Brazil’s government has revised a decree that stripped protections from a reserve in the Amazon after environmental groups criticized the original order. The new decree announced late Monday still lifts the reserve designation from a gold- and copper-rich area larger than the Netherlands in two northern Brazilian states. But President Michel Temer’s administration clarifies that mining will not be allowed in conservation or indigenous areas within the former reserve. The government says the new decree will allow it to crack down on the illegal mining that was taking place in the reserve, while opening up legal mining. The Brazilian branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature said in a statement that the new decree clarifies the need for protection, but the risk of environmental damage remains. …
US Attorney General: Opioid Crisis Is America’s ‘Top Lethal Issue’
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions called the opioid crisis America’s “top lethal issue” Tuesday, saying that a “comprehensive antidote” was needed to address the crisis. Speaking from the National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children national conference in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Sessions thanked the audience for their work in making the crisis’ effects on children known. “Our country, despite the record deaths, I don’t think has fully recognized the damage this addiction nightmare is doing to us,” he said. “And as you understand this epidemic is taking a heavy toll on the most innocent and vulnerable — our children. And yet, in the national conversation about drug abuse, these children are too often forgotten.” Sessions said that the solution has “three-pillars” — prevention, enforcement, and treatment. Sessions added that the prevention step in particular had been discussed at a meeting with top officials, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly the day before. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump vowed that the U.S. would “win” the battle against the heroin and opioid plague, but he stopped short of declaring a national emergency as his handpicked commission had recommended. …
Wealthy Cocaine Users Funding Slavery, Says Former UK Drug Chief
Middle-class cocaine users are turning a blind eye to the link between their drug habit and sex trafficking, slavery and murder, said the former head of UK drug strategy. “These are middle-aged, middle-class people at dinner parties,” Tony Saggers, former head of drugs threat at the National Crime Agency, told The Times on Tuesday, in his first interview since leaving the post. “They will find sweatshops abhorrent, slave labor a brutal, terrible thing to be happening in their neighborhood, and the news that a 16-year-old has been knifed to death in London will shock them,” he added. Britain has one of the highest rates of cocaine use in Europe, according to the European Commission and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) with 4.2 percent of young adults having taken the drug in 2015. Saggers said this was funding the exploitation of women in the sex industry, as well as slavery and gun violence. “The consequences of buying cocaine are more abhorrent than most of what the people using it find abhorrent,” he said. In Britain, there are an estimated 13,000 victims of forced labor, sexual exploitation and domestic servitude, most of them from Albania, Nigeria, Poland and Vietnam. Saggers said there was a lack of action among employers in tackling the prevalence and acceptance of cocaine use in some industries, particularly among banks and other companies in the City of London, Britain’s financial center. Companies should address the problem through schemes that educate their staff about the impact …
ДФС: після перевірки виявили 1,6 тисячі працівників, найнятих без трудових угод
У Державній фіскальній службі заявляють, що у ході перевірки виявили 1,6 тисячі найманих працівників, які не оформили трудові відносини з роботодавцем. Як повідомляє прес-служба ДФС, з початку 2017 року під час перевірки суб’єктів господарювання порушення податкового законодавства виявлені в 61 відсотка перевірених платників. Крім того, за даними служби, за результатами роз’яснювальної роботи роботодавці додатково уклали близько 23 тисяч трудових угод з найманими працівниками. У ДФС також додають, що у січні – липні 2017 року погашено заборгованість із заробітної плати у сумі близько мільярда гривень, надійшло 118,2 мільйона гривень податку на доходи фізичних осіб та 375,2 мільйона гривень єдиного внеску. До прокуратури спрямували матеріали щодо 40 юридичних осіб, які мали довготривалу заборгованість із виплати заробітної плати, зауважують у фіскальній службі. З 2017 року в Україні вдвічі зросла мінімальна зарплата. Тепер де-юре роботодавці не можуть платити своїм працівникам менше ніж 3200 гривень. Водночас у липні економісти в ефірі Радіо Свобода заявили, що номінальне підвищення рівня зарплати на сьогодні не є відчутним для громадян, оскільки реальні доходи українців є значно меншими. Тенденція до зростання зарплат є, однак в Україні вони досі лишаються значно меншими, ніж у сусідніх європейських країнах. …
Cambodian Indigenous Minorities Fighting Tide of Development
In Cambodia, the issue of land rights is a constant source of tension. The country’s biggest dam to date is set to go online in just weeks, adding 400 megawatts of power to the country’s critically overstretched grid. But the social and environmental costs of the project are huge, especially for minority villagers facing displacement. In rural Stung Treng province, some members of an indigenous group are taking a stand. David Boyle has this report. …
Peru Sees ‘Ambitious’ Trade Deal with Australia as Early as 2018
Peru expects a “very ambitious” free trade deal with Australia that covers goods, services and investments to be implemented as early as next year, Peru’s deputy trade minister said on Monday. The two countries resumed free trade talks in Australia on Monday following a first round of negotiations in July in which “a lot of progress was made,” said Deputy Trade Minister Edgar Vasquez. “This is going to be an agreement that we should be able to implement as soon as possible, starting in 2018,” Vasquez said by telephone in Lima. “That’s what we’d like to happen and what we think is viable.” Peru and Australia are important global producers of minerals and their bilateral trade is relatively small. Forging a free trade deal so quickly would mark one of the first steps toward reducing trade barriers in the Pacific region after U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, which Australia and Peru had signed onto. The remaining signatories to the TPP are in Australia this week discussing ways to salvage the deal. The 11 countries, which include Japan, Canada and Mexico, have a combined gross domestic product of $12.4 trillion. Vasquez said the experience of negotiating the TPP had put Peru and Australia on solid footing for quickly hashing out a bilateral agreement. “We also both have very open economies, so we’re really going to see a broad inclusion of sectors that will benefit from it – goods as well …
Mexico President to Visit China to Boost Trade Amid NAFTA Talks
Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto will travel to China next week to discuss trade and investment, as Mexico looks for ways to decrease its dependence on NAFTA, especially trade with neighboring United States. He will hold a bilateral meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping and participate in a summit of the BRICS nations, a grouping that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, on Sept. 4 and 5, Mexico’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Pena Nieto’s visit comes as U.S., Mexican and Canadian negotiators meet Sept. 1 to 5 in Mexico City for a round of talks to revamp the 23-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Mexico is trying to increase trade with Latin America and Asia, and on Monday took part in the first of three days of talks in Australia aimed at reviving the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, disrupted by the withdrawal of the United States. On Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump renewed his threat to scrap NAFTA, which he has cast as killing jobs and exacerbating the U.S. deficit, and ripped into trading partners Canada and Mexico. Pena Nieto is scheduled to participate in a dialogue on emerging markets and a BRICS business forum, “where over 800 business leaders are expected to discuss opportunities for investment, trade, connectivity, financial cooperation, development and the blue economy, or sustainable use of marine resources,” said the ministry. On Sept. 6, Pena Nieto will visit the offices of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, China’s top e-commerce firm and one …
Scientists Say Harvey May Be Soggy Sign of Future Storms
By the time the rain stops, Harvey will have dumped about 1 million gallons of water for every man, woman and child in southeastern Texas — a soggy, record-breaking glimpse of the wet and wild future that global warming could bring, scientists say. While scientists are quick to say that climate change didn’t cause Harvey and that they haven’t determined yet whether the storm was made worse by global warming, they do note that warmer air and water mean wetter and possibly more intense hurricanes in the future. “This is the kind of thing we are going to get more of,” said Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer. “This storm should serve as warning.” There’s a scientifically accepted method for determining if some wild weather event has the fingerprints of man-made climate change, and it involves intricate calculations. Those could take weeks or months to complete, and then even longer to pass peer review. Storms to produce more rain In general, though, climate scientists agree that future storms will dump much more rain than the same size storms did in the past. That’s because warmer air holds more water. With every degree Fahrenheit, the atmosphere can hold and then dump an additional 4 percent of water (7 percent for every degree Celsius), several scientists say. Global warming also means warmer seas, and warm water is what fuels hurricanes. When Harvey moved toward Texas, water in the Gulf of Mexico was nearly 2 degrees (1 degree Celsius) warmer than normal, …
Public Health Dangers Loom in Harvey-hit Areas
The muddy floodwaters now soaking through dry wall, carpeting, mattresses and furniture in Houston will pose a massive cleanup challenge with potential public health consequences. It’s not known yet what kinds or how much sewage, chemicals and waterborne germs are mixed in the water. For now, health officials are more concerned about drownings, carbon monoxide poisoning from generators and hygiene at shelters. In the months and years to come, their worries will turn to the effects of trauma from Hurricane Harvey on mental health. At a shelter set up inside Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center, Dr. David Persse is building a clinic of doctors and nurses and trying to prevent the spread of viruses or having to send people to hospitals already stretched thin. “This is rapidly evolving,” said Persse, Houston Director of Emergency Medical Services. “I always worry in these large congregations of people about viral outbreaks that cause nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. And we are just getting started.” Medics have been at the convention center since it started taking in evacuees, along with police and other first responders. Over the last 24 hours, doctors and nurses arrived at the convention center to volunteer. Fewer than 20 people have been hospitalized so far from the convention center. “One of our goals is to appropriately treat people here with minor things so we don’t send everybody off to the hospital,” Persse. Many of the around 3,000 people who fled from Harvey’s flooding waited hours in water …
Price of Cigarettes in New York to Soar to Nation’s Highest
The price of a pack of cigarettes has skyrocketed in New York City, while the number of places they are available for sale is set to fall. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday signed a sweeping series of anti-smoking bills, part of a comprehensive effort to help reduce the number of smokers in the city by nearly 200,000 over the next few years. “We are sending a loud and clear message that we will not let their greed kill any more New Yorkers without a fight,” de Blasio said at a bill-signing ceremony at a Brooklyn hospital. “These new laws will not only help reduce the number of smokers in our city, but also save lives.” The minimum price for a pack of cigarettes will jump from $10.50 to $13, the highest base price for cigarettes in the nation, de Blasio said. New York health officials hope that with brands forced to charge at least $13 for the cheapest pack, premium brands will also raise their prices to maintain separation from lower-tier smokes. The planned price hike is one of seven bills aimed at pressuring the city’s 900,000 estimated smokers to quit. Another new rule will reduce by half the number of retailers licensed to sell tobacco products. About 8,300 businesses now have a license. The numbers will be reduced through attrition, officials said. Philadelphia and San Francisco have similar licensing restrictions. Other laws will ban the sale of all tobacco products in pharmacies, require licensing of e-cigarette …
Kenya Bans Plastic Bags
Kenya has become the latest African country to ban the use of polythene plastic bags, imposing stiff fines and even jail time for anyone found using, importing or manufacturing the bags. In one of the biggest garbage dumping sites in Nairobi, it was business as usual Monday. Loads of plastic bags full of garbage were brought in, a testament to their widespread use in the capital. But no more, says the government. A new law went into effect Monday making the manufacture, sale and use of polythene plastic bags illegal. Offenders can get slapped with penalties up to a four-year jail term and a $40,000 fine. The National Environment Management Authority, with the help security agencies, has been going around Nairobi to urge retailers and manufacturers to heed the new ban. Geoffrey Wahungu is the director general of NEMA. He is promoting the “take-bag scheme,” basically calling on consumers to bring their own cloth bags or baskets from home. “I hope soon we’ll start seeing people who are carrying out these recycling materials, or alternative bags, which are eco-friendly. All this is creating much more employment than is being lost,” he said. Economic impact Two plastic bag importers unsuccessfully challenged the ban before the High Court Friday. Kenya produces plastic bags for local use and export in the region. The National Association of Manufacturers has argued that the ban will cost more than 60,000 jobs and hurt more than 170 companies. NEMA gave six months’ notice of the new ban, …
Fall Armyworm Spreads to Cameroon
Fall armyworm has spread to Cameroon. The pest has attacked crops in at least 24 African countries. In Cameroon, the Ministry of Agriculture says it is particularly concerned about the impact of the fall armyworm infestation in the north and the east of the country. Minister-delegate Ananga Messina says fall armyworm has infested six of the central African state’s 10 regions. She says the armyworms have been a serious threat to food security in Cameroon because cereals like maize, sorghum, rice and legume plants like cow-pea, peanuts and beans are increasingly being attacked every day. She says the situation is particularly worrisome on Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria where the population and 100,000 Nigerian refugees are already suffering from food scarcity due to the Boko Haram conflict. The Ministry of Agriculture says nearly two million people are currently in need of food assistance in northern Cameroon. Messina told VOA about half of Cameroon’s 23 million inhabitants and millions of livestock risk hunger in the months ahead. She said the armyworms have extended to Cameroon’s eastern border, putting neighboring Central African Republic at risk, a country gripped by a severe humanitarian crisis after years of conflict. Cameroon has launched a task force to manage the infestation. Some farmers have been using chemicals to kill the pests, but agriculture technician Anicet Mvondo says that is not the best approach. “The problem is that the insecticide is not good for the health of the farmer,” said Mvondo. “It is not good for …
Abuse in US Nursing Homes Unreported Despite Law
More than 1 in 4 cases of possible sexual and physical abuse against nursing home patients apparently went unreported to police, says a government audit that faults Medicare for failing to enforce a federal law requiring immediate notification. The Health and Human Services inspector general’s office was issuing an “early alert” Monday on its findings from a large sampling of cases in 33 states. Investigators say Medicare needs to take corrective action right away. “We hope that we can stop this from happening to anybody else,” said Curtis Roy, an audit manager with the inspector general’s office, which investigates fraud, waste and abuse in the health care system. The audit is part of a larger ongoing probe, and additional findings are expected, he said. With some 1.4 million people living in U.S. nursing homes, quality is an ongoing concern. Despite greater awareness, egregious incidents still occur. Using investigative data analysis techniques, auditors from the inspector general’s office identified 134 cases in which hospital emergency room records indicated possible sexual or physical abuse, or neglect, of nursing home residents. The incidents spanned a two-year period from 2015-2016. Illinois had the largest number of incidents overall, with 17. It was followed by Michigan (13), Texas (9), and California (8). In 38 of the total cases (28 percent), investigators could find no evidence in hospital records that the incident had been reported to local law enforcement, despite a federal law requiring prompt reporting by nursing homes, as well as similar state and local …
Україна наростила запаси газу у сховищах до 14,6 мільярда кубометрів – «Укртрансгаз»
Запаси природного газу в українських підземних сховищах газу (ПСГ) станом на кінець минулого тижня сягнули 14,6 мільярда кубометрів. Про це свідчать дані оператора газотранспортної системи України державної компанії «Укртрансгаз». Менш як два тижні тому радник міністра енергетики і вугільної промисловості Максим Білявський інформував, що Україна збільшила запаси газу до 14 мільярдів кубометрів. «Запаси газу в сховищах продовжують зростати, сьогодні перетнули позначку в 14 мільярдів кубів. Менше ніж за місяць закачали один мільярд», – написав він у Facebook. Раніше міністр енергетики і вугільної промисловості Ігор Насалик заявив про плани нагромадження на 1 жовтня 2017 року 17 мільярдів кубометрів для проходження опалювального сезону 2017–2018 років. При підготовці до минулого опалювального періоду профільне міністерство також наполягало на необхідності нагромадити 17 мільярдів кубометрів газу, але керівництво «Нафтогазу України» запевняло, що 14,5 мільярда кубометрів буде цілком достатньо. У результаті, в опалювальний сезон 2016–2017 років Україна ввійшла із запасами «блакитного палива» на рівні 14,7 і завершила сезон на рівні 8,4 мільярда кубометрів. …
Harvey Could Have Deep Impact on Texas Oil, US Economy
Massive flooding caused by Tropical Storm Harvey along Texas’ refinery-rich coast could have long-standing and far-reaching consequences for the state’s oil and gas industry and the larger U.S. economy. The storm’s remnants left much of Houston underwater on Sunday, and the National Weather Service says it’s not over yet: Some parts of Houston and its suburbs could end up with as much as 50 inches (1.3 meters) of rain. With the heavy precipitation expected to last for days, it’s still unclear how bad the damage will be, but there is already evidence of widespread losses. Key oil and gas facilities along the Texas Gulf Coast have temporarily shut down, and flooding in the Houston and Beaumont areas could seriously pinch gasoline supplies. Companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico have evacuated drilling platforms and rigs, crimping the flow of oil and gas. Experts believe gasoline prices could increase as much as 25 cents a gallon. Harvey’s toll on air travel in the U.S. is set to extend into Monday, with the tracking service FlightAware.com reporting that more than 1,400 flights already have been canceled. That’s in addition to more than 2,000 canceled over the weekend. Economy watchers were looking to oil futures markets Sunday night and stock trading in the U.S. Monday morning for further indications of fallout. Here’s what was known as of Sunday night: Refineries Nearly a third of U.S. refining capacity sits in low-lying areas along the coast from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Lake Charles, …
Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi Reportedly to Lead Uber
Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has been named Uber’s top executive, taking the difficult job of mending the dysfunctional ride-hailing giant and turning it from money-losing behemoth to a profitable company. Uber’s fractured eight-member board voted to hire Khosrowshahi late Sunday, capping three days of meetings and the withdrawal of once-top candidate Jeffery Immelt, former CEO and still chairman of General Electric, two people briefed on the decision said. They didn’t want to be identified because the decision had not been officially announced as of Sunday night. Khosrowshahi has been CEO of Expedia since August of 2015. The online booking site is one of the largest travel agencies in the world. Self-driving cars He’ll replace ousted CEO Travis Kalanick and faces the difficult task of changing Uber’s culture that has included sexual harassment and allegations of deceit and corporate espionage. Uber also is losing millions every quarter as it continues to expand and invest in self-driving cars. The company currently is being run by a 14-person group of managers and is without multiple top executive positions that will be filled by Khosrowshahi. Khosrowshahi has served as a member of Expedia’s board since it was spun off from IAC/InterActiveCorp. two years ago. An engineer who trained at Brown University, Khosrowshahi helped to expand IAC’s travel brands which were combined into Expedia, the company’s website says. He also serves on the boards of Fanatics Inc. and The New York Times Co. Many problems to solve He immediately …
Traditional Midwives in Bolivia Join Doctors for Safer Births
Bolivia is forging an approach to maternal care that combines traditional and Western medicine, in an effort to reduce the country’s high rate of new mother and newborn deaths. Faith Lapidus reports for VOA. …
Russian Engineers Testing a Driverless Minibus
Researchers in Moscow are testing a battery-powered driverless vehicle with a guidance system based on human eyesight. They say it will be cheap to produce and could soon be seen on closed roads, such as technology parks and college campuses. VOA’s George Putic reports. …
Harvey Throws a Wrench into US Energy Engine
A hurricane in the heart of the U.S. energy industry is expected to upend years of U.S. excess oil capacity and low prices, with the impact expected to reverberate globally and affect energy markets for weeks. Harvey hit the Texas shore as a fierce Category 4 hurricane, causing massive flooding that knocked out 11.2 percent of U.S. refining capacity, a quarter of oil production from the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, and closed ports all along the Texas coast. Gasoline futures jumped as much as 7 percent to their highest level in more than two years in early Monday trading in Asia as traders took stock of the storm’s impact. Damage assessment could take weeks The outages will limit the availability of U.S. crude, gasoline and other refined products for global consumers and further push up prices, analysts said. Damage assessments could take days to weeks to complete, and the storm continues to drop near-biblical amounts of rain as it lingers west of Houston, home to oil, gas, pipeline and chemical plants. More than 30 inches (76 cm) fell in the Houston area in 48 hours and a lot more rain is forecast, according to the National Weather Service. “This is not like anything we have ever seen before,” said Bruce Jefferis, chief executive of Aon Energy, a risk consulting practice. It is too soon to gauge the full extent of Harvey’s damage to the region’s energy infrastructure, he said. The storm was felt from coastal ports to inland oil and …
Trump Renews Threat to Scrap NAFTA Going into Next Round of Talks
U.S. President Donald Trump renewed his threat to scrap NAFTA and ripped on trading partners Canada and Mexico in a tweet early on Sunday, days before the three countries were scheduled to hold a second round of negotiations on rewriting the 23-year-old agreement. “We are in the NAFTA (worst trade deal ever made) renegotiation process with Mexico & Canada. Both being very difficult, may have to terminate?” he wrote. In a separate Sunday morning tweet, Trump repeated his pledge that Mexico will eventually pay for his proposed border wall, saying the barrier is needed due to Mexico’s high crime rate. In response, Mexico’s foreign ministry issued a statement Sunday afternoon reiterating the country’s position that it will not “in any way or under any circumstance” pay for Trump’s signature border wall. The ministry added that overcoming violent crime associated with cross-border drug trafficking is the responsibility of both nations, pointing to the high demand for drugs in the United States from Mexico and other countries. Trump, a Republican, promised during his campaign to build the wall and overhaul or eliminate the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he cast as killing jobs and exacerbating the U.S. deficit, and to adopt a more protectionist stance for trade generally. The first five-day round of talks between the three countries concluded last Sunday, with all sides committing to follow an accelerated process in revamping the agreement, which was originally signed by former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat whose wife, former Secretary of State …
Vaccine for Meningitis Shows Some Protection Against Gonorrhea
Scientists have not been able to develop a vaccine against the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea, despite working toward one for more than 100 years. However, they may have stumbled onto something that could provide clues to advance the development of such a vaccine. Decades ago, in the late 1990s, a strain of meningitis B was reaching epidemic proportions in New Zealand. A vaccine, MeNZB, was developed to protect young people who were at the highest risk of getting this particular type. It did not provide protection against any other strain. Between 2004 and 2006, MeNZB was given to anyone under the age of 20. Babies and preschoolers were routinely immunized until 2008. People with a high medical risk continued to get the vaccine until 2011. Once the epidemic was over, the vaccination program was stopped. However, scientists noticed that the meningitis vaccine also seemed to offer some protection against gonorrhea. A study published in the Lancet last month showed that one-third of the people who had received MeNZB did not get gonorrhea, compared to a control group who was not inoculated. The lead author noted that the bacteria causing both diseases share between 80 and 90 percent of their primary genetic sequences. Dr. Steven Black, an infectious disease expert at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, noted, “This is the first time it’s been shown that you could have a vaccine that would protect against gonorrhea. And if these results are confirmed in another setting, that would mean that it would be very …
American Workers Facing a ‘Skill Gap’
American workers are facing a paradox – many of them cannot find work while a lot of companies say they cannot find suitable candidates for job openings. Experts say the problem is in the so-called ‘skill gap,’ the incompatibility between available skills and job requirements. VOA’s George Putic has more. …
World’s Only Bonobo Sanctuary Rehabilitating Orphan Primates
Bonobos are primates that are very closely related to chimpanzees, and humans. They are found exclusively in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It’s not completely clear how many of them there are, but it is known that their numbers are on the decline. But the world’s only bonobo sanctuary is committed to ensuring these animals survive and stay wild. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …
Агентство Moody’s підвищило кредитний рейтинг України і дало позитивний прогноз
Рейтингове агентство Moody’s Investors Service підвищило рейтинги уряду України в українській і іноземній валюті на одну сходинку, з Caa3 до Caa2, і змінило прогноз зі «стабільного» на «позитивний». Як заявило агентство у п’ятницю, головними чинниками підвищення рейтингу стали загальний вплив структурних реформ в Україні, які можуть допомогти урядові впоратися з борговим навантаженням, а також поліпшення позиції країни на зовнішніх ринках. А позитивний прогноз, мовиться у прес-релізі агентства, відображає імпульс реформ – якщо він збережеться, це може призвести до дальшого поліпшення надійності внутрішнього і зовнішнього боргу України. «Такий імпульс реформ також підтримає поновлення доступу України до світових ринків капіталу, що полегшить шлях до рефінансування значних виплат за зовнішнім боргом, які настануть, починаючи з 2019 року», – мовиться в повідомленні агентства. Але нинішнє зростання рейтингу обмежене лише однією сходинкою – з Caa3 до Caa2 – саме через цей тягар виплати зовнішніх боргів, який настане через кілька років і буде вимагати значного фінансування в іноземній валюті, повідомило агентство Moody’s. Інші два провідні рейтингові агентства світу – Fitch і Standard&Poor’s – наразі зберігають оголошену навесні цього року рейтингову оцінку України на рівні B–, зі «стабільним» прогнозом. …