The U.S. oil export infrastructure is straining to keep up as the country’s crude oil exports hit new highs and China snaps up more of it than ever before.

U.S. crude production has surged to a record 10.7 million barrels a day, driven largely by growth from the Permian shale patch in West Texas, which pumps more than 3 million barrels per day.

However, the infrastructure to move it abroad is lagging, even as U.S. prices are well below the Brent benchmark, a discount that sits just off three-year highs at $8.09 per barrel. 

U.S. crude exports peaked at 2.6 million bpd two weeks ago, but are expected to keep rising.

What is US export capacity?

No definitive data are available on how much crude the United States can export, though analysts estimate a nationwide capacity of 3.5 million to 4 million bpd. Most terminal operators and companies do not disclose capacity, and the U.S. Energy Department does not track it.

“So far, export capacity is keeping pace, but we are walking a tightrope,” said Bernadette Johnson, vice president at Drilling Info.

That capacity may begin to be tested next month, as Sinopec, Asia’s largest refiner, bought a record 16 million barrels, or about 533,000 bpd of U.S. crude, to load in June, two sources with knowledge of the matter said Wednesday.

For the last six months of available data, ending in February, the United States exported about 332,000 bpd to China.

Terminals designed for imports

Analysts are concerned about how quickly the crude terminals at Gulf Coast ports, many initially designed for imports, can shift to handling exports. Only the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port can handle supertanker exports, but it only started testing in February. The supertankers, known as VLCCs or very large crude carriers, can handle about 2 million barrels of oil, the amount preferred by Asian buyers with bigger ports.

“There’s only one dock on the Gulf Coast that can handle a VLCC deepwater, and that’s LOOP. And the LOOP has only started to export,” said Sandy Fielden, director of research in commodities and energy at Morningstar. 

Port of Corpus Christi in Texas is developing its Harbor Island port, which will accommodate 120 VLCCs per year, said Jarl Pedersen, chief commercial officer at the port, with a targeted completion of late 2020.

Kpler, a cargo tracking service, Thursday estimated that up to 4.8 million bpd can be moved from the top crude-exporting ports of Corpus Christi, Houston, Port Arthur and New Orleans. Their estimate in October was 3.2 million bpd.

PIRA Energy Group put the U.S. overall crude export capacity at 3.5 million bpd, while Morningstar’s estimate is 3.8 million bpd at most.

Pipelines lacking, too

In addition to port constraints, inadequate pipeline space has created a glut of supply in West Texas, pushing the principle cash grade there to a $13 discount to benchmark U.S. crude futures this month, the biggest in 3½ years.

“The constraint is really the pipeline coming down from the Permian to Corpus Christi,” Pedersen said. However, the ship channel still needs to be deepened, a $320 million project in development with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

There is 3.4 million bpd of pipeline capacity, while total output from tight oil and legacy production from vertical wells in the Permian is at more than 4.2 million bpd, according to energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

“The combined volumes mean that the infrastructure is crammed full — there’s little or no room for incremental volumes,” R.T. Dukes, head of U.S. Lower 48 oil supply at Wood Mackenzie said in a note.

About 300,000 bpd of new pipeline capacity is to come on by the end of January, but “it’s really from next summer that we’ll see big new capacity,” Dukes said.

In the second half of 2019, another 1.25 million bpd will be added, lifting total capacity up to 5 million bpd, he said.

“That’s when the big discount of WTI at Midland will narrow,” Dukes said.
…

Brazil’s government said late Thursday that a deal had been reached with truckers to suspend a 4-day-old strike that caused fuel shortages, cut into food deliveries, backed up exports and threatened airline flights.

Eliseu Padilha, chief of staff for President Michel Temer, told reporters in Brasilia that several unions that represent truckers agreed to suspend the strike for 15 days to give all parties time to negotiate a solution to rising fuel prices that drivers say have cut deeply into their earnings.

The deal came after a full day of negotiations with several of the largest transportation unions. 

Diumar Bueno, president of the National Confederation of Autonomous Transporters, told the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo that he hoped the agreement would lead to drivers quickly dismantling roadblocks on highways and streets.

But it wasn’t immediately clear how many of the thousands of truckers, who by the nature of their jobs operate with a good bit of independence, would heed calls to stop the strike.

Road transport

Brazil’s economy runs largely on road transport, and the strike to protest rising diesel prices was beginning to have serious consequences, with highway police reporting blocked roads in nearly all of Brazil’s states.

The airport in the capital of Brasilia allowed landings only by planes that carried enough fuel to take off again. The stop-gap measure hadn’t resulted in any flight cancelations, but it was unclear how long it could continue before companies would have to ground planes. The civil aviation authority and airport authorities said they were monitoring fuel supplies carefully.

Long lines formed at gas stations, and some ran out of some kinds of fuel. In Rio de Janeiro, only about two-thirds of the city’s buses were running Thursday, according to Rio Onibus, which represents the companies that run the various lines.

Local media reported food shortages and rationing in some supermarkets, and an association of supermarkets in Brazil’s south warned that perishable food would run out in days if the strike did not end. The association said stores on average have a 15-day supply of dry goods, but fresh food would run out or spoil before then.

The Brazilian Association of Meat Industry Exporters said dozens of meatpacking plants were idling because of the strike, and 1,200 containers carrying beef for export were not being loaded on ships each day. Brazil is one of the largest exporters of meat in the world.

Truckers complain that rising diesel prices have cut deeply into their income and are demanding relief from the government. Diesel prices are being pushed up by rising world oil prices and Brazil’s falling real currency.

Truckers reject Petrobras move

Truckers rejected the Wednesday decision by the state oil company Petrobras to reduce diesel prices at refineries by 10 percent. The company said the measure would last for 15 days and give the government time to negotiate an end to the strike.

“The government thinks truckers are illiterate and can’t count,” said Vicente Reis, who has been driving for 20 years. “In 2018, there has already been about a 25 percent increase in fuel prices. And now they want a 15-day freeze with (a reduction of) 10 percent. Truckers know how to count, Mr. President.”
…

A jury has decided Samsung must pay Apple $539 million in damages for illegally copying some of the iPhone’s features to lure people into buying its competing products.

The verdict reached Thursday is the latest twist in a legal battle that began in 2011. Apple contends Samsung wouldn’t have emerged as the world’s leading seller of smartphones if it hadn’t ripped off the technology powering the pioneering iPhone in developing a line of similar devices running on Google’s Android software.

Patents infringed

Previous rulings had determined that Samsung infringed on some of Apple’s patents, but the amount of damages owed has been in legal limbo. Another jury convened for a 2012 trial had determined Samsung should pay Apple $1.05 billion, but U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh reduced that amount to $548 million.

The issue escalated to the U.S. Supreme Court , which determined in 2016 that a lower court needed to re-examine $399 million of the $548 million. That ruling was based on the concept that the damages shouldn’t be based on all the profits that the South Korean electronics giant rung up from products that copied the iPhone because its infringement may only have violated a few patents.

$1 billion or $28 million?

Apple had argued it was owed more than $1 billon while Samsung contended the $399 million should be slashed to $28 million. The revised damages figure represents a victory for Apple, even though it isn’t as much as the Cupertino, California, company had sought.

“Today’s decision flies in the face of a unanimous Supreme Court ruling in favor of Samsung on the scope of design patent damages,” Samsung said in a statement. “We will consider all options to obtain an outcome that does not hinder creativity and fair competition for all companies and consumers.”

An eight-person jury came up with the new amount following a one-week trial and four days of deliberation in a San Jose, California, federal courthouse.

Apple expressed gratitude to the jury for agreeing “that Samsung should pay for copying our products.”

“This case has always been about more than money,” a company statement said. “Apple ignited the smartphone revolution with iPhone and it is a fact that Samsung blatantly copied our design.”
…

When a federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia, convicted a Latvian software developer last week of running an underground clearinghouse for computer hackers, U.S. prosecutors highlighted it as an example of their commitment to combating cybercrime.

“This verdict demonstrates our commitment to holding such actors accountable,” said acting U.S. Attorney Tracey Doherty-McCormick. “I commend the work of the agents and prosecutors both in the United States and in Latvia, who worked together to bring him to justice.”

Not mentioned was the role played by Trend Micro, a Japanese cybersecurity firm that collaborated with the FBI to hunt down the developer, Ruslans Bondars, and an accomplice, Jurijs Martisevs, who jointly operated Scan4You, a site that helped hackers test their malware.

In a report released after the verdict, Trend Micro offered an inside look at how it identified Scan4You in 2012, took a trove of data about the site to the FBI in 2014, and then worked closely with agents as they built a case against the two men.

Trend Micro says it has supported nearly 20 law enforcement cases around the world.

“In this case, our global threat intelligence network and team of researchers provided an invaluable resource for the FBI as it homed in on this notorious [counter antivirus] service,” said Ed Cabrera, chief security officer for Trend Micro.

The case highlights how the FBI and private cybersecurity firms, once wary of working together, have in recent years started teaming up to combat cybercrime, a problem that costs the world an estimated $600 billion a year. 

“The value that the private sector brings to law enforcement investigations is almost incalculable,” said John Boles, a director at consulting firm Navigant who previously worked as an assistant FBI director and led the bureau’s global cyberoperations.

A decade ago “there was almost hesitation on both sides of the fence to cooperate, but somewhere along the line as the scales have tipped, everybody realized it’s a global issue,” Boles said.

In 2011, the FBI created the Office of the Private Sector within the Cyber Division, making private-sector collaboration a key pillar of its cybercrime-fighting strategy.

Since then, the bureau has made more than a dozen major arrests in cybercrime cases, many with help from the private sector, according to Boles. While cybercrime investigations are often initiated by the bureau, some start with a tip from the private sector.

Unusual activity

That was the case with the Scan4You investigation.

In 2012, Trend Micro researchers, while investigating a hacker group, noticed a flurry of unusual activity on their threat radar: Somebody using Latvia IP addresses kept checking the company’s web reputation system, a program that blocks malicious websites.

That led them to another discovery: regular checks of Scan4You URLs against Trend Micro’s web reputation system emanating from Latvia. The goal: to determine whether Scan4You’s scanning scripts could detect malware.

“By 2014, we had a deeper understanding [of Scan4You] and began that relationship with the FBI,” Cabrera said.

The collaboration would continue for the next three years as Trend Micro researchers and FBI agents gathered evidence about Scan4You, its operators and its users.

Scan4You was an underground service that allowed hackers to upload their malware to see whether it could be detected by more than 35 antivirus engines. At its peak in 2016, Scan4You was the largest service of its kind, boasting more than 30,000 customers.

The service allowed cyber scofflaws to test all manner of malicious software, ranging from so-called crypters, a type of software used to conceal malicious files, to remote access trojans, programs that allow a remote operator backdoor access to a computer.

‘World’s most destructive hackers’

Among Scan4You’s customers were “some of the world’s most destructive hackers,” according Doherty-McCormick, the Virginia prosecutor.

One customer used Scan4You to test malware that was later used to steal about 40 million credit card and debit card numbers, costing one U.S. retailer $292 million, according to court documents.

A Russian hacker used Scan4You to develop Citadel, an infamous botnet used by cybercriminals to steal $500 million from bank accounts. The FBI worked with Microsoft to break up the network.

But Scan4You was not a very lucrative operation. As researchers dug deeper, they discovered that Bondars and Martisevs were affiliated with “some of the longest-running cybercriminal businesses” and “involved with one of the largest and oldest pharmaceutical spam gangs known as Eva Pharmacy,” according to Trend Micro.

Bondars, a longtime Latvian resident of Ukrainian citizenship, designed and maintained the site.

Martisevs, a Russian national living in Latvia, provided customer service and promoted the site on cybercriminal forums.

The pair’s deep involvement in an assortment of criminal activities gave them something that helped with their scanning service: cyber-cred.

“These threat actors gained the respect of many other cybercriminals who trusted them and used their malware scanning service,” the report says.

The end for Scan4You came with the 2017 arrests and extradition of Bondars and Martisevs to the United States. Shortly after their arrest, Scan4You went dark.

In March, Martisevs pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against Bondars. Last week, Bondars was convicted of three counts related to his role in Scan4You.

Scan4You’s downfall has taken the biggest service of its kind out of commission, but just how big a blow to cybercrime it represents remains to be seen.

Typically, when a site like Scan4You goes offline, its users flee to copycat sites. That has yet to happen, Cabrera said.

“This is a big blow to cybercrime, helping to disrupt countless threat actors and prove there are consequences to their actions,” he said.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law Thursday a measure that eases rules imposed on banks in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession.

The law relaxes regulations and oversight on banks with assets below $250 billion, leaving a handful of the largest U.S. banks that must still comply with the stringent rules and oversight.

Trump said at the signing ceremony the rules and oversight, enacted by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law, were “crushing small banks.” Trump lauded the signing as a victory in his administration’s efforts to eliminate regulations to promote economic growth.

Although Trump signed the bill into law, much of Dodd-Frank remains intact. Trump signed the Republican-led measure that was passed by Congress after receiving the support of some Democrats.

Dodd-Frank was signed into law by President Barack Obama in response to a crisis that resulted in the loss of 8 million jobs, 2.5 million home foreclosures and the shuttering of 2.5 million businesses, according to Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research.

A federal report prepared by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission concluded economic weaknesses that created the potential for the crisis were “years in the making.” But the report said “it was the collapse of the housing bubble — fueled by low interest rates, easy and available credit, scant regulation and toxic mortgages — that was the spark that ignited a string of events, which led to the full-blown crisis in the fall of 2008.”
…

French President Emmanuel Macron says his country will invest $76 million in African startups, saying innovation on the continent is key to meeting challenges ranging from climate change to terrorism. He spoke Thursday at a technology fair in Paris showcasing African talent this year.

It is hard to miss the African section of Viva Tech. There are gigantic signs pointing to stands from South Africa, Morocco and Rwanda. And there are lots of African entrepreneurs.

Omar Cisse heads a Senegalese startup called InTouch, which has developed an app making it easier to conduct financial transactions by mobile phone.

“Globally, you have more than $1 billion per day of transactions on mobile money, and more than 50 percent are done in sub-Saharan Africa,” he said.

Cisse says the challenges for African startups are tremendous, but so are the opportunities.

“In Africa, you have very huge potential. Everything needs to be done now, and with local people who know the realities,” he said.

Like Cisse, Cameroonian engineer Alain Nteff is breaking new ground. He and a doctor co-founded a startup called Gifted Mom, which provides health information to pregnant and nursing women via text messaging.

“I think the biggest problems today in Africa are going to be solved by business, and not by development and nonprofits,” he said.

Nteff gets some support from the United Nations and other big donors. But funding is a challenge for many. African startups reportedly raised $560 million last year, compared with more than $22 billion raised by European ventures.

Now they are getting a $76 million windfall, announced by President Emmanuel Macron here at the tech fair.

“When the startups decide to work together to deploy ad accelerate equipment in Africa, it is good for the whole continent, because that is how to accelerate everything and provide opportunities — which by the way, is the best way to fight against terrorism, jihadism … to provide another model to these young people,” he said.

The funding comes from the Digital Africa Initiative, run by France’s AFD development agency (Agence Francaise de Developpement).

“I think the main challenge is access to funding, and the second is the coaching to grow. AFD wants them to find solutions,” said Jean-Marc Kadjo, who heads the project team.

There are plenty of exciting projects here. Reine Imanishimwe is a wood innovator from Rwanda.

“I try to use my wood in high technology. As you can see, my business card is wood, but I print it using a computer,” said Imanishimwe.

Abdou Salam Nizeyimana is also from Rwanda. He works for Zipline, an American startup that uses drones to fly blood to people and hospitals in Rwanda, cutting delivery times from hours to minutes.

“Now doctors can plan surgery right away and just say, ‘We need this type of blood,’ ” and it can be delivered in about a half hour or less, he said.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame toured the tech fair with Macron. Relations between Rwanda and France are warming, after years of tension over Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.

Entrepreneur Nizeyimana is happy about that. When politics are good, he says, it is good for technology transfer and Africa’s development.
…

Національний банк України вирішив залишити облікову ставку незмінною на рівні 17% річних.

Як повідомляє прес-служба НБУ, монетарні умови наразі достатньо жорсткі, щоб забезпечити зниження інфляції до цільових показників у середньостроковій перспективі.

У квітні−травні 2018 року інфляція, як і очікувалося, продовжувала знижуватися, додають у НБУ. 

З 2 березня НБУ підвищив облікову ставку з 16 до 17 відсотків річних.

Перед цим регулятор підвищував ставку у січні – до 16% річних, перед тим до 14,5% у грудні 2017 року, а ще раніше у жовтні 2017 року – з 12,5 до 13,5%.

У березні 2015 року НБУ облікова ставка була на рівні 30%, згодом регулятор почав поступово знижувати облікову ставку.

Облікова ставка є одним із інструментів, за допомогою якого Нацбанк встановлює для комерційних банків орієнтир щодо вартості залучених і розміщених коштів. Фактично вона визначає ціну грошей.
…

У Національному банку України наголошують, що найближчий час буде вирішальним для ухвалення рішень, важливих для продовження співпраці з Міжнародним валютним фондом. 

«Ці реформи ( у рамках програми розширеного фінансування МВФ) критичні як для збереження макрофінансової стабільності, так і для забезпечення довгострокового економічного зростання в Україні. Найближчий час буде вирішальним для ухвалення рішень, важливих для продовження співпраці з офіційними кредиторами України», – йдеться у повідомленні НБУ.

У Нацбанку зауважують, що необхідність співпраці останнім часом лише посилилася з огляду на ускладнення доступу країн, що розвиваються, до глобального ринку капіталу. 

Крім того, у НБУ зауважують, що інфляція в Україні продовжуватиме знижуватися у разі поступу в здійсненні структурних реформ, зокрема в рамках програми розширеного фінансування Міжнародного валютного фонду.

За даними регулятора, у квітні-травні інфляція, як і прогнозувалося, продовжувала знижуватися.

Читайте також: МВФ наголошує на важливості схвалення законопроекту про антикорупційний суд

У березні 2015 року між МВФ і Україною була затверджена чотирирічна програма розширеного фінансування на суму близько 17,5 мільярда доларів США. Наразі МВФ надав Україні за цією програмою близько 8 мільярдів 380 мільйонів доларів.

Міністерство фінансів України очікувало на надходження нового траншу кредиту МВФ на початку 2018 року. У квітні в НБУ заявили, що очікують траншу від Міжнародного валютного фонду в третьому кварталі.
…

Найбільший металургійний комбінат в Україні ПАТ «АрселорМіттал Кривий Ріг» підвищить зарплати працівникам після страйку, офіційно підтвердили на підприємстві.

За офіційною заявою гендиректора підприємства Парамжит Калона, після кількаденних переговорів із профспілками знайдене «рішення, яке є виграшним для обох сторін». За його словами, мова йде про збільшення фонду оплати праці працівників з 1 травня на 1,1 мільярда гривень. Водночас він закликав працівників думати не лише про підвищення зарплат, а й про інвестиції у виробництво, від яких залежить майбутнє підприємства.

 «Я вважаю, що ми будемо одним з найкращих роботодавців в Україні щодо зарплати», – сказав він.

Топ-менеджер пообіцяв, що – за умови відновлення роботи всіх доменних печей і виробництва – до питання підвищення зарплат повернуться вже в жовтні.

У профспілках підприємства також підтвердили, що власник погодився збільшити фонд оплати праці, визначений на рік в обсязі 3 мільярди гривень, з 1 травня – на 1,1 мільярда гривень. Перегляд зарплати здійснять з акцентом на ключові для підприємства професії, кажуть у профспілках.

Як поінформували Радіо Свобода 24 травня на підприємстві, наразі цех залізничного транспорту, де був страйк, працює стабільно, комбінат поступово відновлює увесь виробничий ланцюжок, але про повне відновлення роботи підприємства наразі не можна говорити.

 У понеділок «АрселорМіттал Кривий Ріг» повідомив про закінчення чотириденного страйку залізничників, який призвів до фактичної зупинки підприємства, однак тоді офіційно не підтверджували інформацію профспілок про підвищення зарплат після страйку.

 16 травня на ПАТ «АрселорМіттал Кривий Ріг» робітники залізничного цеху відмовилися працювати на несправній техніці. Через страйк була зупинена робота двох залізничних цехів, але це фактично паралізувало роботу всього підприємства, де транспортний зв’язок між виробничими підрозділами здійснюється за допомогою залізничного транспорту. Робітники вимагали забезпечення відповідності всього рухомого складу стандартам охорони праці та підвищення зарплати до 1 тисячі євро.

 В адміністрації підприємства тоді заявили, що страйк незаконний, а сама акція «не була анонсована і узгоджена» і звернулись до поліції. Керівництво комбінату попередило, що через страйк підприємству загрожує фінансова криза, а також техногенна аварія.

 
…

Even though the United States is one of the richest and most technologically advanced countries in the world, about 45 million Americans live below the poverty line. In Buffalo, New York, a once-prosperous city that has fallen on hard-times, one-third of its residents live in poverty. As Olga Loginova reports, the city offers an example of what happens when a once-powerful industrial sector declines and well-paying jobs become scarce.
…

Міська рада столиці наполягає, щоб два питання – постачання газу для Києва та вирішення проблеми заборгованості «Київенерго» вирішувалися окремо, йдеться у заяві на сайті відомства. Як повідомляється, таке рішення підтримали 94 депутати.

 «НАК «Нафтогаз України» фактично шантажуючи місто і погрожуючи зривом опалювального сезону, змушує нас прийняти на себе борги «Київенерго». Це для міста є неприйнятним. Борги «Київенерго» ніколи не стануть боргами киян. Ми готові до переговорів, ми готові допомагати «Нафтогазу» знайти спільну мову з «Київенерго». Але робити борги, накопичені приватною компанією за 17 років, боргами киян ми не будемо», – наголосив секретар Київради Володимир Прокопів. 

Тим часом, як раніше повідомлила прес-служба «Нафтогазу», компанія готова укласти договір про постачання газу з «Київтеплоенерго» одразу після вирішення питання правонаступництва за борговими зобов’язаннями шляхом укладання договорів переводу боргу між «Київтеплоенерго», «Київенерго» і «Нафтогазом». Зокрема, це стосується розрахунків держави по пільгах і субсидіях за вже поставлений газ та компенсації різниці в тарифах. 

За даними КМДА, розмір боргів становить 5 мільярдів гривень.

«Київтеплоенерго» перебирає на себе функції із теплозабезпечення Києва після припинення угоди з «Київенерго».

У 2017 році КМДА не продовжила договір з «Київенерго» і розпочала процес передачі майна від приватної компанії до комунального підприємства «Київтеплоенерго». Підприємство перебирає на себе функції із теплозабезпечення Києва після припинення угоди з «Київенерго», компанією мільярдера Ріната Ахметова.

 
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Germany’s struggling Deutsche Bank is slashing thousands of jobs as it reshapes its stocks trading operation and refocuses its global investment banking business on its European base.

The bank said Thursday it would cut its workforce from 97,000 to “well below” 90,000 and that the reductions were underway.

It said headcount in the stocks trading business, mostly based in New York and London, would be reduced by about 25 percent. Those cuts will cost the bank about 800 million euros ($935 million) this year.

Deutsche Bank has struggled with high costs and troubles with regulators. The bank replaced its CEO in April after three years of annual losses and lagging progress in streamlining its operations.

New CEO Christian Sewing has said the bank would refocus on its European and German customer base and cut back on costlier and riskier operations where it doesn’t hold a leading position. Sewing said the bank was committed to its international investment banking operations but must “concentrate on what we truly do well.” The new strategy means stepping back from several decades of global expansion in which the bank sought to compete with Wall Street rivals such as Goldman Sachs or JPMorgan Chase.

Sewing replaced John Cryan in April with a mandate to accelerate the bank’s wrenching restructuring. It has suffered billions in losses from fines and penalties related to past misconduct. But progress in cutting costs has remained elusive. Sewing on Thursday affirmed the bank’s goal to hold costs to 23 billion euros this year and 22 billion next year.

The announcement came hours before Board Chairman Paul Achleitner had to face disgruntled investors at the bank’s annual shareholder meeting. The bank’s share price has sagged and it paid only a small dividend of 11 euro cents per share last year.

Addressing an audience of several thousands in Frankfurt, Achleitner said Cryan had “set the ball rolling for fundamental change” but later displayed “shortcomings in decision-making and implementation.”

“Dear shareholders, you are right to expect the bank and its management to hit the targets it has set itself,” he said. “If there are signs those targets are in jeopardy… then we on the supervisory board have to act swiftly and decisively.”

The bank’s troubles and the turmoil surrounding Cryan’s departure have put pressure on Achleitner as well. Cryan was forced to publicly push back against a media report that Achleitner was looking for a replacement, then left to twist in the wind for days before being shown the door. Achleitner brought Cryan to the bank in 2015 and thus in principle shares responsibility for the bank’s strategy and performance since then.
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Пасажири матимуть можливість з’ясувати, чи є у вагоні потяга кондиціонер, ще на етапі купівлі квитка, інформує «Укрзалізниця» на своєму сайті.

«Тепер у системі онлайн-продажу квитків над зображенням місць з’явилася спеціальна позначка, яка інформує, чи є саме в цьому вагоні кондиціонер. Якщо вона відсутня, значить кондиціонер у цьому вагоні є. Ця інформація буде вказана і в придбаному квитку. Нова опція актуальна для регіональних поїздів і поїздів далекого сполучення», – йдеться у повідомленні.

Як зазначає «Укрзалізниця», у 2018 році Укрзалізниця планує придбати 54 нові пасажирські вагони та провести капітально-відновлювальний ремонт 150 вагонів. Усі вагони будуть обладнані системами кондиціонування повітря, обіцяють на підприємстві.

 «Укрзалізниця» є національним перевізником вантажів та пасажирів. Метою діяльності компанії, як мовиться на її сайті, «є задоволення потреб у безпечних та якісних залізничних перевезеннях, забезпечення ефективного функціонування й розвитку залізничного транспорту, створення умов для підвищення конкурентоспроможності галузі тощо».
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Oceanographers often say we know much more about the surface of the Moon and Mars than we do about nearly 70 percent of our own planet. That is because most of the Earth is covered in water, most of it deeper than 200 meters. There are several initiatives to map the oceans’ floors and the latest comes from Japan. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Amazon, Starbucks, Vulcan and other companies have pledged a total of more than $350,000 toward an effort to repeal Seattle’s newly passed tax on large employers intended to combat homelessness.

Just days after the Seattle City Council approved the levy, the No Tax On Jobs campaign, a coalition of businesses, announced it would gather signatures to put a referendum on the November ballot to repeal it. 

Amazon, Starbucks, Vulcan, Kroger and Albertsons each promised $25,000 to the effort last week, according to a report filed by the campaign. The Washington Food Industry Association pledged $30,000. 

Referendum backers will have to gather 17,632 signatures of registered Seattle voters by June 14 to get the measure on the ballot.

The so-called head tax will charge businesses making at least $20 million in gross revenues about $275 per full-time worker each year. The tax would begin in 2019 and raise about $48 million a year to build affordable housing and provide emergency homeless services.

Opponents say the Seattle measure is a tax on jobs and questioned whether city officials are spending current resources effectively. 

Worker and church groups and others praised the tax as a step toward building badly needed affordable housing in an affluent city where the income gap continues to widen and lower-income workers are being priced out.

The clash over who should pay to solve the city housing crisis that’s exacerbated by Seattle’s rapid economic growth featured weeks of tense exchanges, raucous meetings and a threat by Amazon, the city’s largest employer, to stop construction planning on a 17-story building near its hometown headquarters.

Amazon has resumed planning the downtown building, but the company remains “apprehensive about the future created by the council’s hostile approach and rhetoric toward larger businesses, which forces us to question our growth here,” said Drew Herdener, Amazon’s vice president for global corporate and operations communications. 

Four council members initially pitched an annual tax of $500 per full-time employee before a compromise proposal lowered the tax rate after they could not muster six votes needed to override a potential veto by Mayor Jenny Durkan. 

The mayor signed the head tax on May 16, saying “we must make urgent progress on our affordability and homelessness crisis.”

Seattle’s action came as cities around San Francisco consider business taxes to help offset issues created by the growth of tech companies. 
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