The IAEA Director General announced the end of his “long-awaited” visit to the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) and the establishment of a permanent presence of the agency at the plant.
“I have just completed the first tour of the key locations we wanted to see in this first approach to the entire facility. Of course, there is still a lot to be done. My team remains, and most importantly, we establish our permanent presence from the IAEA here,” he said in a video from ZNPP posted on his Twitter.
Earlier, Energoatom, which includes Zaporizhia NPP, reported that as of 18:00 on Thursday, Grossi had left the station. Most of the members of the delegation left the station with him.
According to Energoatom, five representatives of the IAEA mission remained at the ZNPP, who are unloading the equipment they brought and will continue to work at the plant.
The IAEA mission arrived at the ZNPP captured by Russian troops on September 1, approximately after 14:00. According to the statements of the occupying authorities, the IAEA experts who left the station “should leave the territory controlled by the Russian Federation before 20:00.”
The mission of the International Nuclear Energy Agency (IAEA) has arrived at the Zaporizhia NPP, the state-owned enterprise National Nuclear Generating Company Energoatom reported.
“Yes, the mission managed to visit the NPP,” the company said in a comment to the Interfax–Ukraine agency.
As reported, the IAEA mission left Zaporizhia on Thursday morning, which is separated from Enerhodar by 120 km, and stayed at the checkpoint in Novo-Oleksandrivka for several hours. The mission is accompanied by head of the Ministry of Energy Herman Haluschenko, and head of Energoatom Petro Kotin.
The State Service of Ukraine on Food Safety and Consumer Protection has not recorded a single outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza in Ukraine since the beginning of 2022.
As reported on its website on Thursday, the service examined the presence of influenza pathogens in the poultry population of 487 poultry farms of various forms of ownership in 4,680 settlements.
In total, in the first half of the year, the State Food Service examined 56,700 samples of biomaterials from birds, including 21,300 birds in industrial farms and 34,400 birds in private peasant farms. In addition, 304 birds of 11 synanthropic (living close to humans) species, 668 wild migratory birds of 31 species, and 50 birds of 22 species living in zoos were examined.
It is clarified that the statistics include data from Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv and Kherson regions only for January-February 2022, since its further collection is impossible due to the full-scale war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has recommended the use of Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines adapted to protect against the Omicron coronavirus strain, the regulator said on Thursday.
The EMA Medicines Committee has recommended that two vaccines adapted for broader protection against COVID-19 be allowed to be used.
It notes that we are talking about vaccines aimed specifically at protecting against “omicron”.
According to the report, studies have shown that adapted versions of the vaccine “induce a strong immune response against Omicron and the original strain of SARS-CoV-2 in people who were previously vaccinated.”
Now the recommendation of the EMA committee will be sent to the European Commission, which “will make a final legally binding decision applicable in all EU member states”
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has amended the agreement on the ongoing Dolinskaya – Nikolaev – Kolosovka Railway Electrification Project, which will allow additional use of part of the EBRD loan in the amount of EUR98.5 million to provide liquidity to finance critical needs of JSC “Ukrzaliznytsya” (UZ).
Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko, EBRD Director for Eastern Europe and the Caucasus Matteo Patrone, and Ukrzaliznytsia Board Chairman Oleksandr Kamyshin signed the corresponding documents on Thursday, the Finance Ministry reported.
The repurposed portion of the EBRD loan will be secured by a guarantee from the French government or another G7 country.
“Damage and destruction of the railway infrastructure, loss of Ukrzaliznytsia’s rolling stock have a negative impact on ensuring the smooth operation of the society. Therefore, an increase in the EBRD loan to support the liquidity of Ukrzaliznytsia will help maintain the stability of its work in war conditions,” Marchenko commented on the agreement.
As reported, earlier this year, on June 10, similar amendments to the agreement were already signed, according to which EUR50 million was directed to support the liquidity of Ukrzaliznytsia. Thus, the total volume of the EBRD loan for the liquidity of UZ reached EUR 148.5 million.
JSC “Ukrzaliznytsia” (UZ) in August 2022 exported a record 1.6 million tons of grain cargo since the beginning of Russian aggression, which is 1.74 times higher than in July (917 thousand tons), this growth was achieved thanks to the unblocking three Ukrainian seaports within the framework of the Istanbul grain agreements.
At the same time, 805,000 tons of grain were transported through land border crossings on the western border last month (in July – 716,000 tons), and 795,000 tons (190,000 tons) were delivered to ports, such data were announced by the Deputy Director of the Department of Commercial Work UZ Valery Tkachev during an online meeting with industry participants on Thursday.
According to him, in August, Ukrzaliznytsia loaded a total of 1.74 million tons of grain cargo into wagons, which is 18.7% of the total loaded volume of 9.28 million tons, and transported a total of 2.08 million tons of grain.
According to him, in August this year, the average daily loading of UZ wagons amounted to 56,000 tons. In early August, this figure varied between 24-40 thousand tons, but with the start of full-fledged operation of the grain corridor under the Istanbul agreements, loading increased to 50-80 thousand tons / day.
“We even have a record for the average daily loading of grain on August 31 – 91.53 thousand tons. I see that we will soon reach the threshold of an average daily loading of 100 thousand tons / day, and I hope that this will be already in September. In general, I see a very positive trend in the transportation of grain cargo,” the Deputy Director emphasized during the meeting.
In August, Ukrzaliznytsia also exported 107.9 thousand tons of sunflower oil, as well as 148.7 thousand tons of all kinds of meal, through land border crossings and ports.
The Deputy Director clarified that over the specified period, the average daily handling of wagons of all types at border crossings dipped slightly – to 1.848 thousand wagons from 1.86 thousand wagons in early August (by 15 wagons per day), however, the transfer of wagons for grain cargo increased by 18 % (+71 wagon/day) – up to 469 grain wagons per day against 398 units. in July.
The UZ representative clarified that by September 1, the total queue of wagons of all nomenclatures at the border had decreased by 21% (or 6.53 thousand wagons) compared to August 1, to 25.12 thousand units. from 31.5 thousand units. At the same time, by the indicated date, 8.48 thousand wagons with grain were in the queue (-15% or 1.5 thousand wagons by August 1), 433 wagons with vegetable oil (half as much) and 605 wagons with meal of all types (- 24%).
“This result was achieved because Ukrzaliznytsia took measures to improve the planning system. Let me remind you that this is the result of the fact that we began to coordinate loading plans according to the algorithm, guided by the delivery indicators for the previous month and taking into account the presence of queues. We are also working with carriers so that they do not inflate the plan, and we confirm only the volume that they are actually ready to take from them at the junction,” Tkachev summed up.
