Kakhovka canal supplied water to more than half a million hectares of land in the south and east of Ukraine, so the problem of irrigation will be the biggest in agriculture, its solution will take three to seven years, said Minister of Agricultural Policy Nicholas Solsky in the air of the telethon “United News”.
“The consequences of the cessation of irrigation are much larger. Not half a million hectares, but a million and a half hectares will not be used (for farming) to the fullest extent. It takes three to five to seven years to restore irrigation. And it should be a priority. For this is not only an issue of agribusiness, ecology, but also a social one. Farmers maintain social life in neighboring villages, pay taxes, pay landlords, who are mostly elderly people, for their shares”, said the Minister.
According to him, lands without irrigation systems will also suffer – farmers will have no working capital to cultivate them.
Solskyy reminded that farmers in the south of Ukraine used to get their main and stable income from crops from fields that had irrigation systems.
The Minister also noted that the Kakhovka reservoir was the source of two irrigation and water supply systems – the Kakhovka system and the North Crimean Canal. These systems were built based on water levels to minimize the use of electricity for pumps. Now the water level has dropped, so water simply does not reach the systems. To raise it, it is necessary to restore the dam.
The epidemiological situation in Odessa remains stable and controlled, the press service of the Odessa city council said.
“The incidence of acute intestinal infections in Odessa over the past week decreased by 44.6% and amounted to 56 cases, of which 55.4% – children. There are 42 patients with acute intestinal infections in the city infectious diseases hospital, 12 patients were admitted yesterday, which is not a high level for this period of the year,” the message indicated in the Telegram channel on Friday.
Earlier, the media reported that an epidemic of intestinal infections could start in Odessa due to the bombing of the Kakhovskaya HPP by the Russians.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has signed a law to reduce the number of seats in the Bundestag from 736 to 630, German media reported.
“The reform aimed at reducing the number of Bundestag deputies comes into force. Steinmeier signed the relevant law,” the Zeit newspaper reported, citing the president’s office.
The newspaper recalls that earlier in March, the bill was passed by the Bundestag.
The law, in addition to reducing the number of parliamentary seats, provides for the introduction of a hard barrier of 5% to get into the Bundestag. Options, which until now allowed to get into parliament without passing this barrier are abolished.
The Bavarian state government and the Christian-Social Union Party are going to take the law to court because they believe that it violates the constitution.
“DTEK Energy” has put 11 new coal faces into operation in five months out of the planned 28 facilities in 2023, according to a company press release with reference to CEO Ildar Saleyev.
“The scope of work in the midst of the war is huge – miners have planned to launch 28 new faces this year. From one longwall they can extract coal for 6-9 months. That is, by launching a longwall today, we are already planning to provide fuel for our thermal power plants in autumn and winter”, – he said after visiting one of the mines and a DTEK Energy’s coal preparation plant.
According to the head of the company, in June DTEK Energy will launch two more new faces in addition to the 11 already working.
According to Saleyev, constant modernization and investments are required to maintain the required rates of coal production. The other day at the company’s visited coal mining facility, miners were preparing an overhauled and modernized P-110 roadheader for its descent into the bowels.
“It received an ultramodern control system, which has no analogues at the company’s enterprises. It monitors and records parameters of the electrical and hydraulic systems of the shearer in real time and transmits this information to the specialists. As a result, the smart combine is more reliable and will help miners work without accidents and efficiently,” explained the head of DTEK Energy.
He added that in order to speed up the delivery of high-quality fuel to Ukrainian thermal power plants, one of the coal preparation plants of the energy holding also upgraded its equipment, which will accelerate coal preparation and its processing into a high-quality concentrate for further use at thermal power plants. The large-scale renewal lasted for 4 months, investment amounted to UAH 64 mln.
“We are working further to strengthen the energy front most reliably for the future heating season,” summarized the company’s CEO.
“DTEK Energy provides a closed cycle of electricity production from coal. As of January 2022, the installed capacity of the company in thermal power generation was 13.3 GW. A full production cycle has been created in coal mining: coal mining and preparation, machine building and maintenance of mining equipment.
Real GDP percentage changes over previous period in 2014-2022
Source: Open4Business.com.ua and experts.news
The All-Ukrainian Union for the Protection of Patients’ Rights and Safety is asking the head office of the Merck Sharp and Home Corp pharmaceutical company to influence its representative office in Ukraine to stop blocking patients’ access to the antifungal generic drug Caspofungin from different manufacturers.
According to the open letter of the patient organization, the text of which is available at Interfax-Ukraine news agency, the Ukrainian representative office of the pharmaceutical company, using the legislative changes adopted after the full-scale invasion by Russia, actually blocked patient access to a number of products by artificially extending the term of its patent, which expired on April 16, 2022.
According to the patients’ information, these include generic drugs Caspofungin-Teva, Caspofungin Acetate manufactured by Gland Pharma Limited, Caspofungin Rompharm manufactured by K.T. Rompharm Company and Kasmig manufactured by Pharmaten UV.
“The people of Ukraine are sincerely grateful to Merck Sharp and Home Corp. for the introduction of humanitarian programs in Ukraine, including the KITRUDA® patient treatment program, but the actions of the company’s Ukrainian representative office to prevent cheaper, generic drugs from entering the market in war conditions is at least unethical,” the organization stressed.
Patients emphasize that “when in Ukraine the ratio of state and patient costs (using cancer patients as an example) for the purchase of medicines is about 20/80, the patients bear the brunt of it”.
“Restricting patients’ access to cheaper generic medicines has now become an issue not only of health, but also of life, because most citizens can no longer afford to buy original medicines at high prices”, the organization believes.
The All-Ukrainian Union for the Protection of Patients’ Rights and Safety initiated an appeal to the Verkhovna Rada to adopt a more unambiguous wording of the law adopted to regulate intellectual property issues after the beginning of a full-scale invasion.
“Given the rather lengthy passage of legislative changes, we ask Merck Sharp & Home Corp. to immediately influence the Ukrainian representative office to stop blocking access to the Ukrainian market of generic medicines, because it leads to additional suffering of patients in war conditions,” the patients stressed.
As reported, the law on the protection of individuals’ interests in the field of intellectual property during martial law, imposed in connection with Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine, was adopted in March 2022. The document extends the validity of all intellectual property rights without exception until the day following the day of termination or cancellation of martial law.
At the same time, experts believe that the norms established by this law led to problems on the pharmaceutical market and made it impossible to introduce and launch production of new drugs.
