The Screen Actors, Television and Radio Artists Union (SAG-AFTRA) went on strike Friday, following screenwriters after negotiations for a new contract with studios and streaming services collapsed.
Hollywood’s two major unions are striking at the same time for the first time since 1960, when Ronald Reagan was president of the Screen Actors Guild, MarketWatch notes.
SAG-AFTRA, whose members include 160,000 movie actors, journalists, announcers, presenters and stuntmen, and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents employers including Disney, Netflix and Amazon, failed to reach an agreement after the previous three-year contract expired.
During negotiations, the Screen Actors Guild demanded a number of issues be addressed, including low wages, the need to shoot video auditions at their own expense and the unregulated use of artificial intelligence.
The AMPTP said it offered the Guild a favorable agreement that included the largest minimum wage increase in 35 years, an increase in pension and health contribution limits, and an “innovative solution” to artificial intelligence that would protect actors’ rights to use their digital image.
“Unfortunately, the union has chosen a path that will lead to financial hardship for thousands upon thousands of people involved in the film industry,” the alliance said in a statement.
According to the rules of SAG-AFTRA, during the strike actors can not participate in film production, including shooting, auditions, rehearsals and voice-overs, as well as attend premieres and in any way promote projects with their participation. The current bans call into question the actors’ appearance at the 75th ceremony of the prestigious Emmy Awards, which will be held in September.
Earlier, the writers’ strike halted work on the show “Saturday Night Live” as well as several TV series, including “Very Strange Things,” “Sly and Family Guy.” The number of paused TV shows and movie projects is expected to increase following the breakdown in negotiations between SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP.
Agricultural Corporation Krupets (Rivne region), which owns one of the largest farms for the production and sale of chicken eggs in the western region of the country, is completing the construction of a poultry farm, where it will grow 400 thousand laying hens with the prospect of further export of products to the EU.
The head of Rivne Regional Military Administration (OVA) Vitaliy Koval emphasized that by investing in new projects and supporting the “economic front”, the agro-corporation gives a very important message to all those involved in business – not to stop despite the challenges of wartime.
The report on the OBA website specifies that the construction site of more than 6 hectares is located on the site of a former abandoned farm in the village of Sytnoye, Dubensky district. The works are performed by the local construction company “Renome-Eurobud”. The launch of the enterprise is scheduled for November 2023. The poultry farm is planned to be certified according to European standards for further export of products to the EU.
More than 20 high-paying jobs will be created at the poultry farm. It is expected that it will annually transfer about UAH 3 mln of taxes to the local Krupets community.
Agrocorporation “Krupets” operates with a land bank of 7 thousand hectares, specializing in growing crops, production of chicken eggs, broiler meat, mixed fodder, drying and storage of grain.
The structure of the agricultural corporation includes elevator and drying complexes for simultaneous storage of 60 thousand tons of grain, feed and oil extraction plants, soybean processing line, four poultry complexes.
The enterprises of Krupets agro-corporation (Poultry Farm Krupets, Krupets Feed Mill) are one of the largest farms for production and realization of edible chicken eggs in the Western region of Ukraine.
The negative balance of Ukraine’s foreign trade in goods in January-May 2023 increased nine times compared to the same period of 2022 – to $8.975 billion from $1.004 billion, the State Statistics Service (Gosstat) said on Friday. According to its data, exports of goods from Ukraine for the period compared to January-May 2022 decreased by 15.6% to $16.448 billion, while imports increased by 24.1% to $25.423 billion.
The State Statistics Committee specified that in May-2023 compared to April-2023, seasonally adjusted exports decreased by 0.8% to $3.221 billion, while imports increased by 2.8% to $5.488 billion.
The seasonally adjusted foreign trade balance in May-2023 was negative at $2.267 billion, while it was also negative at $2.093 billion in the previous month.
The export-import coverage ratio in January-May 2023 amounted to 0.65 (0.95 in January-May 2022).
The State Statistics Service specified that foreign trade operations were conducted with partners from 223 countries.
BlackRock Inc. one of the world’s largest investment firms, increased its net income in the second quarter of 2023 by 27%, but its revenue fell 1%.
According to the company’s press release, its net income for the April-June period totaled $1.37 billion, up from $1.08 billion in the same period a year earlier. Earnings per share rose to $9.06 from $7.06 a year earlier.
Earnings excluding one-time factors came in at $9.28 per share, topping Wall Street analysts’ consensus forecast of $8.52 per share.
BlackRock’s quarterly revenue decreased to $4.46 billion from $4.53 billion, with experts on average forecasting the figure to be $4.47 billion.
The volume of assets under management of BlackRock Inc. increased by 11% to $9.43 trillion.
Net inflow of investors’ funds into BlackRock funds in April-June amounted to $80.162 billion against $89.573 billion a year earlier, being significantly worse than the average market forecast ($109 billion).
BlackRock shares are losing 0.7% in price in pre-market trading on Friday. Since the beginning of this year their value has grown by 4.4%.
PJSC UkrHazVydobuvannya (UHV) in early July completed drilling of a new exploration well at a depth of 6600 meters, which became the deepest in the company’s history.
According to the company, the well flow rate is 150 thousand cubic meters of gas.
The task of the new well was to further explore hydrocarbon deposits and clarify the geological structure of the field, which was discovered only in 2019.
The performed industrial geophysical studies allowed to add more than 100 million cubic meters of recoverable hydrocarbon reserves.
“A team of specialists from different fields worked on the design and construction of this special well, which allowed us to perform the work qualitatively and in a short time. Our drillers once again proved their skill in drilling to deep productive horizons. As a result – additional production and new prospects for further development of the field,” – said the head of the company Oleg Tolmachev.
As reported, in the first half of 2023 “UGV” put into operation after drilling and overhauls 13 wells with high gas production rates (more than 100 thousand cubic meters per day).
“Ukrgasvydobuvannya” drilled 47 new wells in 2022 against 50 in 2021. In 2023, the company plans to increase drilling 1.5 times compared to last year – up to 300 thousand meters.
“Naftogaz” aims to increase its own natural gas production by 1 billion cubic meters in 2023 – up to 13.5 billion cubic meters. In 2022, UGV produced 12.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas (marketable), which is 3% less than in 2021.
Naftohaz Ukrayiny owns 100 percent of Ukrhazvydobuvannya.
Number of dead and wounded civilians in Ukraine from 24.02.2022 till 04.06.2023 un data
Source: Open4Business.com.ua and experts.news
