The Norwegian Defense Ministry has established the post of military attaché in Kiev, which will facilitate cooperation between Norwegian and Ukrainian professional communities and industry in the field of defense innovation and industrial development, Defense Minister Bjorn Arild Gram has said.
As Forsvarets forum writes, the minister believes that Norwegian companies need to invest in Ukraine.
“Significant investment and private sector involvement are needed to meet Ukraine’s enormous needs. Norwegian companies want to share knowledge, experience and solutions both in the short and long term. This is what the Ukrainian side is asking for as well,” Gram noted.
He also emphasized that in the long term it might become relevant for Norwegian companies to set up production in Ukraine.
“DTEK Energy commissioned 16 new longwalls in January-September 2024, the company’s press service said on Friday.
According to the press service, the company’s miners plan to commission nine more longwalls by the end of the year.
“This allows us to meet the fuel needs of thermal power plants at the peak of electricity consumption, accumulate the necessary coal reserves for the autumn-winter period and maintain the reliability of the Ukrainian power system,” the statement said.
In total, since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion, DTEK Energy has invested almost UAH 18 billion of its own funds in Ukrainian coal mining.
The investments were directed to the construction and repair of capital mine workings, completion of coal longwalls, equipping mines with tunneling equipment, underground mine transport and projects to maintain production facilities.
As reported, in 2023, DTEK Energy commissioned 26 new longwalls.
In 2023, the energy holding’s investments in Ukrainian coal mining amounted to about UAH 7 billion, which is almost twice as much as in 2022.
“DTEK Energy ensures a closed cycle of electricity production from coal. In particular, the company has established a full production cycle in coal mining: coal mining and enrichment, machine building and maintenance of mine equipment.
Number of unemployed in Ukraine and job opportunities, 2023-2024
Open4Business.com.ua
Agrotrade has completed threshing sunflower and soybeans in the fields of Poltava, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Sumy regions, which covered 12.4 thou hectares and 8.1 thou hectares, respectively, the company’s press service reports.
According to the report, despite the abnormal heat during the 2024 season, the yield of sunflower and soybeans is quite high.
“We got high sunflower yields for these conditions in Chernihiv and Sumy regions. In Kharkiv region, it was much more difficult to work because there was no precipitation at all. In addition, this is a ‘conditionally safe’ area, so we were limited in our ability to conduct some agricultural operations. The yields depended on the cultivation technology: on the fields where we sowed with a long rotation and an optimal predecessor, they were high, and, conversely, with a short rotation and a poor predecessor, the yields were lower. At the same time, soybeans were affected by drought in all enterprises,” said Oleksandr Ovsyanyk, Director of Agrotrade’s Agricultural Department.
According to him, due to the hot summer, the grain arrives at the elevators completely dry and does not need to be processed. As a result, agricultural producers have significantly reduced drying costs, which improves the economic component of their work.
The agricultural holding has no plans to change its cultivation technology to take into account the drought. However, they intend to consider investing in moisture-saving technologies. Agrotrade Group is a vertically integrated holding company with a full agro-industrial cycle (production, processing, storage and trade of agricultural products). It cultivates over 70 thousand hectares of land in Chernihiv, Sumy, Poltava and Kharkiv regions.
Its main crops are sunflower, corn, winter wheat, soybeans and rapeseed. It has its own network of elevators with a simultaneous storage capacity of 570 thousand tons. The group also produces hybrid seeds of corn and sunflower, barley, and winter wheat. In 2014, a seed plant with a capacity of 20 thousand tons of seeds per year was built on the basis of Kolos seed farm (Kharkiv region). In 2018, Agrotrade launched its own brand Agroseeds on the market.
Vsevolod Kozhemiako is the founder and CEO of Agrotrade.
The Portuguese parliament has approved a bill to create a humanitarian visa, the local newspaper Correio da Manhã reports.
The document is reported to allow people who are persecuted in their home countries to obtain a special visa to Portugal in order to apply for political asylum there. Currently, this can be done on a tourist visa, which must be obtained in the country of citizenship or in another country if you have a residence permit.
The procedure for issuing humanitarian visas will now be developed by the parliamentary committee on constitutional issues. The Liberal Initiative party, which drafted the bill, wants to ensure that a humanitarian visa can be obtained at the Portuguese embassy in any country, rather than going home “with all the risks that come with it.”
It is noted that Russians who are being persecuted for “political reasons” will be able to count on the visa, in particular, according to Portuguese deputies.
Former Republican President Donald Trump has an edge over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris on who would better navigate the country through the Ukraine and Middle East wars, a Wall Street Journal opinion poll of seven battleground states showed.
In overall support, the poll published on Friday showed Harris and Trump tied across the seven states that could decide the November presidential election.
The poll showed Harris with marginal 2 percentage point leads in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, Trump up 6 points in Nevada and 1 in Pennsylvania, and the two tied in North Carolina and Wisconsin. The poll of 600 registered voters in each state conducted on Sept. 28-Oct. 8 had a margin of error of 4 percentage points in each state.
The neck-and-neck results echo other polls reflecting a tight race before the Nov. 5 election as Americans grapple with concerns about the economy, immigration, women’s rights and the nation’s democratic values in picking between the two candidates.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll this week also found Trump and Harris locked in a close race nationally, with Harris marginally ahead 46% to 43%.
Surveys of swing state voters can be an important indicator given that state-by-state results of the Electoral College will determine the winner, with the seven battleground states likely being decisive.
Harris would win a narrow majority in the Electoral College if she captures the states where she holds an edge in the WSJ’s poll.
According to the WSJ poll, Trump leads Harris in the seven swing states 50% to 39% on who is best able to handle Russia’s war in Ukraine. Trump also has a 48% to 33% lead over Harris on who is better suited to handle the Israel-Hamas war.
More voters said they backed Trump on the economy and immigration while more said Harris would do a better job when it comes to housing, healthcare and caring about people like them, the WSJ poll found.
