The spot price for gas in Europe again climbed above $1,000 per thousand cubic meters at opening of trading on Wednesday, following a correction on Tuesday afternoon.
The price of the nearest (October) TTF futures on the ICE Futures exchange on Wednesday morning reached 83.4 euros per MWh, or $1,007 per thousand cubic meters, according to exchange data.
On Tuesday, the price reached a historical record of $1,040, but corrected below $950 in the second half of the day.
This could have been prompted by the publication of Wednesday’s Yamal-Europe pipeline pumping nomination – it should have recovered almost to the maximum after dropping by 50% all at once. However, the evening came with an update on the pipeline’s pumping assignment – it had only partially recovered.
On Monday, the Yamal-Europe pipeline was pumping 3.4 million cubic meters per hour; on Tuesday, the flow dropped to 1.5 million cubic meters per hour (Gazprom commented that “this is a temporary situation connected to a request by one customer”), and on Wednesday, it only increased to 2.5 million cubic meters per hour.
The global driver of European gas prices – LNG prices in Asia – also continued to rise from Tuesday to Wednesday, forcing Europe to maintain a competitive price level.
Shakhtar Donetsk Football Club tied the game with the score of 0:0 against Inter Milan, Italy, in the second match of the 2021/2022 UEFA Champions League group stage.
Despite the fact that the Shakhtar players had more possession of the ball, the match was played in an equal fight, with high pressure from both teams. At the same time, Inter in the end of the match was closer to victory, but Shakhtar goalkeeper Andriy Pyatov made a couple of high-quality saves.
As reported, in the first match of Group D, Shakhtar lost to Moldovan Sheriff with the score of 0:2 away, while Inter lost to Real Madrid with the score of 0:1 at home.
In the third round on October 19, Shakhtar will host Real Madrid, and Inter will host Sheriff.
Foreign trade turnover by the most important positions in Jan-June 2021 (export)
Teachers of Ukrainian universities are actively getting vaccines against COVID-19, the activity of students in vaccination is somewhat lower, the participants of a roundtable entitled “Results of the admission campaign and realities of higher education in Ukraine amid the pandemic at leading Kyiv universities” at Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday.
Head of the educational department of Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture, PhD in Technical Sciences Andriy Shpakov, in particular, said that the university is currently preparing the fourth wave of vaccination of teachers.
“We have a fairly high percentage of teachers who are vaccinated and this percentage will increase when we conduct the fourth wave of vaccination. We invite mobile teams that come and vaccinate everyone,” he said.
Shpakov said that the vaccination of both teachers and students is voluntary.
At the same time, he said that “in the recent wave of vaccination, the majority of those vaccinated were exactly students, although students do not really want to be vaccinated in large numbers, so we are conducting explanatory work.”
In turn, Head of the Management and Economics Department of the International European University Yulia Remyha said that the university began to vaccinate teachers in April, inviting mobile vaccination teams for this.
“Vaccination is voluntary, but the teachers take it responsibly. Today, out of all our staff, about 86% have already been vaccinated,” she said.
At the same time, according to Remyha, early September, the university organized vaccinations for students.
“On the part of the administration, both for teachers and for students, everything is done to get vaccinated conveniently, so that health is preserved,” she said.
For his part, Deputy First Vice-Rector, Head of Scientific and Methodological Department of Ihor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute (KPI) Serhiy Hozhiy said that the university during the summer invited vaccination teams for voluntary vaccination of teachers and students.
“In KPI, more than 80% are already vaccinated,” he said.
Commenting on the living conditions of nonresident students, Hozhiy said that “special rooms and blocks, isolation wards have been organized in the hostels, where sick students are accommodated, but no one is forcing them to vaccinate.”
Vice-Rector for scientific and pedagogical work of Vadym Hetman Kyiv National Economic University Anatoliy Kolot said that this university is also conducting explanatory work on the need for vaccination.
“Nobody is forcing. We appeal to conscience. We have involved public and trade union organizations, student government. There have already been two waves of centralized vaccination, we are conducting another wave on September 29-30,” he said.
At the same time, Kolot said that universities need more detailed explanations regarding the vaccination rate for 80% of employees.
“Obviously, there should be more explanations from our central authorities, because everything is limited to the 80% standard. But explanations are needed, what to do if there are people who are contraindicated in vaccination, and there are people who have been ill and they have antibodies,” he said.
Kolot said that the university is currently collecting information on the number of employees who have been ill.
At the same time, he drew attention to the fact that “it is not clear what to do if the whole family has been ill, but only one family member has turned to the family doctor and has a confirmation of the illness.”
“Where can those family members who have been ill get a certificate, if only one family member is recorded? There are such cases,” he said.
COVID-19, HOZHIY, INTERNATIONAL EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY, KNUBA, KOLOT, KPI, KYIV NATIONAL ECONOMIC UNIVERSITY, REMYHA, SHPAKOV, TEACHERS, URAKIN
World heavyweight boxing champion according to IBF, WBA Super, WBO, and IBO Oleksandr Usyk would like to become the owner of five belts and is not going to wait two or three years for this.
“And I don’t want to wait two or three years. It’s a lot to wait two or three years. I currently have four belts … the main belt is currently at Tyson Fury,” Usyk said at a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday.
The athlete noted that “I would very much like to have a unification fight”, but this is possible only after he has a rematch with Briton Anthony Joshua, and Fury will meet in the ring with Deontay Wilder, where the winner will be determined.
Usyk emphasized that there were no unification fights in the heavyweight category “for … about 30 years.”
According to Usyk, he does not follow his progress in the ratings and he does not care about this. “I’ve got it calmly. You know what makes me happy when my son goes to school and doesn’t cry. He doesn’t like going to school … and I say to him: “It is necessary, it’s cool to go to school.” It’s kind of cheating because I didn’t want to go to school either.”
Ukrainian Oleksandr Usyk became the owner of the IBF, WBO, WBA Super, and IBO heavyweight championship belts (over 90,718 kg), having taken them away from Briton Anthony Joshua.
The Ukrainian won the fight, which took place at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium in London, by unanimous decisions of all referees (117-112, 116-112, 115-113).
The official presentation of the project “Governance and Local Accountability (Hoverla) Activity” with a budget of $74 million, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), took place in Kyiv.
“After the successful local elections in 2020, when Ukrainians elected representatives of their newly united regions and communities, now is the time to start a new phase in decentralization. Decentralization reform can ensure that all levels of Ukraine’s leadership represent the best modern democratic practices,” U.S. Charge d’Affaires in Ukraine Kristina Kvien said at the project presentation in Kyiv on Monday.
She said that one of the key next steps in decentralization is to adopt an amendment to the Ukrainian Constitution. “This is a long debated step and I encourage you all to work together to complete it,” Kvien said.
In turn, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal confirmed that for the irreversibility of the reform, it is important to introduce and consolidate in the Constitution of Ukraine the appropriate changes regarding a new model of local government, the territorial organization of power, built on the principles of decentralization and subsidiarity.
“Regarding the government’s action program in decentralization, I want to say that in order to complete the reform, the government is introducing a number of important measures to decentralize power and reform local government. Relevant bills for their implementation are already being developed,” he said.
According to the head of government, we are talking about the delineation of powers and the creation of appropriate material financial conditions for their implementation, reformatting local government administrations into prefectural-type agencies, improving the forms of inter-municipal cooperation as an effective mechanism for cooperation of territorial communities, introducing a new municipal service, improving the forms of attracting residents to making managerial decisions and determining the procedure for resolving issues of the administrative territorial structure.
“The government focuses on strengthening the institutional and financial capacity of communities and their development,” Shmyhal said. The prime minister said the pilot areas of the project have already been selected, Volyn, Lviv, Poltava, and also add there is a need to expand the geography of the project to other regions and other communities.
Chief of the Hoverla project Gabriel Abraham said the project has already identified the first 25 partner communities from Lviv, Poltava and Volyn regions.
“During the implementation of the project, Hoverla plans to use replicable models and mechanisms to increase support for two more communities with the involvement of partners, associations of local government, other civil society actors and government agencies,” he said.
Abraham said the project is designed for five years, until 2026. “The activities of Hoverla are based on three principal goals. The first goal is to support policies and laws. The second goal is to support local officials. The third goal is to support the interaction of citizens with their officials,” the project manager said.
