«На 15 тисяч мешканців прикордонних громад Чернігівщини, які зазнають постійних ударів із Росії, терористи випустили 15 тисяч снарядів за минулий рік»
…

WASHINGTON — America’s employers delivered another outpouring of jobs in March, adding a sizzling 303,000 workers to their payrolls and bolstering hopes that the economy can vanquish inflation without succumbing to a recession in the face of high interest rates. 

Last month’s job growth was up from a revised 270,000 in February and was far above the 200,000 economists had forecast. By any measure, it amounted to a strong month of hiring, and it reflected the economy’s ability to withstand the pressure of high borrowing costs resulting from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes. With the nation’s consumers continuing to spend, many employers have kept hiring to meet steady customer demand. 

Friday’s report from the Labor Department also showed that the unemployment rate dipped to 3.8% from 3.9% in February. That rate has now come in below 4% for 26 straight months, the longest such streak since the 1960s. 

Normally, a blockbuster bounty of new jobs would fan worries that the additional spending from those new workers could accelerate inflation. But the March jobs report showed that wage growth was mild last month, which might allay any such fears. Average hourly wages were up 4.1% from a year earlier, the smallest year-over-year increase since mid-2021. But hourly pay rose 0.3% from February to March after increasing 0.2% the month before. 

The economy is sure to weigh on Americans’ minds as the November presidential vote nears and they assess President Joe Biden’s reelection bid. Many people still feel squeezed by the inflation surge that erupted in the spring of 2021. Eleven rate increases by the Fed have helped send inflation tumbling from its peak over the past year and a half. But average prices are still about 18% higher than they were in February 2021 — a fact for which Biden might pay a political price. 

The Fed’s policymakers are tracking the state of the economy, the job market and inflation to determine when to begin cutting interest rates from their multidecade highs — a move eagerly awaited by Wall Street traders, businesses, homebuyers and people in need of cars, household appliances and other major purchases that are typically financed. Rate cuts by the Fed would likely lead, over time, to lower borrowing rates across the economy. 

The central bank’s policymakers started raising rates two years ago to try to tame inflation, which by mid-2022 was running at a four-decade high. Those rate hikes — 11 of them from March 2022 through July 2023 — helped drastically slow inflation. Consumer prices were up 3.2% in February from a year earlier, far below a year-over-year peak of 9.1% in June 2022. 

Yet the sharply higher borrowing costs for individuals and companies that resulted from the Fed’s rate hikes were widely expected to trigger a recession, with waves of layoffs and a painful rise in unemployment. Yet to the surprise of just about everyone, the economy has kept growing steadily and employers have kept hiring at a healthy pace. Layoffs remain low. 

Some economists believe that a rise in productivity — the amount of output that workers produce per hour — made it easier for companies to hire, raise pay and post bigger profits without having to raise prices. In addition, an influx of immigrants into the job market is believed to have addressed labor shortages and slowed upward pressure on wage growth. This helped allow inflation to cool even as the economy kept growing. 

In the meantime, the Fed has signaled that it expects to cut rates three times this year. But it is awaiting more inflation data to gain further confidence that annual price increases are heading toward its 2% target. Some economists have begun to question whether the Fed will need to cut rates anytime soon considering the consistently durable U.S. economy.
…

«Ми звернули увагу на відсутність системи онлайн-моніторингу. На жаль, цю систему КРАІЛ не може запустити вже більше ніж три роки»
…

GABORONE, BOTSWANA — Africa’s leading diamond producer, Botswana, has written to the Group of Seven leading industrial countries seeking to reverse an initiative requiring all producers to send gems to Belgium for certification. This follows G7 move to prevent the import of diamonds mined in Russia.

Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi told diplomats in Gaborone Wednesday the G7 traceability mechanism poses an unfair burden on African diamond producers. 

The G7 is an informal grouping of seven of the world’s advanced economies, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. They have required since March 1 that all diamonds entering G7 countries be sent through Antwerp, Belgium, to determine their origin.

The controls are meant to prevent Russian diamonds out of global markets amid concerns the revenues will be used to finance Russia’s Ukraine war.

“We cannot agree to an attempt to undermine our quest for development by taking charge and responsibility of our own value addition of our resources,” Masisi said. “Because if you make Belgium, Antwerp the single node for verification, gosh, what impudence. When we mine our diamonds here and we are certain they are mined here and you add another layer of cost, delay and time and risk to direct interaction with customers and clients and you take them still to Antwerp, it’s not acceptable.”

Masisi said African diamond producing countries were not consulted by the G7 before the measures were introduced in March.

“When the G7 made these propositions, that are inimical to our interests and particularly Botswana because we are one of the largest producers at least outside Russia,” he said. “They were essentially regulating our industry completely without our participation. You can’t do this without engaging us, particularly Botswana. They did reach out and send people here. The engagement was pretty patronizing. They had essentially made up their minds.”

Masisi said he is lobbying other leaders to protest the controls.

Botswana, together with Angola and Namibia, two other African diamond producers, sent a letter protesting G7’s move but there has been no response.

“We wrote a letter, we authored the main letter, we shared it with other producing countries namely Namibia and Angola and we asked them to be co-signatories and with minor amendments we all co-signed and sent it to G7 and we have not gotten a response. Apparently they say they are consulting but the requirements have kicked in and luckily the World Diamond Council has also protested because there has been serious disruption to the flow of diamond trade, and cost implications and delays.”

Masisi said Botswana in particular already has advanced verification and traceability systems. 

The G7 move is seen as undermining the Kimberley Process, an existing commitment to remove conflict diamonds from the global supply chain.

“The African Diamond Producers Association is very right to protect their interests,” said Jaff Bamenjo, coordinator of the Kimberley Process Civil Society Coalition, which acts as an observer of the Kimberly Process. 

“That is legitimate. However, the G7 is also right to protect the values and principles they cherish and defend. The main issue to us, as the Kimberley Process Civil Society Coalition, is how much we accommodate the legitimate concerns of each other. That is the question. But I should say, the G7 in my opinion, from the very onset made a mistake not to consult the African diamond producers right from the initial stages.” 

Belgian-based diamond industry researcher Hans Merket told VOA traceability measures are necessary but that there is also a need to respond to African producers’ concerns. 

“A serious advancement of traceability in the diamond trade is long overdue,” Merket said. “Too many actors have been overtly comfortable in a lack of transparency for many years. I think delays in the implementation of the scheme in the first month were a growing pain and have already been partly resolved after some adaptations. The added costs I think are also manageable given that the scheme only applies to more valuable diamonds of about 1 carat.”

More than 100 diamond businesses recently wrote a letter to the Antwerp World Diamond Centre expressing concerns over delays in customs clearance of diamonds since the G7 introduced the traceability measures.
…

…

In Dearborn, Michigan, a new Ford F-150 rolls off the line every 53 seconds
…

«На внутрішніх переселенців, які належать до вразливих категорій громадян, не буде поширюватись обмеження щодо терміну проживання»
…

У розслідуванні «Схеми» розповіли про те, як один з найбагатших бізнесменів України Віктор Поліщук під час воєнного стану виїжджав за кордон як волонтер і водій вантажівки на підставі документів з ознаками підробки
…

LIVERMORE, Calif. — Most fast food workers in California will be paid at least $20 an hour beginning Monday when a new law is scheduled to kick in giving more financial security to an historically low-paying profession while threatening to raise prices in a state already known for its high cost of living.

Democrats in the state Legislature passed the law last year in part as an acknowledgement that many of the more than 500,000 people who work in fast food restaurants are not teenagers earning some spending money, but adults working to support their families.

That includes immigrants like Ingrid Vilorio, who said she started working at a McDonald’s shortly after arriving in the United States in 2019. Fast food was her full-time job until last year. Now, she works about eight hours per week at a Jack in the Box while working other jobs.

“The $20 raise is great. I wish this would have come sooner,” Vilorio said through a translator. “Because I would not have been looking for so many other jobs in different places.”

The law was supported by the trade association representing fast food franchise owners. But since it passed, many franchise owners have bemoaned the impact the law is having on them, especially during California’s slowing economy.

Alex Johnson owns 10 Auntie Anne’s Pretzels and Cinnabon restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area. He said sales have slowed in 2024, prompting him to lay off his office staff and rely on his parents to help with payroll and human resources.

Increasing his employees’ wages will cost Johnson about $470,000 each year. He will have to raise prices anywhere from 5% to 15% at his stores, and is no longer hiring or seeking to open new locations in California, he said.

“I try to do right by my employees. I pay them as much as I can. But this law is really hitting our operations hard,” Johnson said.

“I have to consider selling and even closing my business,” he said. “The profit margin has become too slim when you factor in all the other expenses that are also going up.”

Over the past decade, California has doubled its minimum wage for most workers to $16 per hour. A big concern over that time was whether the increase would cause some workers to lose their jobs as employers’ expenses increased.

Instead, data showed wages went up and employment did not fall, said Michael Reich, a labor economics professor at the University of California-Berkeley.

“I was surprised at how little, or how difficult it was to find disemployment effects. If anything, we find positive employment effects,” Reich said.

Plus, Reich said while the statewide minimum wage is $16 per hour, many of the state’s larger cities have their own minimum wage laws setting the rate higher than that. For many fast food restaurants, this means the jump to $20 per hour will be smaller.

The law reflected a carefully crafted compromise between the fast food industry and labor unions, which had been fighting over wages, benefits and legal liabilities for close to two years. The law originated during private negotiations between unions and the industry, including the unusual step of signing confidentiality agreements.

The law applies to restaurants offering limited or no table service and which are part of a national chain with at least 60 establishments nationwide. Restaurants operating inside a grocery establishment are exempt, as are restaurants producing and selling bread as a stand-alone menu item.

At first, it appeared the bread exemption applied to Panera Bread restaurants. Bloomberg News reported the change would benefit Greg Flynn, a wealthy campaign donor to Newsom. But the Newsom administration said the wage increase law does apply to Panera Bread because the restaurant does not make dough on-site. Also, Flynn has announced he would pay his workers at least $20 per hour.
…

…

CAIRO — The executive board of the International Monetary Fund confirmed a deal with Egypt to increase its bailout loan from $3 billion to $8 billion, in a move that is meant to shore up the Arab country’s economy, which is hit by a staggering shortage of foreign currency and soaring inflation.

In a statement late Friday, the board said its decision would enable Egypt to immediately receive about $820 million as part of the deal, which was announced earlier this month.

The deal was achieved after Egypt agreed with the IMF on a reform plan that is centered on floating the local currency, reducing public investment and allowing the private sector to become the engine of growth, the statement said.

Egypt has already floated the pound and sharply increased the main interest rate.

Commercial banks are now trading the U.S. currency at more than 47 pounds, up from about 31 pounds. The measures are meant to combat ballooning inflation and attract foreign investment.

The Egyptian economy has been hit hard by years of government austerity, the coronavirus pandemic, the fallout from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and, most recently, the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. The Houthi attacks on shipping routes in the Red Sea have slashed Suez Canal revenues, which is a major source of foreign currency. The attacks forced traffic away from the canal and around the tip of Africa.

“Egypt is facing significant macroeconomic challenges that have become more complex to manage given the spillovers from the recent conflict in Gaza and Israel. The disruptions in the Red Sea are also reducing Suez Canal receipts, which are an important source of foreign exchange inflows and fiscal revenue,” said IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.

The IMF said such external shocks, combined with delayed reforms, have hurt economic activity. Growth slowed to 3.8% in the fiscal year 2022-23 due to weak confidence and foreign currency shortages and is projected to slow further, to 3%, in the fiscal year 2023-24 before recovering to about 4.5% in 2024-25, the IMF statement said.

The annual inflation rate was 36% in February, but is expected to ease over the medium term, the IMF said.

The currency devaluation and interest rate increase have inflicted further pain on Egyptians already struggling with skyrocketing prices over the past years. Nearly 30% of Egyptians live in poverty, according to official figures.

Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said the confirmation by the IMF executive board “reflects the importance of the correcting measures” taken by the government.

Egypt also this month signed a deal with the European Union that includes a 7.4 billion-euro ($8 billion) aid package for the most populous Arab country over three years.

To quickly inject much-needed funds into Egypt’s staggering economy, the EU intends to fast-track 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) of the package, using an urgent funding procedure that bypasses parliamentary oversight and other safeguards, according to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
…

ZIGUINCHOR, Senegal — Mariama Sonko’s voice resounded through the circle of 40 women farmers sitting in the shade of a cashew tree. They scribbled notes, brows furrowed in concentration as her lecture was punctuated by the thud of falling fruit.

This quiet village in Senegal is the headquarters of a 115,000-strong rural women’s rights movement in West Africa, We Are the Solution. Sonko, its president, is training female farmers from cultures where women are often excluded from ownership of the land they work so closely.

Across Senegal, women farmers make up 70% of the agricultural workforce and produce 80% of the crops but have little access to land, education and finance compared to men, the United Nations says.

“We work from dawn until dusk, but with all that we do, what do we get out of it?” Sonko asked.

She believes that when rural women are given land, responsibilities and resources, it has a ripple effect through communities. Her movement is training women farmers who traditionally have no access to education, explaining their rights and financing women-led agricultural projects.

Across West Africa, women usually don’t own land because it is expected that when they marry, they leave the community. But when they move to their husbands’ homes, they are not given land because they are not related by blood.

Sonko grew up watching her mother struggle after her father died, with young children to support.

“If she had land, she could have supported us,” she recalled, her normally booming voice now tender. Instead, Sonko had to marry young, abandon her studies and leave her ancestral home.

After moving to her husband’s town at age 19, Sonko and several other women convinced a landowner to rent to them a small plot of land in return for part of their harvest. They planted fruit trees and started a market garden. Five years later, when the trees were full of papayas and grapefruit, the owner kicked them off.

The experience marked Sonko.

“This made me fight so that women can have the space to thrive and manage their rights,” she said. When she later got a job with a women’s charity funded by Catholic Relief Services, coordinating micro-loans for rural women, that work began.

“Women farmers are invisible,” said Laure Tall, research director at Agricultural and Rural Prospect Initiative, a Senegalese rural think tank. That’s even though women work on farms two to four hours longer than men on an average day.

But when women earn money, they reinvest it in their community, health and children’s education, Tall said. Men spend some on household expenses but can choose to spend the rest how they please. Sonko listed common examples like finding a new wife, drinking and buying fertilizer and pesticides for crops that make money instead of providing food.

With encouragement from her husband, who died in 1997, Sonko chose to invest in other women. Her training center now employs more than 20 people, with support from small philanthropic organizations such as Agroecology Fund and CLIMA Fund.

In a recent week, Sonko and her team trained over 100 women from three countries, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau and Gambia, in agroforestry – growing trees and crops together as a measure of protection from extreme weather – and micro gardening, growing food in tiny spaces when there is little access to land.

One trainee, Binta Diatta, said We Are the Solution bought irrigation equipment, seeds, and fencing — an investment of $4,000 — and helped the women of her town access land for a market garden, one of more than 50 financed by the organization.

When Diatta started to earn money, she said, she spent it on food, clothes and her children’s schooling. Her efforts were noticed.

“Next season, all the men accompanied us to the market garden because they saw it as valuable,” she said, recalling how they came simply to witness it.

Now another challenge has emerged affecting women and men alike: climate change.

In Senegal and the surrounding region, temperatures are rising 50% more than the global average, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the UN Environment Program says rainfall could drop by 38% in the coming decades.

Where Sonko lives, the rainy season has become shorter and less predictable. Saltwater is invading her rice paddies bordering the tidal estuary and mangroves, caused by rising sea levels. In some cases, yield losses are so acute that farmers abandon their rice fields.

But adapting to a heating planet has proven to be a strength for women since they adopt climate innovations much faster than men, said Ena Derenoncourt, an investment specialist for women-led farming projects at agricultural research agency AICCRA.

“They have no choice because they are the most vulnerable and affected by climate change,” Derenoncourt said. “They are the most motivated to find solutions.”

On a recent day, Sonko gathered 30 prominent women rice growers to document hundreds of local rice varieties. She bellowed out the names of rice – some hundreds of years old, named after prominent women farmers, passed from generation to generation – and the women echoed with what they call it in their villages.

This preservation of indigenous rice varieties is not only key to adapting to climate change but also about emphasizing the status of women as the traditional guardians of seeds.

“Seeds are wholly feminine and give value to women in their communities,” Sonko said. “That’s why we’re working on them, to give them more confidence and responsibility in agriculture.”

The knowledge of hundreds of seeds and how they respond to different growing conditions has been vital in giving women a more influential role in communities.

Sonko claimed to have a seed for every condition including too rainy, too dry and even those more resistant to salt for the mangroves.

Last year, she produced 2 tons of rice on her half-hectare plot with none of the synthetic pesticides or fertilizer that are heavily subsidized in Senegal. The yield was more than double that of plots with full use of chemical products in a 2017 U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization project in the same region.

“Our seeds are resilient,” Sonko said, sifting through rice-filled clay pots designed to preserve seeds for decades. “Conventional seeds do not resist climate change and are very demanding. They need fertilizer and pesticides.”

The cultural intimacy between female farmers, their seeds and the land means they are more likely to shun chemicals harming the soil, said Charles Katy, an expert on indigenous wisdom in Senegal who is helping to document Sonko’s rice varieties.

He noted the organic fertilizer that Sonko made from manure, and the biopesticides made from ginger, garlic and chili.

One of Sonko’s trainees, Sounkarou Kébé, recounted her experiments against parasites in her tomato plot. Instead of using manufactured insecticides, she tried using a tree bark traditionally used in Senegal’s Casamance region to treat intestinal problems in humans caused by parasites.

A week later, all the disease was gone, Kébé said.

As dusk approached at the training center, insects hummed in the background and Sonko prepared for another training session. “There’s too much demand,” she said. She is now trying to set up seven other farming centers across southern Senegal.

Glancing back at the circle of women studying in the fading light, she said: “My great fight in the movement is to make humanity understand the importance of women.”
…

За оцінками Міністерства фінансів, зовнішня допомога від 24 лютого 2022 року склала 83,7 мільярда доларів
…

Міністр зауважив, що Україна вийшли на обсяги експорту з портів Великої Одеси, які були до повномасштабного вторгнення РФ
…

Відомо, що до загального фонду державного бюджету надійшло 1,4 млрд доларів США
…

…

За даними Finance.ua, станом на 15:50 котирування на міжбанківському валютному ринку становили 39 гривень 20–24 копійки за долар
…

…

…

BEIJING — China’s President Xi Jinping met American business leaders at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Wednesday, as the government tries to woo back foreign investors and international firms seeking reassurance about the impact of new regulations. 

Beijing wants to boost growth of the world’s second-largest economy after foreign direct investment shrank 8% in 2023 amid heightened investor concern over an anti-espionage law, exit bans, and raids on consultancies and due diligence firms. 

Xi’s increasing focus on national security has left many companies uncertain where they might step over the line, even as Chinese leaders make public overtures toward foreign investors. 

“China’s development has gone through all sorts of difficulties and challenges to get to where it is today,” Xi said, according to state media. 

“In the past, [China] did not collapse because of a ‘China collapse theory,’ and it will also not peak now because of a ‘China peak theory,'” he said. 

Stephen Schwarzman, co-founder and CEO of private equity firm Blackstone, Raj Subramaniam, head of American delivery giant FedEx, and Cristiano Amon, the boss of chips manufacturer Qualcomm, were part of the around 20-strong all-male U.S. contingent.  

The audience with Xi — organized by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, the U.S.-China Business Council and the Asia Society think tank — lasted around 90 minutes, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. 

The source, who declined to be named as they were not authorized to speak to the media, had no immediate comment on what was discussed. The National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and Asia Society did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the meeting. 

A statement from U.S.-China Business Council said the participants “stressed the importance of rebalancing China’s economy by increasing consumption there and encouraging the government to further address longstanding concerns with cross border data flows, government procurement, intellectual property rights, and improved regulatory transparency and predictability.” 

The U.S. and China are gradually resuming engagements after relations between the two economic superpowers sank to their lowest in years due to clashes over trade policies, the future of democratically ruled Taiwan and territorial claims in the South China Sea. 
…

«Нацбанк періодично продає валюту, що стримує зростання котирувань»
…

За словами Стрільця, було зафіксовано засмічення ґрунтів та пляму нафтопродуктів орієнтовною масою 0,5 тонни, наразі ситуація стабілізувалася
…