усі новини
The Trump Administration has launched “Made In America Week” to highlight the importance of U.S. manufacturing and tout its policies to bring more such jobs back home from overseas. But as VOA White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman reports, many Trump family products are made in foreign factories, leading to criticism of the president’s trade campaign.
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President Donald Trump inspected products brought to the White House on Monday from all 50 U.S. states to launch his “Made In America Week.”
On display from the easternmost state of Maine was a yacht. From the distant shores of Hawaii, more than 7,500 kilometers from the nation’s capital, there was a bottle of rum.
Even Marine One, the presidential helicopter, was turned into an expensive prop to tout Connecticut manufacturing.
The president hopped into a Wisconsin firetruck.
“Where’s the fire? I’ll put it out,” he asked as Vice President Mike Pence looked on and press secretary Sean Spicer snapped photos.
Highlighting US manufacturing prowess
Minutes later, Trump signed a proclamation declaring July 17 as Made in America Day, saying the “hard part now is done,” because his administration has removed regulatory barriers.
“For decades Washington has allowed other nations to wipe out millions of American jobs through unfair trade practices,” said the president to representatives of the featured businesses from 50 states. “Wait ‘till you see what is up for you. You are going to be so happy.”
The latest weekly-themed campaign of the six-month-old Trump administration (and there are more to come in the next few weeks) is meant to highlight the importance of U.S. manufacturing and tout its policies to bring more such jobs back from overseas.
Amid the continuing pursuit of health care legislation and the growing investigations into links between the Trump campaign and Russia, another themed week should have come as a welcome and positive distraction.
Monday’s launch, however, was somewhat overshadowed by the fact that many, if not most, of the Trump family business products are made in foreign factories.
Steel and aluminum to build some of the most recent Trump hotels in the U.S. came from China. Much of the merchandise sold in those hotels, as well as the president’s private golf courses, are of foreign origin.
What about Trump products?
The Democratic National Committee calls the domestic promotion campaign “the epitome of hypocrisy,” saying the president, instead of lecturing, should try setting an example.
“If you’re going to preach something, start at home, start at home,” said Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Party’s leader in the Senate. “Trump shirts and ties: where are they made? China. Trump furniture: where is it made? Turkey.”
The clothing line carrying daughter Ivanka Trump’s name is also made overseas. That point was repeatedly raised by reporters at Monday’s off-camera White House press briefing.
“Some products may not have the scalability or the demand here in this country,” acknowledged Spicer. “But like so many other things, if that demand – if there is enough of demand then hopefully somebody builds a factory and does it.”
Globalization makes ‘Made in…’ obsolete
Trade analysts say it is not that simple, because we are now in an interconnected global economy.
“The factory floor has broken through its walls and now spans borders and oceans,” said Daniel Ikenson, who directs trade policy studies at a libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute. “So things, a final good on an American retail store shelf, tends to have components, value-added, in five, six, 10 countries.”
While internationalists acknowledge there is a problem with Americans displaced from their jobs by technological changes or trade treaties, “The way to address that is not to compel people to buy American. The way to address that is to get rid of the frictions in the labor market that will make it easier for people to adjust to the new conditions,” Ikenson told VOA.
White House policymakers are undeterred by such arguments, pursuing their protectionist agenda. It seeks to reverse decades of work by administrations of both parties – supported by major U.S. business groups — to promote international commerce and trade agreements.
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Посольство України в Білорусі повідомило, що направило до Міністерства закордонних справ цієї країни ноту на знак протесту через можливий показ у Білорусі російського пропагандистського художнього кінофільму про Крим, інформує білоруське інтернет-видання TUT.BY з посиланням на прес-службу посольства.
За цим повідомленням, ноту передали ще минулої п’ятниці, 14 липня, у зв’язку з тим, що в кінотеатрах Мінська почали показувати рекламний ролик фільму «Крим».
Видання повідомляє, що російський прокатник фільму підтвердив, що планував показувати його в Білорусі, але обговорення, в яких саме кінотеатрах, іще триває.
Як пише білоруське видання, наразі немає даних, чи будуть показувати фільм приватні кіномережі в Білорусі.
Тим часом мінське муніципальне підприємство «Кіновідеопрокат» заявило, що показ рекламного ролика був викликаний контрактними зобов’язаннями, але фільм «Крим» у своїх кінотеатрах показувати не планує.
Заступник генерального директора «Кіновідеопрокату» Андрій Разжавайкін підтвердив білоруській редакції Радіо Свобода, що цей фільм до показу в кінотеатрах підприємства не планувався, і його не було навіть у перспективних планах, і додав: «І не буде».
За даними російської преси, фільм «Крим» показує історію кохання киянки і севастопольця в часи 2013–2014 років. Як виглядає, події тих часів в Україні і, зокрема, у Криму показуються з пропагандистської позиції Кремля. Зокрема, сцени окупації Росією Криму, чи, як кажуть автори фільму, «кримської весни», названі «одними з наймасштабніших і ключових» сцен. Преса такої наводила слова режисера фільму Олексія Піманова про те, що «наша картина – про людські відносини, про історичну пам’ять, про те, як російські і українські солдати і офіцери не стали стріляти одне в одного, тому що вони брати». Фільм знятий за підтримки російського урядового Фонду кіно.
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The Turkish parliament voted Monday to extend a state of emergency by three months, nearly a year after it was implemented in the wake of a failed coup attempt.
A statement from Prime Minister Binali Yildirim’s office earlier Monday had asked parliament to extend the state of emergency, which was due to expire on Wednesday.
About 250 people were killed and more than 2,000 others injured last year when a disgruntled army faction commandeered tanks and warplanes in a bid to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after 15 years in power. Thirty-five coup organizers were also killed.
Since last year’s coup, operating under the state of emergency, the Turkish government has dismissed at least 100,000 civil servants characterized as supporters of the aborted coup. The government has arrested another 50,000 people.
President Erdogan claims the coup was led by a cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who has been living in self-imposed exile in the United States for nearly two decades.
Gulen denies any involvement.
The Bosniak Muslim member of Bosnia’s three-man presidency called on Monday for an investigation into Islamic State death threats to leaders of Bosnia’s Islamic community.
The latest Bosnian edition of the militants’ magazine Rumiyah published photos of top Bosnian clerics and described them as Islamic outcasts, saying killing them was more desirable than the killing of infidels.
“I call on the relevant state institutions … not to underestimate these threats, to investigate them thoroughly and support religious leaders,” Bakir Izetbegovic told reporters.
Bosnian Muslims generally practice a moderate form of Islam but some have adopted radical Salafi Islam from foreign fighters who came to the country during its 1992-95 war to fight alongside Muslims against Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats.
Some joined Islamic State in Syria and Iraq and threatened Bosnian Islamic clerics after they condemned killings and other crimes conducted by the hardline group.
Police estimate 188 Bosnian Muslims have left for Syria and Iraq over the past four years, with almost 50 returning.
But departures from Bosnia and returns from Syria had almost completely stopped by early 2016 because Bosnian authorities were prosecuting both aspiring fighters and those who returned.
Security Minister Dragan Mektic said the threats would be investigated.
He said the Bosnian intelligence agency OBA, in cooperation with other security agencies, last month halted two attempted attacks, but gave no further detail.
“We are making a risk assessment, updating information, following a number of persons,” Mektic told reporters on Monday.
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A Lithuanian accused of swindling Facebook and Google out of more than $100 million through an email fraud scheme must be extradited to the United States to stand trial, a court in Vilnius ruled on Monday.
Evaldas Rimasauskas denies the allegations and will appeal against the decision to a higher court, his lawyer said.
According to a U.S. indictment made public in March, Rimasauskas is charged with wire fraud and money laundering, which each carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, and identify theft, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of two years.
Rimasauskas has been in custody since March at the request of U.S. prosecutors.
“Material presented to the court provides enough evidence to think that Rimasauskas could have committed the deeds that he is accused of,” the judge, Aiva Surviliene, said as he read the verdict.
But his lawyer, Snieguole Uzdanaviciene, said the evidence provided by U.S. prosecutors was too vague and would not be considered evidence in a Lithuanian court.
She also called for Rimasauskas to be investigated in Lithuania rather than the United States.
“We are talking about a Lithuanian citizen, and material presented to the court describe him as acting on Lithuanian territory, not elsewhere, and using means and tools which were within territory of Lithuania,” she said.
The U.S. indictment did not name the companies involved, but Uzdanaviciene told reporters Facebook and Google were both mentioned in the U.S. extradition request. The Lithuanian court decided against making the request public.
Високі премії членів Національного агентства України з питань запобігань корупції ще у травні зацікавили представників НАБУ. Про це повідомив Гліб Канєвський – експерт центру «Ейдос», надавши копію запиту старшого детектива НАБУ Олександра Цивінського.
У запиті до Кабміну, датованому 3 травня поточного року, детектив просить надати йому інформацію й копії документів про те, чи надавали дозвіл на виплату премій членам НАЗК включно з очільницею структури Наталією Корчак.
У запиті Цивінський зазначає, що у досліджених антикорупційним бюро ЗМІ виявили публікацію про можливу безпідставно нараховану й виплачену премію голові та членам Національного агентства з питань запобігання корупції.
Минулого року в жовтні журналісти програми «Схеми», спільного проекту Радіо Свобода і телеканалу «UA: Перший» повідомили, що упродовж декількох місяців чотири члени НАЗК, окрім основного окладу, отримували ще й дві надбавки і премію у розмірі місячної зарплати. Таким чином працівники НАЗК отримували по чотири стандартні оклади замість одного. Відтак щомісяця члени цієї структури преміювали самі себе на десятки тисяч гривень. Ці дані надав сам НАЗК Центру протидії корупції.
Так, з квітня по вересень поточного року голова НАЗК Наталя Корчак отримала понад 700 тисяч гривень зарплатні. Щомісяця голова НАЗК отримувала оклад у розмірі 35 тисяч гривень, 50% від окладу у вигляді надбавки за вислугу, 100% окладу як надбавку за інтенсивність та 100% окладу у вигляді премії.
У липні та вересні поточного року всі чотири члени НАЗК отримали по 250% премії на додаток до окладу та надбавок.
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Україна готова сприяти відновленню територіальної цілісності й суверенітету Молдови, заявляє український президент Петро Порошенко.
«Ми, Україна, готові максимально сприяти відновленню територіальної цілісності, суверенітету Республіки Молдова і робити все для того, щоб відновити те, що 25 років тому було спровоковане і має такі тяжкі наслідки для сотень тисяч людей, які сьогодні мешкають у Придністров’ї», – заявив Порошенко 17 липня на Одещині під час запуску разом із прем’єр-міністром Молдови Павлом Філіпом спільного українсько-молдовського прикордонного контролю в пункті пропуску «Кучурган – Первомайськ».
Він також подякував урядові, прем’єр-міністру, парламентові Молдови за «тверду підтримку суверенітету, територіальної цілісності й незалежності України».
17 липня в пункті пропуску через державний кордон «Кучурган» на Одещині митні й прикордонні служби України й Молдови почали спільно здійснювати прикордонний і митний контроль.
За словами президента Порошенка, у спільних планах – відкриття автомобільного руху через міст Брониця – Унґурь, початок практичної реалізації проекту будівництва мосту Ямпіль – Косеуць та відновлення залізничного руху на ділянці Березине – Басарабяска.
Порошенко також додав, що Україна й Молдова домовилися завершити демаркацію Придністровської ділянки українсько-молдовського кордону «в найкоротші терміни».
Переважно російськомовний регіон Придністров’я оголосив про свою незалежність від Молдови в 1990 році. Нетривала війна велася між молдавськими військами і сепаратистами Придністров’я в 1992–93 роках, тоді кілька сотень людей загинули з обох сторін.
У Придністров’ї в радянські часи базувалася 14-а армія СРСР, а потім Збройних сил Росії. Після війни Кишинів втратив контроль над цим регіоном. У тій війні на боці сепаратистів взяли участь окремі бійці й цілі підрозділи та частини російської армії зі своїм озброєнням і бойовою технікою. Самопроголошеної «незалежності» Придністров’я не визнав ніхто у світі.
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EU foreign ministers approved on Monday measures to allow Ukraine to export more industrial and agricultural products free of tariffs to the bloc in recognition of reforms undertaken by Kyiv and the country’s fragile economy.
By the end of September, Ukraine will be able to export greater tonnage of farm products, including grains, honey and processed tomatoes for three years.
The EU will also remove for the same period import duties on fertilizers, dyes, footwear, copper, aluminum, televisions and sound recording equipment.
The measures add to a free-trade agreement provisionally in place since January 2016 that has opened both markets for goods and services.
“It is our duty to support Ukraine and strengthen our economic and political ties, also in the face of the ongoing conflict on its soil,” said Estonia Foreign Minister Sven Mikser, whose country holds the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union.
Trade has been at the heart of a dispute between Russia and the European Union over relations with Ukraine, with Moscow and Brussels both competing to bring Kyiv closer to their side through offers of greater economic integration.
While Kyiv has moved westward, Russia has sought to destabilize Ukraine, EU governments and NATO say, by annexing Crimea and providing separatists with weapons and troops in Ukraine’s industrial east.
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On a sweltering summer morning in the southern Indian city of Chennai, a dozen garment workers crowd into a small courtroom for the latest hearing in a protracted battle over low wages in factories supplying global fashion brands.
The women are among tens of thousands of workers in Tamil Nadu state – the largest hub in India’s $40 billion-a-year textile and garment industry – who are seeking millions of dollars in compensation following a landmark court ruling last year that declared they had long been grossly underpaid.
The Madras High Court ordered that the garment workers should receive a pay rise of up to 30 percent – the first minimum wage hike for 12 years – and that they could claim arrears going back to 2014.
But 12 months on, many factory bosses have failed to pay up.
Squeezed into a corner at the back of the stuffy Chennai courtroom, a middle-aged woman leans against the blue walls, clutching polythene bags full of documents to prove her claim.
Normally she spends her days hunched over a sewing machine, stitching skirts, shirts and dresses destined for high streets around the world.
But for months she has been taking days off work to attend court.
“I forgo a day’s salary to come for these hearings. It may not seem like a big amount, but for us it is hard earned money,” said the 48-year-old seamstress, who did not wish to be identified fearing it would impact her case. “I am only asking for what is rightfully mine. And they won’t even tell me how they are calculating my dues.”
More than 150 claims have been filed against tailoring and export garment manufacturing units in the Chennai region alone, according to data requested by the Thomson Reuters Foundation under the Right to Information Act.
The claims, which would benefit at least 80,000 workers at factories around the port city, add up to more than 490 million Indian rupees ($7.6 million).
But workers’ unions say these claims are probably the tip of the iceberg as they only represent cases filed by government labor inspectors.
Salary cuts
Under the 2016 Madras court ruling, Tamil Nadu’s garment and textile workers should see their pay rise from a monthly average of 4,500 to 6,500 rupees – which campaigners say is comparable to wages for textile jobs in most other states.
But workers say managers have defaulted or delayed on payments since the ruling, with some even introducing pay cuts.
Despite the state’s minimum wage laws, salaries continue to be “grossly low” for thousands of workers who are still not given pay slips or are often hired only as apprentices, campaigners say.
“Instead of paying workers their correct salaries, companies are finding ways to surreptitiously squash their rights,” said Selvi Palani, a lawyer helping workers’ unions fight their cases. “There is a court order but the money is not on the table.
Workers continue to be underpaid.”
Sujata Mody of Penn Thozhilalargal Sangam, a women workers’ union, said some companies that had raised wages were now docking pay for sick days, and for factory meals and shuttle buses which were previously free, meaning many workers had seen little or no change in pay.
Some factories were also firing more expensive workers on trivial grounds, she added.
“The workers are struggling to be heard and the managements are coming up with new forms to deduct their income,” Mody said.
Repeated delays
Under the 1948 Minimum Wages Act, state governments are required to increase the basic minimum wage every five years to protect workers against exploitation, but textile manufacturers have repeatedly challenged pay rises in Tamil Nadu.
The state’s labor commissioner, Ka Balachandran, said inspectors were verifying every company’s records to check that wages were now in line with last year’s ruling.
“We are doing everything to ensure workers get fair wages, and get it quickly,” he added.
But manufacturers in Tamil Nadu say the hike is too high, putting them at a disadvantage to competitors in other states. Some say they are already paying workers more than the minimum wage.
“The new norms are not distinguishing clearly between skilled and non-skilled workers,” said S Shaktivel of the Tirupur Exporters’ Association.
He said some companies had launched an appeal against the order at the Madras High Court.
In the Chennai labor court, case numbers are called out in quick succession.
The seamstress, who is expecting arrears of up to 5,000 rupees, strains to listen over the slow whirring of the ceiling fan.
“My financial situation is not very good,” she whispers. “My husband had surgery a few months back, we have a loan to pay back and a house to run. The company owes me arrears for almost one year. I need that income desperately.”
Her case is called. The lawyer representing the company asks for more time. Another date is set, with the judge warning against further delays.
“I hope I get a good settlement,” the seamstress said as she left court. “After all these years, I would like to stop working, but that looks unlikely. At least if they paid me properly, I would feel a little better.”
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Brexit Secretary David Davis launches a first round of negotiations on Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union on Monday when he meets the EU’s Michel Barnier for four days of talks between their teams in Brussels.
A month after a first meeting where the two exchanged gifts inspired by a shared passion for hillwalking and spoke of the mountain of complexity they must climb, the Frenchman will press Davis to agree to Britain covering substantial British financial commitments and offer more detail on other British proposals.
With little more than a year to settle divorce terms before Britain leaves, deal or no deal, on March 30, 2019, the 27 other EU national leaders want British Prime Minister Theresa May to rally her divided nation swiftly behind a clear, detailed plan that can minimize economic and social disruption across Europe as its second biggest economy cuts loose from the continent.
Davis and Barnier will shake hands for the cameras at the European Commission’s Berlaymont headquarters at 9:15 a.m. (0715 GMT) before a first full session of talks. Negotiators will then break up into groups discussing four key areas of priorities before a planned news conference on Thursday afternoon.
Barnier, who secured Davis’s consent last month to the EU’s broad structure for talks, wants to hold the Englishman publicly to whatever else has been agreed during the week, EU officials say.
Working groups will focus on three areas: the rights of over 4 million people living as expatriates on either side of the new UK-EU frontier; the EU demand that Britain pays some 60 billion euros ($70 billion) to cover ongoing EU budget commitments; and other loose ends, such as what happens to British goods in EU shops on Brexit Day, or to outstanding EU court cases involving Britain.
A fourth set of talks, run by Davis and Barnier’s deputies Oliver Robbins and Sabine Weyand, will focus on curbing problems in Northern Ireland once a new EU land border separates the British province from EU member Ireland. Some of that will have to wait for clarity on future trade relations.
Brexit Bill
One key early advance that EU officials hope for this week is for Britain to stop challenging the principle it will owe Brussels money — though how much will have to be argued over and cannot be calculated until Britain actually leaves.
Three more weeks of talks, interspersed with internal EU sessions to coordinate the views of the 27 other governments, are scheduled, from late August until early October. At that point, Barnier hopes to be able to show “significant progress” on the divorce priorities for EU leaders to give him a mandate to launch negotiations on a future free trade agreement.
Davis and May had pressed over the past months for trade talks to start immediately but accepted the EU’s sequence for negotiations last month. However, Brussels accepts that details on the divorce terms will still be open when trade talks begin.
In a sign British ministers are coming round to the EU view that a trade deal can at best be sketched in outline over the next 20 months, two members of May’s cabinet who were on opposing sides of the Brexit referendum debate said they expected some transitional phase to start in 2019 to smooth the passage from full EU membership to a final free trade pact.
Italy’s government will not try to push through a law that would grant citizenship to the children of immigrants in the next few weeks, Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said on Sunday.
The draft law faced opposition from politicians including members of a small centrist group which supports Gentiloni’s Democratic Party’s (PD) slim majority in the upper house Senate.
A government source said earlier this month the measure would be put to a confidence vote, which speeds up passage of legislation but obliges the government to resign if it loses. The premier squashed that possibility on Sunday.
“Given the urgent deadlines in the Senate calendar and the difficulties that have emerged in some parts of the majority, I don’t think the conditions are right to approve the draft law on citizenship for foreign minors born in Italy before the summer break,” Gentiloni said in a statement.
Under the proposed law, children born in Italy to non-Italians, or who arrive before their 12th birthdays and spend at least five years in formal education, could be declared citizens.
Immigration is one of the thorniest issues facing Italian politicians, who have had to deal with the arrival of more than half a million mainly sub-Saharan Africans by boat from Libya over the last three years.
Opponents proposed some 48,000 amendments to the citizenship law by the time it reached the Senate for discussion in June, more than 1-1/2 years after it was approved in the lower house. A scuffle broke out and two senators were slightly injured.
Gentiloni said the law, which would require one or both parents to have a long-term residence permit before they could apply for citizenship, was “just”.
“I remain personally committed, as does the government, to approving it in the autumn,” he said.
A severed marine cable has left Somalia without internet for weeks, triggering losses for businesses, residents said, and adding a layer of chaos in a country where Islamist insurgents are carrying out a campaign of bombings and killings.
Abdi Anshuur, Somalia’s minister for posts and telecommunications, told state radio that internet to the Horn of Africa state went down a month ago after a ship cut an undersea cable connecting it to global data networks.
Businesses have had to close or improvise to remain open and university students told Reuters their educational courses had been disrupted.
Anshuur said the outage was costing Somalia the equivalent of about $10 million in economic output.
“The night internet went off marked the end of my daily bread,” Mohamed Nur, 22, told Reuters in the capital Mogadishu.
Nur said he now begged “tea and cigarettes from friends” after the internet cutoff also severed his monthly income of $500 that he took in from ads he developed and placed on the video website, YouTube.
Somalia’s economy is still picking up slowly after a combined force of the army and an African Union peacekeeping force helped drive the Islamist group, al Shabaab, out of Mogadishu and other strongholds.
Al Shabaab wants to topple the western backed government and rule according to its strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law.
The group remains formidable and lethal, with its campaign of frequent bombings and killings a key source of significant security risk for most businesses and regular life.
Now the internet outage potentially compounds the hardships for most firms. Most young people who say they are unable to work because of the outage spend hours idling in front of tea shops.
Mohamed Ahmed Hared, commercial manager of Somali Optical Networks(SOON), a large internet service provider in the country, told Reuters his business was losing over a million dollars a day. Hared’s clients, he said, had reported a range of crippled services including passport and e-tickets printing and money remittances.
Some students and staff at the University of Somalia in Mogadishu told Reuters their learning had been disrupted because Google, which they heavily rely on for research, was now inaccessible.
The absence of especially popular internet sites like Facebook and YouTube and Google was, however, cause for celebration for some in the conservative, Muslim nation.
“My wife used to be (on) YouTube or Facebook every minute,” Mohamud Osman, 45, said, adding the online activity would sometimes distract her from feeding her baby and that the habit had once forced him to try to get a divorce.
“Now I am happy … internet is without doubt a necessary tool of evil.”
«У кожній країні є свій унікальний досвід, і в Україні має бути свій, дуже важливо, що за ці три роки ми почали накопичувати свій власний досвід»
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Thousands of people rallied in Warsaw Sunday to oppose the Polish government’s controversial new court reforms which opponents see as a threat to judicial independence.
Chanting “we will defend democracy” and waving EU and Polish flags, around 4,500 protesters attended demonstrations in the Polish capital, according to police. Smaller rallies were held in other cities throughout the country.
The law passed last week gives lawmakers a dominant role in appointing judges, a move that opposition parties and rights groups said would make jurists subject to political influence.
Sunday’s demonstrations were the latest in a string of anti-government protests since the conservative and populist Law and Justice party took political control in 2015.
The new legislation has drawn criticism from the European Union, which says that it violates judicial independence.
Poland is a relatively new democracy, having overthrown communist rule in 1989 and joined the EU in 2004.
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Прем’єр-міністр України Володимир Гройсман заявив, що не планує балотуватися на наступних президентських виборах в Україні.
«Я відчуваю свою ефективність саме у виконавчій гілці влади, тому таких планів у мене немає», – сказав Гройсман в ефірі телеканалу «112 Україна», відповідаючи на запитання про можливість кандидувати на посаду президента.
Гройсман додав, що не бачить себе президентом України.
Володимир Гройсман, свого часу міський голова Вінниці, в уряді лютого – листопада 2014 року був віце-прем’єром, міністром регіонального розвитку, будівництва і житлово-комунального господарства України, потім до квітня 2016-го очолював Верховну Раду України. Відтак після відставки тодішнього прем’єр-міністра України Арсенія Яценюка очолив уряд України.
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Уряд Молдови анонсував участь президента України Петра Порошенка у відкритті спільного пункту пропуску «Кучурган – Первомайськ» на придністровській ділянці українсько-молдовського кордону в понеділок, 17 липня.
Із молдовського боку участь візьме прем’єр-міністр країни Павел Філіп, мовиться в повідомленні. Церемонія має початися о 14-й годині.
«Цей крок відбудеться в контексті виконання спільних домовленостей між Молдовою і Україною, в першу чергу міжурядової домовленості про організацію спільного контролю і міжвідомчого протоколу про це, які підписали обидві держави. Проект здійснюється за підтримки Європейського союзу за програмою Європейської політики сусідства і має на меті модернізувати інтегрований менеджмент кордону, він ґрунтується на європейських стандартах і найкращих практиках», – повідомила пресова служба уряду Молдови.
У програмі президента України на сайті голови держави наразі немає повідомлень про цей захід. Там на понеділок, 17 липня, анонсовано початок триденного державного візиту Петра Порошенка до Грузії.
Тим часом прес-служба Одеської обласної державної адміністрації, за повідомленнями агентств, анонсувала в неділю робочу поїздку Порошенка до цієї області на понеділок, 17 липня, без дальших подробиць.
Село Кучурган із однойменним пунктом пропуску через державний кордон із українського боку розташоване в Роздільнянському районі Одеської області і межує з Первомайськом у Молдові, в непідконтрольному Кишиневу сепаратистському регіоні Придністров’ї.
Відкриття там спільного українсько-молдовського пункту пропуску планували ще на 31 травня.
Сепаратистська влада Придністров’я, підтримувана Росією, а також сама Росія різко розкритикували плани відкриття таких спільних пунктів пропуску на придністровській ділянці українсько-молдовського кордону, назвавши їх «блокадою» регіону. Київ і Кишинів відкинули ці звинувачення, наголосивши, що новий режим лише сприятиме процедурі перевезення вантажів і проїздові людей і автотранспорту.
Придністров’я, значною мірою російськомовний сепаратистський регіон Молдови, ще в радянські часи, 1990 року, односторонньо проголосив «незалежність» від решти Молдови. Після короткої війни 1992 року за підтримки базованих у регіоні російських військ Придністров’я остаточно вийшло з-під контролю Кишинева. Самопроголошеної «незалежності» Придністров’я не визнав ніхто у світі, але регіон має постійну й істотну підтримку Росії – економічну, політичну і військову.
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Gibraltar will not be a victim of Brexit and has had guarantees from the British government it will not do a trade deal with the European Union which doesn’t include the territory, its chief minister said on Sunday.
The future of Gibraltar, a rocky enclave on the southern tip of Spain captured by Britain in 1704, and its 30,000 inhabitants is set to be a major point of contention in Brexit negotiations. The EU annoyed Britain and Gibraltar in April by offering Spain a right of veto over the territory’s post-Brexit relationship with the bloc.
Gibraltar, which Spain wants back, voted strongly in favor of remaining in the EU at last year’s referendum but is committed to staying part of Britain.
Gibraltar’s Chief Minister Fabian Picardo told Sky News he had had “cast iron assurances” from Britain’s Brexit minister David Davis that the government would not do a trade deal with the EU if it did not include Gibraltar.
“I’m the backbone of this negotiation for Gibraltar and the backbone is made of limestone rock, it’s not going to be easy to buckle on that. We can have the War of the Summer, the War of the Autumn or the War of the Winter, if you like, on that, Gibraltar is not going to change its position,” he said.
“It’s our obligation now to energetically and enthusiastically pursue the result of the referendum and deliver a successful Brexit. We’re not going to get in the way of Brexit but we’re not going to be the victims of Brexit.”
During a state visit to Britain this week, Spain’s King Felipe said he was confident an acceptable arrangement could be worked out with Britain over the future of Gibraltar, but Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokeswoman said the topic had not come up during their bilateral meeting.
“There is not going to be any new arrangements in relation to the sovereignty of Gibraltar, that is going to remain 100 percent British,” Picardo said.
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Bilateral talks aimed at reducing the U.S. trade deficit with China have yielded some initial deals, but U.S. firms say much more needs to be done as a deadline for a 100-day action plan expires Sunday.
The negotiations, which began in April, have reopened China’s market to U.S. beef after 14 years and prompted Chinese pledges to buy U.S. liquefied natural gas. American firms have also been given access to some parts of China’s financial services sector.
More details on the 100-day plan are expected to be announced in the coming week as senior U.S. and Chinese officials gather in Washington for annual bilateral economic talks, rebranded this year as the “U.S.-China Comprehensive Economic Dialogue.”
A U.S. Commerce Department spokesman declined to discuss potential areas for new agreements since a May 11 announcement on beef, chicken, financial services and LNG.
Trade deficit grows
Earlier in April, when Chinese President Xi Jinping met U.S. President Donald Trump for the first time at his Florida resort, Xi agreed to a 100-day plan for trade talks aimed at boosting U.S. exports and trimming the U.S. trade deficit with China.
The U.S. goods trade deficit with China reached $347 billion last year. The gap in the first five months of 2017 widened about 5.3 percent from a year earlier, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
“It is an excellent momentum builder, but much more needs to be done for U.S.-China commercial negotiations to be considered a success,” said Jacob Parker, vice president of China operations at the U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC) in Beijing.
Biggest irritants
There has been little sign of progress in soothing the biggest trade irritants, such as U.S. demands that China cut excess capacity in steel and aluminum production, lack of access for U.S. firms to China’s services market, and U.S. national security curbs on high-tech exports to China.
The Trump administration is considering broad tariffs or quotas on steel and aluminum on national security grounds, partly in response to what it views as a glut of Chinese production that is flooding international markets and driving down prices.
Deals struck
American beef is now available in Chinese shops for the first time since a 2003 U.S. case of “mad cow” disease, giving U.S. ranchers access to a rapidly growing market worth around $2.6 billion last year.
More beef deals were signed during an overseas buying mission by the Chinese last week.
“There are hopes there will be even more concrete results,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a daily news briefing in Beijing on Friday. He did not elaborate.
Critics of the 100-day process said China had agreed to lift its ban on U.S. beef last September, with officials just needing to finalize details on quarantine requirements.
China, meanwhile, has delivered its first batch of cooked chicken to U.S. ports after years of negotiating for access to the market.
But unlike the rush by Chinese consumers for a first taste of American beef, Chinese poultry processors have not had a flurry of orders for cooked chicken.
Biotech crops, financial services
Other sectors in China under U.S. pressure to open up have moved more slowly.
Beijing had only approved two of the eight biotech crops waiting for import approval, despite gathering experts to review the crops on two occasions in a six-week period.
U.S. industry officials had signaled they were expecting more approvals. U.S. executives say the review process still lacks transparency.
Financial services is another area where little progress has been made, U.S. officials say.
USCBC’s Parker said it is unclear how long it will take for foreign credit rating agencies to be approved, or whether U.S.-owned suppliers of electronic payment services will be able to secure licenses.
The bilateral talks have also not addressed restrictions on foreign investment in life insurance and securities trading, or “the many challenges foreign companies face in China’s cybersecurity enforcement environment,” Parker said.
In an annual report released Thursday, the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai said China remained a “difficult market.”
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Take care of your soil, and your soil will take care of you. That’s the message agriculture experts have for farmers worldwide. They say farmers can halt the degradation of their land and save money by using techniques known as conservation agriculture. But as VOA’s Steve Baragona reports, adopting those techniques takes a change of attitude.
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У Державній прикордонній службі України повідомили про зменшення автомобільних черг на адмінкордоні з Кримом до вечора 15 липня. Про це у коментарі проекту Радіо Свобода Крим.Реалії заявив помічник начальника Азово-Чорноморського регіонального управління з питань взаємодії зі ЗМІ Держприкордонслужби Максим Сорока.
За його словами, ввечері у черзі на в’їзд до Криму біля КПВВ «Чонгар» було 60 машин, у КПВВ «Каланчак» – 25, а у КПВВ «Чаплинка» – 20. Пішохідних черг немає.
Від ранку 15 липня українські прикордонники зафіксували понад двісті автомобілів у черзі біля адмінкордону з Кримом.
У Держприкордонслужбі заявляють про зниження пасажиро-траспортного потоку через адмінкордон у порівнянні з минулим роком. Виникнення черг пов’язують з діями російських служб на контрольованих ними пунктах пропуску з боку півострова.
Російські відомства не коментували цю ситуацію.
Після анексії Криму між материковою Україною й півостровом проліг формально адміністративний, але фактично – справжній «кордон». На адмінкордоні працюють три контрольних пункти в’їзду/виїзду – «Каланчак», «Чонгар» і «Чаплинка».
Верховна Рада України офіційно оголосила 20 лютого 2014 року початком тимчасової окупації Криму й Севастополя Росією. 7 жовтня 2015 року президент України Петро Порошенко підписав відповідний закон. Міжнародні організації визнали окупацію й анексію Криму незаконними й засудили дії Росії. Країни Заходу запровадили низку економічних санкцій. Росія заперечує окупацію півострова й називає це «відновленням історичної справедливості».
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Народний депутат Євген Дейдей заявляє, що його отримане на Донбасі поранення легке. Він зазначив, що раніше умисно нічого не повідомляв про це.
«Не хочу давати коментарів, не хочу комусь щось доводити, не хочу брати участі у цирку, який влаштували. Не прошу мене підтримувати, не прошу захищати, прошу залишити мене і мою родину у спокої. Мені не відірвало пів ноги, не контузило, що не вбило – це легке поранення», – написав Дейдей 15 липня на своїй сторінці у Facebook.
У суботу Євгена Дейдея, пораненого напередодні під Авдіївкою, гелікоптером доправили до Дніпра, в обласну лікарню імені Мечникова.
За інформацією речниці Генеральної прокуратури Лариси Сарган, прокуратура здійснює процесуальне керівництво у кримінальному провадженні за фактом отримання поранення народним депутатом.
За її даними, попередньо встановлено, що Євген Дейдей отримав поранення під час бойових дій, 14 липня 2017 року приблизно о 18-й годині, в районі промислової зони Авдіївки. Після надання первинної медичної допомоги, з діагнозом осколкові поранення народного депутата було направлено до військового шпиталю №66 Покровська. Кримінальне провадження відкрите за частиною 2 статті 258 (терористичний акт) Кримінального кодексу України.
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Народний депутата з фракції «Опозиційний блок» Вадим Новинський заявляє про готовність однопартійців зібрати гроші на заставу для Михайла Добкіна.
«І я, і всі інші члени нашої команди, будемо допомагати своєму другові й колезі вийти з цієї ситуації, щоб він жодної хвилини не перебував в ув’язненні у слідчому ізоляторі. Ми зробимо для цього все необхідне. І буквально наступного тижня буде відомо, скільки грошей внесе кожен з нас у цю благородну справу», – сказав Новинський, заява якого розміщена на сайті «Опозиційного блоку».
Печерський районний суд Києва обрав для народного депутата з фракції «Опозиційний блок» Михайла Добкіна запобіжний захід у вигляді арешту на два місяці з можливістю внести заставу в розмірі 50 мільйонів гривень.
Як пояснили прокурори, оскільки Добкін не перебував під арештом, йому надали 5 днів для внесення застави, якщо він внесе ці кошти, то до нього застосують альтернативний запобіжний захід у вигляді застави.
Сторона обвинувачення зазначає, що питання апеляційного оскарження цього рішення суду ще невирішене, потрібно вивчити повний текст судового рішення.
Прокуратура просила суд застосувати щодо Добкіна запобіжний захід у вигляді арешту і заставу 150 мільйонів гривень, оскільки Добкін може впливати на хід розслідування. Добкін просив суд застосувати до нього запобіжний захід у вигляді особистого зобов’язання або поруки. У суді він заявив справа проти нього є політичною.
14 липня депутатові в Генеральній прокуратурі вручили повідомлення про підозру. Перед цим, 13 липня, Верховна Рада задовольнила подання генпрокурора щодо позбавлення недоторканності народного депутата Михайла Добкіна, давши згоду на його притягнення до кримінальної відповідальності, затримання і арешт.
ГПУ звинувачує Добкіна в тому, що він діяв «в інтересах голови ОК «Житлобуд-1», сприяв в реалізації злочинного умислу щодо заволодіння земельними ділянками на території Харкова шляхом обману». За версією силовиків, зі власності територіальної громади Харкова «незаконно вибули земельні ділянки загальною площею 61,2 гектара, заподіяні збитки у розмірі 178 624 598 гривень». Добкін звинувачення прокуратури відкидає. Депутат заявляв про політичне, як він вважає, підґрунтя звинувачень стосовно нього.
Михайло Добкін від 2006 до 2010 року обіймав посаду міського голови Харкова, а від 2010 по 2014 рік очолював Харківську облдержадміністрацію.
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Spain’s Garbine Muguruza has won her first Wimbledon title, defeating American Venus Williams in straight sets Saturday, 7-5, 6-0.
The 10th seeded Williams, 37, had been seeking to become the oldest women’s Grand Slam champion but couldn’t overcome the 14th seeded Muguruza.
Muguruza, who lost in the Wimbledon finals in 2015 to Venus’ sister, Serena, saved two set points in the 10th game of the first set and then won nine straight games to clinch the championship. It is her second Grand Slam title.
Venus Williams was seeking her first Wimbledon title since 2008. She has won a total of five.
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France’s foreign minister has expressed concern about the deterioration of relations between Qatar and its Arab neighbors and called for sanctions that target Qatari nationals to be lifted.
Jean-Yves Le Drian spoke to reporters after talks with his Qatari counterpart, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, in Doha on Saturday.
A group of nations that includes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt accuses Qatar of supporting terrorism and has given Doha a 13-point list of demands after severing diplomatic ties in early June.
Qatar has said it is willing to negotiate but will not give up its sovereignty.
“France calls for the lifting, as soon as possible, of the measures that affect the populations, in particular binational families, that have been separated, or students,” Le Drian told reporters in Doha after he his meeting with Al-Thani.
Later in the day, Le Drian flew to Jeddah, where he repeated his concerns about the effects of the standoff in a televised press appearance with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir.
Jubeir said any resolution of the worst Gulf crisis in years should come from within the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council.
“We hope to resolve this crisis within the Gulf house, and we hope that wisdom prevails for our brothers in Qatar in order to respond to the demands of the international community — not just of the four countries,” he said.
He reiterated that Qatar should not support terrorist groups and their financing or host their members and should end incitement through the media.
Qatar has repeatedly denied such accusations and rejected demands to close down the Al Jazeera network, as initially requested by the boycotting states.
Le Drian, who will visit the United Arab Emirates and Gulf mediator Kuwait on Sunday, followed in the steps of other world powers in the region, including the United States.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited the region earlier this week but left with little apparent progress in resolving the standoff.
Some information for this report came from Reuters.
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Germany has confirmed that two of its nationals were stabbed to death in an attack at an Egyptian resort hotel.
A German Foreign Ministry statement said “We can now sadly confirm that two German tourists died in the attack at Hurghada.”
Officials say the female tourists were killed Friday when the assailant swam ashore from another Red Sea beach.
Egyptian authorities say the man has been arrested.
A German Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said, “According to what we know, the act was a deliberate attack on foreign tourists – a particularly devious and criminal act that leaves us sad, dismayed and furious.”
Four other people were wounded in the incident.
Hurghada is one of Egypt’s most popular beach resorts, especially with Europeans.
As recently as last year, Rinat Akhmetshin could be seen regularly pedaling through downtown Washington, D.C., nattily dressed, with a pocket square and heavy-framed thick glasses, riding a retro hipster orange bicycle.
He also showed an affinity for vintage motorcycles, which he parked for two years in the Washington driveway of renowned investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.
Hersh later gave a public endorsement to a controversial film linked to Akhmetshin that sought to undermine a 2012 U.S. law that infuriated the Kremlin.
At the center of scandal
Now Akhmetshin, a dual Russian-American citizen who has both denied and bragged about being a former Soviet military intelligence officer, is at the center of a growing scandal reaching high into President Donald Trump’s White House.
U.S. media reported that he attended a June 9, 2016, meeting with Trump’s son, Donald Jr., accompanying a Russian lawyer who was also seeking to undermine the 2012 law.
Akhmetshin did not respond to an e-mail, text messages, or a voice mail from RFE/RL on July 14. But he told the Associated Press that the lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, gave Trump associates at the meeting information on what she said were funds being illegally funneled to the Democratic National Committee and suggested the information could help the Trump campaign.
“This could be a good issue to expose how the [Democratic National Committee] is accepting bad money,” Akhmetshin was quoted as recalling Veselnitskaya saying.
Decades behind the scenes
Until last year, Akhmetshin’s longtime behind-the-scenes work in and around Washington lobbying circles had escaped wider notice. But his work is substantial, stretching back two decades.
He has been a key figure in past PR campaigns to bolster Kazakh opposition figures, to discredit a Russian member of parliament, to lobby on Azerbaijani politics, and to undermine a Russian-owned mining company that sued another in a Dutch lawsuit.
It’s not cheap work, as Akhmetshin himself stated in an affidavit as part of a 2015 lawsuit: He said he charged $450 an hour for his services.
In 1998, Akhmetshin said he founded the Washington office of an organization called the International Eurasian Institute for Economic and Political Research, to “help expand democracy and the rule of law in Eurasia.”
In the late 1990s, he organized meetings with journalists, elected officials, and policymakers in Washington for opposition lawmakers from Kazakhstan. Later, he worked to undermine a businessman and diplomat who was divorced from the daughter of Kazakhstan’s longtime president, Nursultan Nazarbaev, and then had a falling out with Nazarbaev.
Accused in smear campaign
In 2011, Akhmetshin was accused of involvement in a smear campaign aimed at maligning a former Russian lawmaker who sought political asylum in the United States.
The goal, according to court documents, was to persuade U.S. officials to revoke the lawmaker’s asylum status and force him to return to Russia, where he was involved in a dispute with a billionaire businessman over a Moscow hotel project.
Akhmetshin was not the target of the lawsuit but, according to the complaint, he was enlisted, along with a Washington public relations company and private investigators, to portray the lawmaker as anti-Semitic.
During the suit, Akhmetshin fought to keep his e-mails from being released to the opposing lawyers.
“Some of my clients are national governments or high ranking officials in those governments,” he said in an Aug. 21, 2012, affidavit. “My government clients have highly sensitive discussions in my emails concerning the location or relocation of American military bases in areas within the former Soviet Union.”
The underlying lawsuit, and a related countersuit, were dismissed in March 2014.
Hacking accusations
A more recent legal fight concerned a $1 billion dispute over a potash mining operation in central Russia. While the main fight took place in European courts, a sideshow unfolded in U.S. courts beginning in 2014 when Akhmetshin was accused of hacking into the opposing parties’ computers.
Court papers filed New York State Supreme Court accused Akhmetshin of being a former Soviet military counterintelligence officer who “developed a special expertise in running negative public relations campaigns.”
In e-mail and in-person interviews with RFE/RL last year, Akhmetshin denied working for Soviet or Russian military intelligence. However, in private conversations and other published reports, he spoke openly about it.
The campaign he was associated with last year focused on the 2012 Magnitsky Act. That law imposed visa bans and other measures against Russian officials involved in the death of Russian whistle-blower Sergei Magnitsky and the $230 million tax-fraud scheme he helped uncover.
The campaign was two-pronged. The first involved the ban on adoptions of Russian children by American parents, which President Vladimir Putin imposed in retaliation for the Magnitsky Act.
Akhmetshin set up a benign-sounding organization to lobby Congress ostensibly in an effort to restore Russian adoptions. He enlisted former congressmen, and set up meetings with current members, including Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-California), long known for his rosy rhetoric regarding the Kremlin.
Veselnitskaya said she discussed the adoption issue in her meeting with Donald Trump Jr.
The second involved organizing а screening at Washington’s Newseum of a Russian director’s film that took a semifictionalized look at Magnitsky’s whistle-blowing and his death. The screening happened June 13, 2016, four days after he joined Veselnitskaya at the meeting at Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr.
Veselnitskaya, who also attended the screening, served as a lawyer for a Russian-owned company known as Prevezon that U.S. prosecutors had accused of laundering some of the Magnitsky tax-fraud money. In May 2017, that case was settled on the eve of its trial with Prevezon admitting no wrongdoing and paying $6 million.
Another Washington public relations firm, along with Akhmetshin, was also connected to the effort to undermine the Magnitsky Act: Fusion GPS, which was behind the so-called Steele dossier, a compilation of damaging information about Donald Trump that was put together by a former British spy.
In May, Senator Chuck Grassley (Republican-Iowa) asked the Justice Department to investigate both Fusion and Akhmetshin, suggesting that they were unregistered agents of Russian interests.
Before the screening, Hersh, the renowned investigative reporter, told RFE/RL that he had seen the film a few months earlier at Akhmetshin’s behest. Hersh said he was intrigued enough by it that he agreed to Akhmetshin’s request to host a postscreening discussion free of charge.
Hersh also told RFE/RL that he knew Akhmetshin through mutual acquaintances and that he had let Akhmetshin park several antique motorcycles in the driveway of his Washington-area home, motorcycles he said Akhmetshin had bought thinking they dated from World War II but in fact they were of German manufacture and had been painted over to look like Soviet motorcycles.
At the conclusion of the June 13 film screening, as the discussion turned loud and rowdy, Hersh said the film “goes a long way toward deconstructing a myth.”
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Turkey marks the one-year anniversary Saturday of a defeated military coup.
Since then, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has dismissed at least 100,000 civil servants he has characterized as supporters of the aborted coup. The government has arrested another 50,000 people.
Turkish officials have declared July 15 a national holiday of “democracy and unity.”
The Turkish opposition says that Erdogan’s government is moving toward authoritarianism, while the Turkish leader says that the crackdown on rights is necessary to thwart security threats to the ruling government.
Erdogan claims the coup was led by a cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who has been living in self-imposed exile in the United States for nearly two decades. Gulen denies any involvement.
In a statement on the anniversary of the coup, Gulen said the Turkish government’s “treatment of innocent citizens during the past year is dragging Turkey into the category of the countries with the worst record of democracy, the rule of law and fundamental freedoms in the world,” and that the Turkish people “are being rallied en masse around hate messages.”
On Friday, Turkey fired more than 7,000 police officers, government officials and academics.
A government order, published by the official state-run Gazette shows that among those dismissed are 2,303 police, including some high ranking officers, along with more than 300 academics from universities.
The decree also striped 342 retired officers and soldiers from their ranks.
The order was published under a state of emergency imposed after last year’s attempted coup.
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Ride-hailing apps such as Uber and Lyft have been so disruptive to New York City’s taxi industry, they are causing lenders to fail.
Three New York-based credit unions that specialized in loaning money against taxi cab medallions, the hard-to-get licenses that allow the city’s traditional cab fleet to operate, have been placed into conservatorship as the value of those medallions has plummeted.
Just three years ago, cab owners and investors were paying as much as $1.3 million for a medallion. Now they are worth less than half that, and some medallion owners owe more on their loans than the medallions are worth.
Like subprime loans
“You’ve got borrowers who are under water. This is just like the subprime loan crisis,” said Keith Leggett, a credit union analyst and former senior economist at the American Bankers Association.
LOMTO Federal Credit Union, which was founded by taxi drivers in 1936 for mutual assistance, was placed into conservatorship by the National Credit Union Administration on June 26 “because of unsafe and unsound practices.”
New York City has the nation’s largest taxi industry, with more than 13,000 medallions.
Value went up, then down
Marcelino Hervias bought his medallion in 1990 for about $120,000 and thought its value would hit $2 million by the time he was ready to retire.
Instead, the 58-year-old said he owes $541,000 and is driving 12 to 16 hours a day to make ends meet.
While some medallions are held by large owners with fleets, owning a single medallion was long seen as a ticket to the middle class for immigrants like Hervias, who is from Peru.
Many of them now owe more on their medallion loans than they originally paid for the medallions because they used their equity in the medallion for a home, a child’s education or other expenses.
Other medallion owners tell similar stories.
Constant Granvil bought his medallion for $102,000 in 1987 and said he now owes more than $300,000 to his lender. He could have sold the medallion for two or three times that a few years ago, “but I said no, I’m not going to sell it,” said Granvil, who is 76. “And then I got caught.”
The value of Granvil’s medallion is hard to pinpoint because 2017 sale prices have varied from the $200,000s to the $500,000s depending on whether lenders are willing to finance the purchase.
Meanwhile, Granvil, who no longer drives because of poor health and uses a broker to hire a driver, said he is facing threats from the lender, Melrose Credit Union, to foreclose on not just his medallion, but also his house.
Level playing field
Supporters of the yellow cab industry have sued and pushed for city legislation to try to level the playing field between taxis and ride-hailing apps, which they say enjoy advantages like not paying a public transportation improvement surcharge that’s levied on yellow cabs and not having to outfit a percentage of cars with disabled-access features.
City Council member Ydanis Rodriguez, who chairs the council’s transportation committee, called this week for a panel to investigate the fall in medallion values.
According to a Morgan Stanley report, there were 11.1 million yellow cab trips in the city in April 2016, compared with 4.7 million Uber trips and 750,000 Lyft trips. The 11.1 million taxi rides were 9 percent fewer than the April 2015 number.
Some observers believe that the yellow cab’s market share will continue to shrink and that the value of a medallion won’t recover.
“This is a commodity that has been fundamentally disrupted,” said Leggett, who has written about medallion loans in his online newsletter Credit Union Watch. “I don’t see the value of the medallions getting close to what they were.”
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The White House said Friday that worsening tax revenues would cause the budget deficit to jump to $702 billion this year. That’s a $99 billion spike from what was predicted less than two months ago.
The report from the Office of Management and Budget came on the heels of a rival Congressional Budget Office analysis that scuttled White House claims that its May budget, if implemented to the letter, would balance the federal ledger within 10 years. The OMB report doesn’t repeat that claim and instead provides just two years of updated projections.
The White House budget office also said the deficit for the 2018 budget year that starts on October 1 would increase by $149 billion, to $589 billion. But lawmakers are already working on spending bills that promise to boost that number even higher by adding to President Donald Trump’s Pentagon proposal and ignoring many of his cuts to domestic programs.
Last year’s deficit registered $585 billion.
The White House kept the report to a bare-bones minimum and cast blame on “the failed policies of the previous administration.”
“The rising near-term deficits underscore the critical need to restore fiscal discipline to the nation’s finances,” said White House budget director Mick Mulvaney. “Our nation must make substantial changes to the policies and spending priorities of the previous administration if our citizens are to be safe and prosperous in the future.”
In late May, Trump released a budget plan proposing jarring cuts to domestic programs and promising to balance the budget within a decade. But the CBO said Trump relied on rosy predictions of economic growth to promise a slight surplus in 2027.
Trump’s budget left Social Security retirement benefits and Medicare alone, though House Republicans are poised next week to again propose cutting Medicare as they unveil their nonbinding budget outline.
Trump’s budget predicted that the U.S. economy would soon ramp up to annual growth in gross domestic product of 3 percent; CBO’s long-term projections predict annual GDP growth averaging 1.9 percent.
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