More than 70% of respondents surveyed by sociologists have said they support the idea of dissolving the Verkhovna Rada and holding early parliamentary elections, according to a poll conducted by the Rating sociological group on May 16-21, 2019 and published on Wednesday. At the same time, the highest level of support for the dissolution of parliament and the holding of early elections is in the South and the East of Ukraine which is more than 80%. In other regions, the dissolution of the Verkhovna Rada is supported by at least 60% of the respondents.
“There is a certain difference in the attitude to the holding of early elections among the supporters of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc’s Solidarity Party, most of whom are against this initiative,” the release of the Rating says.
The audience of the survey is the population of Ukraine who is older than 18 years. The sample is representative by age, gender, region, and type of settlement. The sample of population is 2,000 respondents, who were interviewed by means of face-to-face talk. An error of representativeness of the study is no more than 2.2%.
One troy ounce=31.10 grams
Transport enterprises of Ukraine in January-April 2019 increased cargo transportation by 9.1% compared to January-April 2018, to 218.7 million tonnes. The State Statistics Service said freight turnover for this period increased by 2.8%, to 110.2 billion tonne-kilometers.
According to statistical data, in January-March 2019, some 86.2 million tonnes of cargo were transported by rail within the country and for exports, which is 0.4% less than in January-April 2018.
Transportation of timber decreased by 59.9%, construction materials by 24%, scrap ferrous metals by 17.7%, coke by 9.2%, ferrous metals by 3.9%, and coal by 4%. At the same time, transportation of iron and manganese ore grew by 3.8%, chemical and mineral fertilizers by 4%, grain and cereals by 19.9%, oil and petroleum products by 6.8%, and cement by 10.9%.
In January-April 2019 compared with the same period last year, the volume of cargo transported by pipelines increased. Thus, gas pumping fell by 0.4%, oil rose by 5.5%, gas transit grew by 5.6%, and oil grew by 5.7%. Pumping and transit of ammonia increased 20.8% and 17.7%, respectively.
SAS Airline (Scandinavian Airlines, Sweden) plans to resume flights to Ukraine, starting servicing direct Oslo-Kyiv flights from October 2019, according to the Google Flights ticket search engine. SAS’s website is not available for users with Ukrainian IP.
“Congratulations to Scandinavian Airlines on its return to Ukraine after eight years of break,” Infrastructure Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Omelyan said on his Facebook page.
Boeing 737-700 aircraft will service the Oslo-Kyiv SAS direct flights between the Gardermoen and Borispol airports with a frequency of three times a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The plane will depart from Kyiv at 14:00, and from Oslo at 09:30 local time.
“This decision is another reflection of the significant strengthening of Ukrainian-Norwegian relations in recent years, which, in turn, was the result of unprecedented intensification of contacts between people, including mutual trips between Ukraine and Norway,” Ambassador of Ukraine to Norway Viacheslav Yatsiuk said in a posting on the website of the Cabinet of Ministers.
The ambassador believes that there is every reason to expect that the opening of the flight between Kyiv and Oslo will help further strengthen the interaction between the two countries, and the visa-free regime between Ukraine and Norway will contribute to the success of the future Kyiv-Oslo flight.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) could provide a loan of EUR 250 million to implement Ukraine Public Transport Framework II, according to a posting on the EBRD’s website.
According to the report, the decision to provide financing the EBRD board is to discuss on July 24, 2019.
“The EBRD will be signing loan agreements with respective companies and guarantee and project support agreements with respective cities. Each loan will be guaranteed by the respective municipality,” the bank said.
The investments will primarily focus on transport renewal (acquisition of new trolleybuses, buses, trams and metro cars as applicable) and the rehabilitation and/or modernisation of public transport infrastructure including automated fare collection, automatic vehicle location and traffic management systems.
As reported, in October 2015, the EBRD approved the provision of EUR 100 million under Ukraine Public Transport Framework.
