The analytical center “Club of Experts” in Kiev within the framework of the initiative on training of journalists in basic skills of rendering the first pre-medical care has held the first seminar-workshop. The event was organized by the Club of Experts, the Adonis network of medical centers, and “Help For Ukraine” Charitable Foundation, “Hromada Priirpenia Foundation” Charity Foundation; the information partner – “Interfax-Ukraine” and Open4Business portal.
The seminar was attended by the representatives of mass media from different regions of Ukraine, whose work is connected with risk and possibility of facing emergency situations. According to the participants, mastering basic first aid skills can be of vital importance at critical times, related to their professional activities in wartime conditions.
The seminar’s keynote speaker, Adonis Medical Group anesthesiologist Mariana Bolyuk, is the co-author of 12 scientific publications and has a wealth of experience in the medical field. In her presentation, she covered important aspects of pre-medical care, including algorithms for basic life support, types of bleeding and how to stop it. Practical techniques, such as determining the pulse on main arteries and applying a turnstile, were also practiced at the seminar.
According to Maxim Urakin, organizer of the seminar and founder of the “Expert Club,” in the current situation it is important to develop first aid skills among journalists because the role of their profession and the risk they face daily has increased significantly in war conditions.
“According to information published in the media, since last February, 61 media workers have already been killed and about 500 more journalists have been wounded. Therefore, we are deeply aware of the importance of training journalists in basic first aid skills. Our colleagues constantly face risks and have the responsibility of informing the public under difficult conditions. Therefore, we should strive to provide journalists not only with information, but also with the means to preserve and protect their lives and health,” Urakin emphasized.
In the future, the organizers of the seminar plan to develop this training project, covering more media representatives and expanding their knowledge and skills in first aid. Journalists with a basic knowledge of premedical care will be able to act more effectively in difficult situations, contributing to quick and effective aid to victims. First-aid training for journalists in the future must become an integral part of their professional training and responsibility to society. According to the organizers, it is important to support and develop such initiatives in the future so that journalists are prepared for emergencies and contribute to general safety and well-being.
CLUB OF EXPERTS, FIRST_HELP, GROMADA PRIIRPENYA FOUNDATION, JOURNALISTS, MEDIA, PRE-MEDICAL_HELP, URAKIN, АДОНИС, БОЛЮК, ГОЛІЗДРА
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chief Gary Gensler spoke out rather harshly about the cryptocurrency asset market, noting that the industry’s lack of compliance could damage the credibility of the U.S. financial markets.
“With such widespread noncompliance, it’s not at all surprising that there are so many problems in the cryptocurrency markets,” Gensler said, speaking at the Piper Sandler Global Exchange and FinTech conference on Thursday. – We’ve seen this kind of thing before. It’s all reminiscent of the situation we had in the 1920s, before the federal securities laws were passed. Speculators, scammers, con artists and pyramid schemes. People were standing in line in bankruptcy courts.”
“Cryptocurrency markets should not be allowed to undermine the public’s well-earned confidence in the capital markets. They should not be allowed to harm investor confidence,” the text of Gensler’s speech, which is published on the SEC’s website, reads.
The regulator has faced sharp criticism after accusations against cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase and Binance.
The SEC reportedly accused Coinbase of operating without registration as an exchange, broker and clearing agency in the United States. The same charges were brought by the regulator against Binance Holdings Inc. In total, the SEC charged Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao with 13 securities violations.
Gensler noted that most cryptocurrencies are subject to U.S. securities laws, so “most cryptocurrency brokerage companies must also comply with those laws.”
Appropriate registration of cryptocurrency exchanges, he said, is “the foundation of providing basic protections for investors and markets.”
“Cryptocurrency intermediaries may need to separate lines of business, put in place sets of rules to ensure protection against fraud and manipulation, properly segregate customer funds, and change their approach to clearing,” Gensler said. – That’s what protects investors. The fact that they built their platforms without taking that into account shouldn’t be a free pass to put investors at risk.”
International rating agency Moody’s on Thursday changed its outlook on Coinbase Global’s ratings to negative from stable, noting “uncertainty about the extent to which the SEC charges affect the company’s business model and cash flow.”
Coinbase’s corporate rating was affirmed at “B2.”
On Thursday, June 8, Kyiv will host a workshop entitled “First Aid in Case of Injuries and Traumas”. It is intended for media representatives who will be able to master the basic skills of first aid in case of injuries and traumas.
The keynote speaker at the seminar will be Mariana Bolyuk, an anesthesiologist and representative of the Adonis Medical Center Group. She is a co-author of 12 scientific publications and has extensive experience in the field of medicine.
The organizers of the seminar attach great importance to this event and provide an opportunity for journalists to gain the necessary knowledge to provide first aid. Participation in the training will allow journalists to respond more effectively to emergencies and act professionally in case of injuries and traumas.
According to Maksym Urakin, co-organizer of the training, media workers are more often involved in emergencies, so the organizers are trying to hold such events on a regular basis to save lives.
“In total, 61 media representatives have been killed during the conflict. In addition, according to media reports, about 500 journalists have been injured or traumatized to varying degrees since the beginning of the war. With the help of our trainings, we are trying to save lives and health of citizens,” said Maksym Urakin.
The seminar was organized by the Kyiv-based think tank Club of Experts; Adonis, medical partner; Help For Ukraine Charitable Foundation; Pryirpin Community Foundation, general partner; Interfax-Ukraine and Open4Business, general media partners.
EXPERTS CLUB, FIRST_AID, JOURNALISTS, MEDIA, PRYIRPIN COMMUNITY FOUNDATION, URAKIN, АДОНИС
The peak of water spill from the Kakhovka reservoir is expected by the morning of June 7, reported PJSC “Ukrhydroenergo” with reference to the general director of the company Igor Sirota on Tuesday.
“Further, there will be a stabilization of the water level. In 4-5 days the water will begin to recede,” said the head of Ukrhydroenergo.
On Tuesday morning, the Ukrhydrometeocenter warned that on the Dnieper River below the town of Novaya Kakhovka, as a result of the explosion of the Kakhovka hydropower plant, intense rise in water levels with flooding of riverbed areas and lowered parts in Kherson, in Kherson, Berislavsk, Skadovsky districts of Kherson region is expected. III level of danger – red.
As reported, at 02:50 on June 6, Russian troops carried out an internal explosion of structures at the occupied Kakhovska HPP, which led to the flooding of a number of settlements in the Kherson region. As of 11:00 a.m., 16 gates of the plant, the HPP building and the earth dam insert between the HPP building and the sluice and admin building were destroyed.
At the same time, the explosion of the HPP did not directly affect the situation in the Ukrainian energy system. There are no threats to the stability of power supply. The generated electricity is sufficient to cover the needs of consumers.
The destruction of the hydropower plant is considered a violation of the Geneva Convention.
Source: Interfax-Ukraine
The charges include operating unregistered exchanges, broker-dealers and clearing agencies, misrepresentations regarding the control and supervision of trading on the Binance.US platform, and the unregistered offer and sale of securities – U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
Today, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Binance Holdings Ltd. (“Binance”), which operates the world’s largest cryptocurrency trading platform Binance.com, BAM Trading Services Inc. (“BAM Trading”), which together with Binance operates the cryptocurrency trading platform Binance.US, and their founder Changpeng Zhao with a number of securities law violations.
Among other things, the Commission alleges that while Zhao and Binance publicly stated that U.S. customers were prohibited from trading on Binance.com, Zhao and Binance were in fact undermining their own controls to secretly allow large U.S. customers to continue trading on the Binance.com platform. In addition, the Commission alleges, Zhao and Binance publicly claimed that Binance.US was established as a separate, independent trading platform for U.S. investors, Zhao and Binance secretly controlled the operations of the Binance.US platform behind the scenes.
The SEC also alleges that Zhao and Binance exercised control over the platform’s customer assets, allowing them to pool customer assets or redirect them at their discretion, including to Sigma Chain, a company owned and controlled by Zhao. The Commission’s complaint also alleges that BAM Trading and BAM Management US Holdings, Inc. (“BAM Management”) misled investors about non-existent controls over trading on the Binance.US platform, while Sigma Chain engaged in manipulative trading that artificially inflated trading volume on the platform. In addition, the complaint alleges that the defendants concealed the fact that they were commingling billions of dollars of investor assets and sending them to a third party, Merit Peak Limited, which is also owned by Zhao.
The complaint also alleges violations of important registration-related provisions of the U.S. federal securities laws:
Binance and BAM’s trading with existing unregistered national securities exchanges, broker-dealers and clearing agencies;
The unregistered offer and sale of Binance’s own crypto assets, including the so-called BNB exchange token, the so-called stablecoin, Binance USD (BUSD), certain cryptocurrency credit products, and the staking-as-a-service program;
Zhao as a person controlling the activities of unregistered national securities exchanges, broker-dealers and clearing agencies Binance and BAM Trading.
“With the thirteen charges, we allege that Zhao and Binance engaged in an extensive network of deception, conflicts of interest, insufficient disclosure, and willful evasion of the law,” said Gary Gensler, Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “Zhao and Binance are alleged to have misled investors about risk controls and misrepresented trading volumes by actively concealing who operated the platform, the manipulative trading of its affiliated market maker, and even where and with whom investor funds and crypto assets were held. They attempted to circumvent U.S. securities laws by claiming bogus controls that they ignored behind the scenes in order to keep high value U.S. clients on their platforms. The public should be wary of investing any of their hard-earned assets in or on these illegal platforms.”
“Zhao and Binance allegedly misled investors about risk controls and misrepresented trading volumes by actively concealing who operated the platform, the manipulative trading of its affiliated market maker, and even where and with whom investor funds and crypto assets were held. They attempted to circumvent U.S. securities laws by claiming bogus controls that they ignored behind the scenes in order to keep high value U.S. clients on their platforms. The public should be wary of investing any of their hard-earned assets in or on these illegal platforms.”
“We allege that Zhao and Binance not only knew the rules of the game, but knowingly chose to violate them, putting their customers and investors at risk – all to maximize their own profits,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, Director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement. “By engaging in numerous unregistered offerings and failing to register and simultaneously combining the functions of exchanges, brokers, dealers, and clearing agencies, the Binance platforms under Zhao’s control created undue risks and conflicts of interest for investors. These risks and conflicts are only exacerbated by the lack of transparency of Binance’s platforms, reliance on related party transactions, and lies about controls to prevent manipulative trading. Despite their longstanding efforts not to be ‘held accountable,’ today’s complaint begins the process of holding them accountable.”
UNREGISTERED EXCHANGE, BROKER AND CLEARING AGENCY
The Commission’s complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that since at least July 2017, Binance.com and Binance.US, under Zhao’s control, have operated as exchanges, brokers, dealers, and clearing agencies and have earned at least $11.6 billion, in part, from transaction fees from U.S. customers. The Commission’s complaint alleges that: (1) with respect to Binance.com, Binance should have registered as an exchange, broker-dealer and clearing agency; (2) with respect to Binance.US, Binance and BAM Trading should have registered as an exchange and as clearing agencies; and (3) BAM Trading should have registered as a broker-dealer. The Commission also alleges that Zhao is liable, as a person in control of Binance and BAM Trading, for the relevant registration violations.
UNREGISTERED OFFER AND SALE OF CRYPTO ASSETS
The Commission accused Binance of unregistered offers and sales of BNB, BUSD, and cryptocurrency products known as “Simple Earn” and “BNB Vault”. In addition, the Commission accused BAM Trading of unregistered offer and sale of the Binance.US “staking as a service” program. The complaint also states that Binance secretly controls the assets invested by US customers in the BAM program.
FAILURE TO RESTRICT U.S. INVESTORS’ ACCESS TO BINANCE.COM
The SEC’s complaint alleges that Zhao and Binance created BAM Management and BAM Trading in September 2019 as part of a complex scheme to circumvent U.S. federal securities laws by claiming that BAM Trading independently operated the Binance.US platform and that U.S. customers could not use the Binance.com platform. The complaint alleges that, in fact, Zhao and Binance maintained significant ownership and control of the U.S. company and that behind the scenes, Zhao instructed Binance to allow and conceal the continued access to Binance.com by many U.S. customers with significant funds. In one instance, Binance’s head of compliance wrote to a colleague that “we are operating as a fictitious unlicensed securities exchange in the US, bro.”
MISLEADING INVESTORS
According to the Commission’s complaint, BAM Trading and BAM Management misled Binance.US customers and investors about the existence and adequacy of market oversight and controls to detect and prevent manipulation of cryptocurrency trading volumes on the Binance.US platform. The complaint also alleges that the strategic and targeted trading for the purpose of money laundering, which was largely carried out by Sigma Chain, the main undisclosed “market maker” trading firm of the Binance.US platform, also owned by Zhao, demonstrates the falsity of BAM Trading’s claims of market oversight and control.
The SEC’s investigation into the Binance.US violations was led by Kathleen Hitchins, Ann Rosenfield, and Colby Steele, with assistance from Ainsley Kerr, John Marino, and Donald Battle, and supervised by Paul Kim.
The Binance.com investigation was led by Michael Baker, Donna K. Norman and Martin Zerwitz, with assistance from Sachin Verma and Alexander Lefferts and supervised by Deborah A. Tarasiewicz. Both cases were supervised by Jorge G. Tenreyro and David Hirsch of the SEC’s Division of Cryptoassets and Cyberspace. The litigation is being led by Matthew Scarlato, Jennifer Farer and J. Emmett Murphy, with assistance from Hope Hall Augustini and supervised by David Nasse, Olivia Chow and Mr. Tenreyro.
Source: https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-101
Author: Ivaneta Mykyta
The ban on the export of wheat, barley, rapeseed and sunflower seeds from Ukraine to Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria, imposed on May 2 for the period until June 5, will be extended until September 15, the Polish Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Robert Telusz said.
“It (the relevant regulation) has not yet been approved or published, but we have information that the European Commission has extended the ban on imports of wheat, corn, rapeseed and sunflower from Ukraine until mid-September 2023,” the minister was quoted by the press service of the Polish agency on Monday evening.
According to Telusz, if the information about the ban on imports is confirmed, as of tomorrow, Poland will not be able to receive grain on contracts concluded before May 2, 2023.
Polish minister also said that negotiations with the so-called Eastern European border countries and the European Commission will continue. They will discuss the prospect of further extending the ban on the import of Ukrainian grain to these countries after September 15, 2023.
The Polish Agriculture Ministry said that the ban can be made more flexible taking into account the specifics of individual countries.
Speaking about grain exports, Telusz said 1.054 million tons of grain were exported from Poland in March, 1.152 million tons in April and the same amount was exported in May.
“That brings the total to more than 3 million tons of grains exported from Poland. At the same time, imports are falling. In February it was 270 thousand tons, in March 260 thousand tons, and in April only 49 thousand tons,” summarized the minister.
As reported, on Monday morning Telush reported receiving from the EU a new draft regulation to extend the ban on imports of four types of grains and oilseeds from Ukraine to five countries until September 15, 2023 and expressed hope that it will be introduced as early as June 6.
The European Commission’s speaker for agriculture and trade, Miriam Garcia Ferrer, clarified at a briefing at noon that no decision has been made at this stage, discussions are ongoing.
The EU ban on imports of wheat, corn, rapeseed and sunflower from Ukraine came into force on May 2 and replaced unilateral import bans imposed by countries bordering Ukraine, particularly Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia, in violation of the Association Agreement and EU internal regulations as of April 28.
As noted by the EU, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia undertook to cancel unilateral measures on these and all other goods originating from Ukraine and to allow free transit.
