Ukraine and Moldova agreed to deepen cooperation in the field of food safety, as well as expand the list of permitted commodity items for export to Moldova, in particular, for pigs and composite products.
Relevant agreements were reached during a meeting between the head of the State Service of Ukraine on Food Safety and Consumer Protection, Anatoliy Vovniuk, and Ambassador of the Republic of Moldova to Ukraine Valeriu Chiveri, according to the website of the Ukrainian department.
According to the Food Safety and Consumer Protection Service, as of today, 18 forms of veterinary certificates for export from Ukraine to Moldova have been agreed between the countries.
“During the Russian military aggression against the Ukrainian people, the support of friendly countries is extremely important for our state,” Vovniuk said.
Rising food prices are explained by speculative transactions of some market players, said UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights Olivier de Schutter.
“The real reason for the rise in prices is not that there is not enough food. The real problem is the panic that grips the markets because we do not know when this conflict in Ukraine will end. And some financial players are profiting from this uncertainty by speculating on growth, mechanically provoking it,” the expert said on Friday in an interview with the Belgian francophone radio station La Premiere.
According to him, it is necessary to calm the markets. “We need more transparency about the state of stocks. The bulk of food reserves are in the hands of private operators, large grain traders who are not involved in the exchange of information that governments need to calm the nervousness of the markets,” de Schutter explained.
According to him, “five or six companies control 80% of the world’s grain transactions and own the bulk of stocks.” But they do not publish data on the state of their reserves. Opacity persists, and this gives rise to speculation, said the UN Special Rapporteur.
“Markets anticipate growth and create speculative bubbles – this is the main explanation for the rise in food prices in world markets,” said de Schutter.
He said that in a number of countries, such as Ethiopia, South Sudan, Nigeria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia, “the risk of starvation is increasing from hour to hour.” “Unfortunately, the international community does not have the means to respond, and there is every reason to be concerned about the two dozen countries pointed out by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the UN World Food Program (WFP),” he said.
De Schutter said that “no conclusions have been drawn from the crisis of 2007-2008” and today the international community is still not ready for cases when a humanitarian crisis is brewing.
“750 thousand people are in a situation of hunger, of which 400 thousand are only in the Tigray region (northern Ethiopia). In principle, it is necessary to have reserves so that the WFP can immediately come to the aid of this population. Instead, international agencies should knock on doors donors, and it takes two to three months for them to wake up and disburse the money.Then you need to determine where the food shipments can be purchased, and you still need to deliver them to the places of danger.All this takes up to six months.During this time, the population either either dying out or moving,” the UN Special Rapporteur outlined the situation.
Professor Olivier de Schutter (Belgium) was appointed as the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights by the Human Rights Council at its 43rd session in March 2020. He was Special Rapporteur on the right to food from 2008 to 2014. and member of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights from 2015 to 2020. Prior to his appointment to these positions, he served as Secretary General of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).
American businessman and philanthropist Howard Buffett in Kyiv on June 8 met with representatives of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, where the parties discussed issues of food security, assistance to Ukrainian farmers during the future harvest and the sowing campaign of winter crops.
“The first of the world’s largest businessmen to visit Ukraine was Howard Buffett. He was the first to help Ukrainian farmers and households by donating seeds for spring field work through the World Central Kitchen. Howard in Kyiv met with the Ministry of Agrarian Policy,” MP Dmytro Solomchuk said on Telegram.
According to him, thanks to this meeting, “a lot of good news for Ukrainian farmers” will soon appear.
“It is a pleasure to welcome a true friend of Ukraine on our land. We need support today more than ever,” Solomchuk summed up in the message.
Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted that he had met with Buffett.
“Glad to meet Howard Buffett in Kyiv. We appreciate this signal of solidarity with Ukraine. Expressed gratitude for the humanitarian support to Ukraine. Invited him to join projects on restoring irrigation systems in Odesa region, supporting IDPs, demining and school nutrition reform,” the president of Ukraine wrote.
Howard Buffett is the son of Warren Buffett, who is in the top five richest people in the world according to Forbes with a fortune of $118 billion.
Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov discussed with German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht a package of military assistance to Ukraine from Germany.
“We had a productive meeting of the VTC with German Federal Minister of Defense Christine Lambrecht. We discussed the essence of the upcoming security assistance package from Germany to Ukraine. I look forward to the promised support. Thank you for staying with Ukraine,” Reznikov wrote on Twitter on Friday night .
Internal and external debt of Ukraine in 2009-2022
SSC of Ukraine
An expert group prepared by WHO intends to conduct a thorough analysis of the origin of the coronavirus, the Associated Press (AP) reported on Thursday.
“Further research is needed to determine how COVID-19 spread from the very beginning, including a more detailed analysis of the possibility of an abnormal situation in the laboratory,” the AP quotes excerpts from the report of the expert group.
The agency recalls that last year the US Department of Health announced that there was an extremely small possibility of the spread of COVID-19 among people due to a leak from the laboratory.
“Basic data to explain the emergence of the pandemic is still missing. Scientists said the group is open to any scientific evidence available to comprehensively explore all reasonable hypotheses,” the report says.
Infection with the coronavirus COVID-19 was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in Hubei province at the end of 2019, then it began to spread around the world. On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus a pandemic.
By early April 2020, WHO reported that the number of cases of COVID-19 infection worldwide exceeded 1 million. By mid-October 2021, almost 240 million cases of infection had been registered worldwide.
Most scientists initially believed that COVID-19 was a virus of zoonotic origin. It is assumed that it could be transmitted to humans from bats. To determine the source of origin of the coronavirus, WHO initiated a special investigation. To this end, in early February 2021, a team of WHO experts visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology and, following the visit, concluded that a leak of viruses from the laboratory of the institute was “highly unlikely”. Many Western countries did not agree with the results of this investigation.
China has repeatedly opposed calls by WHO to conduct additional investigations in the country to determine the source of the origin of COVID-19.
