I know that these restrictions are not easy but in the current situation there is no avoiding them,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. 
 
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Maria Kolesnikova, a leading member of Belarus’ opposition, was reportedly seized Monday by unidentified men in Minsk, and Germany and Britain are demanding that President Alexander Lukashenko disclose where she is.   Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas called for “clarity on the whereabouts and the release of all political prisoners in Belarus,” in comments tweeted by the foreign ministry.  FILE – A handout image released by 10 Downing Street, shows Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab speaking during a remote press conference to update the nation on May 5, 2020.Dominic Raab, Britain’s foreign secretary, tweeted: “Seriously concerned for the welfare of Maria Kolesnikova in #Belarus. Lukashenko’s regime must make her safe return their highest priority. The regime must cease brutalising protestors, release political prisoners and begin dialogue with the opposition.”A witness identified as Anastasia told Belarusian website Tut.by Monday that she saw Kolesnikova being forced by men in civilian clothing into a minibus and driven away.  Kolesnikova is the last of three women left inside Belarus who came together in the opposition coordination council to try to defeat Lukashenko in the August 9 poll. He was declared winner in the election, but opposition parties, along with the United States and the European Union, say the poll was rigged.  Kolesnikova’s ally Olga Kovalkova went to Poland on Saturday, saying authorities forced her out of the country, while Belarus’ main opposition leader, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, has been in Lithuania with her children since the election for what she says is her own safety.  FILE – German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas addresses the media during a statement at the foreign ministry in Berlin, Germany, June 3, 2020.Maas, the German foreign minister, also tweeted that the European Union is “working flat out on a sanctions package. If #Lukashenko does not change course, we will respond.”The EU is considering sanctions on 31 senior Belarus officials, Reuters reported Monday, citing three EU diplomats.  “The EU expects the Belarusian authorities to ensure the immediate release of all detained on political grounds before and after the falsified 9 August presidential elections,” said its diplomatic head, Josep Borrell. Further, the EU called Monday on Belarus to release the more than 600 people it said it arrested over the weekend for protesting what thousands of Belarusians believe was rigged elections. People take cover from rain under umbrellas during an opposition rally to protest against police brutality and to reject the presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus, Sept. 6, 2020.”The EU will impose sanctions on individuals responsible for violence, repression and falsification of election results,” Borrell added. The demonstrations against Lukashenko entered their fifth straight week Sunday, again drawing tens of thousands of people into the streets, shouting slogans and waving red and white opposition flags.  More than 7,000 protesters have been arrested, and widespread evidence of abuse and torture has been reported in the month of protests. At least four people are reported to have died during the demonstrations.   In an interview with VOA, Tsikhanouskaya said she is working to organize new elections despite Lukashenko’s refusal to do so. “Our plan is absolutely clear. It’s organization of new elections, fair and transparent,” she said.   Lukashenko has been in power since 1994. 
 
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Bright green stalks of weeds are sprouting from the ground where planes were supposed to take off at a new Mexico City airport as officials let nature take over in their bid to transform the marshy swath of an ancient lake into a giant park. The ghostly skeletons of a partly built control tower and flight terminal are recognizably in the style of Norman Foster, the British architect commissioned by Mexico’s last president to build a futuristic international airport at a cost of $13 billion on 4,800 hectares just east of the capital. Upon taking office in December 2018, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador axed the project, citing the results of an informal referendum, after arguing it would be costly to prevent sinking on the waterlogged soil. Instead of the slick design from Foster, whose award-winning glass and steel weblike buildings dot the globe, Lopez Obrador opted to expand an existing military airport. Workers prepare native plants at the garden center near the canceled airport zone as part of a project to conserve 12,200 hectares of land in Texcoco on the outskirts of Mexico City, Mexico, Sept. 3, 2020.The abandoned construction zone is now part of a project to conserve 12,200 hectares of marsh on what was once massive Lake Texcoco before Spanish colonizers in the 1600s began draining the water to prevent flooding in their burgeoning settlement. About half that area is slated for public use, including sports and events space more than twice the size of New York’s Central Park. Architect Iñaki Echeverria, who is overseeing the project, aims to open a portion of the park by March next year and offer full access by 2024. “The restoration began the moment the construction stopped. This shows nature’s incredible resiliency,” he said. Officials point to recent flooding as proof that maintenance would have been difficult and say less than 20% of construction was completed. They paid about $603 million to cancel more than 600 contracts left in limbo. During a recent visit, a moat of green water had risen around a flying-saucer-like building where a control tower juts 20 meters high, less than a third of its intended height. Unfinished parts of the flight terminal at an abandoned construction site of a Mexico City airport are now flooded by summer rains, in Texcoco on the outskirts of Mexico City, Mexico, Sept. 4, 2020.Birds glided in a pond beneath columns of crisscrossing steel bars that were meant to become a terminal greeting 70 million passengers a year. The steel will be sold as scrap. Conservation efforts in the area date to the 1970s, when the government grappled with how to contain dust storms that swept from the dry lake basin over Mexico City. The current project has been hailed by Lopez Obrador as a “new Tenochtitlan,” referring to the centuries-old Aztec capital built in the middle of a sprawling lake, where Mexico City is today. Part of Echeverria’s work is convincing city dwellers that the wetlands are worth visiting. “People who think there’s nothing there, don’t know it well,” he said.   
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Національний банк України послабив гривню на 2 копійки щодо долара США ­– до рівня 27,75 за одиницю американської валюти. Про це свідчить офіційний курс на 8 вересня, опублікований на сайті регулятора.

Торги на міжбанківському валютному ринку завершилися на рівні 27 гривень 76–78 копійок за долар, показують дані Finance.ua.

Як повідомляють експерти сайту «Мінфін», «Нацбанк вилучив з ринку частину пропозиції, провівши інтервенцію (з викупу надлишку пропозиції долара – ред.) по 27,73 гривні за долар – котирування поступово стали зростати».

Раніше 7 вересня НБУ повідомив про те, що його міжнародні резерви перевищили 29 мільярдів доларів.

 
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The U.S. presidential campaign turned to the homestretch Monday on the annual Labor Day holiday, with both Republican President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, focused on the fate of American workers amid the coronavirus pandemic. With fewer than 60 days until the November 3 national election, Trump said on Twitter, “Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during an event with local union members in the backyard of a home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Sept. 7, 2020.The U.S. jobless rate dipped to 8.4% in August, but economic experts say it could take months for a more robust recovery to take hold. Only about half the 22 million jobs that were lost in the pandemic have been recovered, with many employers paring their payrolls even as they have reopened their businesses. Biden was set to collect endorsements from three organized labor groups: the Laborers’ International Union of North America, the International Union of Elevator Constructors and the National Federation of Federal Employees. Collectively, the three unions represent hundreds of thousands of workers nationwide the Biden campaign hopes to mobilize to support his campaign. Biden’s vice-presidential running mate, California Senator Kamala Harris, and Vice President Mike Pence both visited the highly contested election state of Wisconsin in the Midwest. Harris, in her first solo, in-person campaign appearance as part of Biden’s ticket, is meeting with unionized electrical workers and Black business owners in Milwaukee. Pence, Trump’s second in command, is touring an energy facility in the city of La Crosse. Both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, two traditionally Democratic states that Trump won in 2016 to help him capture a four-year White House term, are again expected to be pivotal states in the 2020 contest. Polls show Biden narrowly ahead in both states. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference on the North Portico of the White House, Sept. 7, 2020, in Washington.While the pandemic has sharply curtailed huge political rallies that are a mainstay of typical U.S. presidential campaigns, both Trump and Biden are planning numerous trips in the coming weeks to politically important states in front of more modest crowds or in Biden’s case with virtual events. Trump has appeared before sizeable gatherings in recent weeks, including at the White House August 27 to deliver his presidential Republican renomination acceptance speech.  Trump plans to visit North Carolina, Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania later in the week. Biden plans to return to Pennsylvania on Friday, when both he and Trump plan to commemorate the 19th anniversary of the 2001 al-Qaida terrorist attacks on the U.S. in Shanksville, where a jetliner crashed into a field as passengers tried to commandeer the plane from the hijackers. Biden, as he has for months, is maintaining his lead over Trump in national polls, by about 7 percentage points, although his lead in battleground states is thinner. The U.S. decides the presidency through an indirect form of democracy, not by the national popular vote but in the Electoral College, where the winner in each state receives all of that state’s electoral votes. Each state’s number of electoral votes is based on its population. Would-be presidents must win at least 270 of the 538 electoral votes. The most populous states — Democratic-leaning California with 55 votes, and Republican-dominated Texas with 38 — hold the most sway. Seven states and the national capital city of Washington have the fewest electoral votes, three apiece. 
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As political talks wound down on the second and final day of negotiations in the town of Bouznika, Libya’s two rival camps issued a statement saying that they were “intent on reaching an agreement.”  Libya’s Tobruk-based parliament spokesman Abdallah Bilhaq told journalists Monday that “the objective of the talks is to decide how to apportion posts and not to select any names for those posts.”  “Any agreement,” he added, “must be taken back to parliament for approval.”   Libya has had two rival governments since militias forced Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni to flee Tripoli in 2014.  He continues to govern eastern regions.  A 2015 U.N.-sponsored political accord in the Moroccan town of Skheirat formed a new Tripoli-based Government of National Accord, which controls western parts of Libya. Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita, who presided over this week’s talks, tried to keep an upbeat tone during the meetings.He said that political initiatives from both parliament speaker Aquilah Salah and the National Unity Government may push matters forward to a peaceful conclusion of the Libyan crisis. The Saudi-owned Asharqalawsat newspaper reported that the main objective of the talks was to “reshape the ruling government structure,” and to bring down the number of leading figures in the country’s ruling council from nine to three. Libyan member of parliament Ali Paqbel told the BBC Arabic service that “it makes sense to bring the number of ruling council members down from nine to three, since the country has three main regions,” but added that he “opposes picking names from specific tribes or groups since that is not how to run a modern country.” Khattar Abou Diab, who teaches political science at the University of Paris, told VOA that he thinks that “the military option is Libya appears to be losing steam amid a widespread stalemate, making the political option more attractive.” Aya Burweila, visiting lecturer at the Hellenic National Defense College, told VOA that the talks “are a promising sign,” but that many observers are “worried about the independence of the High Council of State from (Turkey).”  Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, and Fayez Sarraj, the head of Libya’s internationally-recognized government, pose together prior to their official talks in Istanbul, Sept. 6, 2020.Tripoli-based Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj met with Turkish President Reccip Tayyib Erdogan in Ankara on Sunday. Formal Libyan political talks are expected to get under way in Geneva on September 17. 
 
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Міжнародні резерви перевищили 29 мільярдів доларів, повідомив Національний банк України.

У серпні вони збільшилися на 1% і майже досягли рівня жовтня 2012 року.

Згідно з повідомленням, динаміку резервів упродовж серпня визначали такі чинники:

операції Національного банку на міжбанківському валютному ринку. У серпні пропозиція валюти перевищувала попит і Національний банк міг поповнювати міжнародні резерви. Загалом у серпні НБУ купив 460,5 млн доларів. Інтервенції з продажу валюти у минулому місяці не проводилися;
операції уряду з управління державним боргом. Валютні надходження на користь уряду впродовж серпня становили 250,5 млн доларів від продажу облігацій внутрішньої державної позики (ОВДП), номінованих у валюті. Водночас на обслуговування та погашення державного боргу в іноземній валюті було спрямовано 645,2 млн доларів;
переоцінка фінансових інструментів (унаслідок зміни ринкової вартості та курсів валют). У минулому місяці їх вартість збільшилася на 385 млн доларів (в еквіваленті).

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