The opposition Social Democratic Party “Course – New Democracy” of former Prime Minister Robert Fico has won the parliamentary elections in Slovakia held on Saturday, the republic’s statistics office said.
According to data from 95.75% of polling stations, it gained 23.58% of the vote, while the liberal Progressive Slovakia party, led by Vice President of the European Parliament Michal Šimečka, received 16.37%.
As noted in exit polls, the far-right has apparently managed to overcome the five percent threshold, and will now be represented in the Slovak parliament.
Fico is known as a politician who opposes the continuation of arms supplies to Ukraine. He also claimed that the West’s anti-Russian sanctions are ineffective and promised to use his veto over Ukraine’s NATO membership application. Shimechka is his opposite, holding liberal and pro-Western views and promising voters to deepen European cooperation, The Guardian notes.
The Agricultural Ministers of Ukraine and Bulgaria, Mykola Solsky and Kyrylo Vatev, discussed technical issues of Ukrainian agricultural exports to Bulgaria during online talks on Friday.
“The Bulgarian government considers the action plan of Ukraine submitted to the European Commission on the supply of agricultural products acceptable. Bulgaria has its own proposals to the mechanism of licensing certain types of agricultural products proposed by Ukraine. In particular, this concerns sunflower, while Bulgaria has no objections to the export of the other three crops,” the press service of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine reported.
The Bulgarian Ministry of Agriculture and Farming clarified that Vatev familiarized Solsky with the memorandum signed between the Bulgarian government and the initiative committee of farmers, which provides for a ban on the import of sunflower from Ukraine until the end of November.
After this period, a licensing regime for the export of sunflower, wheat, corn and rapeseed will be in place, according to the plan agreed between Ukraine and the European Commission.
Vatev also spoke about the concerns of Bulgarian farmers and processors regarding the imports of refined and unrefined sunflower oil, milk powder, honey, sugar and frozen raspberries from Ukraine.
“It is very important to discuss all the problems affecting our agricultural producers and to look for solutions together,” the Bulgarian minister emphasized.
The ministers agreed to agree on the technical details of the procedure for exporting agricultural products to Bulgaria and discuss their results at the next meeting in the first half of October, the press service of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy reported.
The Bulgarian Ministry of Agriculture added that regular data exchange between the two agricultural agencies will become weekly. It will include the exchange of information on exports and imports of certain agricultural products.
A Falcon 9 rocket has successfully launched another batch of 22 mini-satellites into orbit to replenish the orbital grouping of the Starlink global Internet coverage network, the SpaceX development company has announced.
“The launch of 22 Starlink satellites has been confirmed,” the company said in a statement.
The rocket was launched from the 40th launch complex at the US Space Force base at Cape Canaveral in Florida on Friday at 22:00 US East Coast time. About an hour after the launch, the satellites were placed into orbit.
This is the 112th launch of Internet satellites since May 2019 as part of the Starlink project and the 43rd since the beginning of this year. With the current launch, SpaceX has already launched 5.2 thousand such satellites into orbit. Some of them have failed or gone out of orbit. More than 4.8 thousand vehicles remain in orbit in working order.
As part of the launch, the first reusable stage of the launch vehicle, which was used for the 10th time, made a controlled vertical landing on the A Shortfall of Gravitas offshore drone platform in the Atlantic after separation.
SpaceX is currently the largest satellite operator in the world. The Starlink Internet network is available to users in 62 countries, including North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. According to the Pentagon, the US military is also actively using the services of these satellites.
In the future, SpaceX plans to deploy an orbital grouping of 12 thousand spacecraft (and later – 30 thousand) to create a full-scale network that will provide the world’s inhabitants with broadband Internet access anywhere in the world. The total investment in the project is estimated at $10 billion.
Ukrzaliznytsia (UZ) and DAI Global LLC, a development company working with international development agencies, have signed a memorandum on the implementation of the international technical assistance project Economic Support for Ukraine, which provides for the development of Ukrainian grain exports by rail, the UZ press service said on Friday.
“Our common task is to increase grain exports by developing solutions that will help increase and demonstrate the efficiency and profitability of Ukraine’s rail export logistics,” said Yevhen Lyashchenko, Chairman of the Board of UZ.
According to the release, the memorandum refers to support in the repair and restoration of grain hoppers and the purchase of locomotives, as well as reducing grain transportation costs through improved cross-border cooperation, joint actions that reduce costs and increase the efficiency of weighing and scanning cargo, and improving transshipment equipment.
In addition, the memorandum provides for the provision of comprehensive services for the design and construction of priority border crossing points (BCPs) and other areas and projects that will increase the ability to export agricultural products.
Within the framework of the project, DAI Global will primarily work in the field of rail transport. In particular, the company will modernize the infrastructure of border crossing points, purchase shunting locomotives, equipment for weighing and monitoring cargo transportation with a focus on grain crops.
The company will also facilitate and support the attraction of additional funding, in particular from international financial institutions, for the implementation of infrastructure projects.
As reported, earlier in September, UZ agreed to work together to develop intermodal rail traffic between Ukraine and Austria with the Austrian railway company Rail Cargo Austria.
Export of agricultural products during marketing year, mln tons
Source: Open4Business.com.ua and experts.news
According to the results of three quarters of 2023, the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” supplied 8.68 million cubic meters of timber to buyers, which is 13.5% more than in the same period last year, said Yuriy Bolokhovets, acting CEO of the company.
“Timber sales are transparent, the rules of the game in the market are clear and predictable, as evidenced by the growth in the percentage of sales contracts fulfillment to almost 90%. Thus, the market is now balanced. Supply and demand are balanced,” he wrote on Facebook.
According to Bolokhovets, different price trends are observed for different types and species of wood. However, the average price of an impersonal cube of timber during the second and third quarters of 2023 decreased from UAH 1810 to UAH 1675.
The head of the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” noted that not all market participants accept free competition and market pricing. “Some large players are used to solving the issue of resource supply behind the scenes and receiving timber under direct contracts and artificially low prices. Today, they are forced to compete with other processors and buy the resource at the price set by the market,” he stated and added that there will be no return to the practice of manual market regulation.
As reported, Ukraine launched a forestry reform in 2016. As part of it, the sale of raw wood at electronic auctions has already been introduced. Since 2021, an interactive map of wood processing facilities has been operating in a test mode in a number of regions.
The industry has implemented the Forest in a Smartphone project, which contains a list of logging tickets for timber harvesting and allows you to check the legality of logging on the agency’s online map.
On June 1, 2023, Ukraine launched a pilot for the electronic issuance of logging tickets and certificates of origin of timber.
In addition, the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” has launched a pilot project to procure timber harvesting services through the Prozorro electronic platform.
Currently, the company has accumulated more than 130 thousand cubic meters of firewood for the 2023/2024 heating season.
