The National Anti-Corruption Agency (NACC) has renewed the status of five Greek carrier companies in the list of “International Sponsors of War” on the basis of the companies’ failure to fulfill the conditions agreed during negotiations on their removal from the list, the press service of the NACC reported.
We are talking about five Greek companies, Dynacom Tankers Management (DTM); Delta Tankers LTD; Thenamaris Ships Management Inc.; Minerva Marine; TMC Tankers LTD, which have not publicly condemned Russian aggression.
“Recently, the Ukrainian and Greek sides started negotiations where they offered the companies to fulfill the following conditions: to stop the practices of switching off transponders, overloading from board to board, to publicly condemn Russian aggression. The issue of switching off transponders and transshipment from board to board was addressed in the 11th EU sanctions package. However, these five Greek carrier companies did not fulfill the requirement to publicly condemn Russian aggression within the specified timeframe. Therefore, the NAACP has renewed their status on the list of “International sponsors of war”, – reported the press service of the NAACP.
Five Greek companies were included in the list of “sponsors of war” in the summer of 2022. Based on the data of the application for monitoring of naval traffic Marine Traffic detectives calculated that Greek shipowners took out of rf one third of the volume of oil that was sent for export last spring – 19 million tons for $ 16 billion.
According to NAPC, of this volume in March-May 2022, 31 tankers of 3.4 million tons were transported by TMS Tankers Ltd, 28 tankers (2.68 million tons) by Minerva Maritime (Minerva Marine Inc.), 22 tankers (1.43 million tons) by Thenamaris Ships Management Inc, 11 tankers (1.3 million tons) by Delta Tankers Ltd, 12 tankers (1.04 million tons) by Dynacom Tankers Management Ltd.
The NAPC recalled that the list of “International Sponsors of War” on the portal “War and Sanctions” is a powerful reputational tool to achieve integrity in the supply chain in the international dimension, the exit of international business from the Russian Federation and, accordingly, to reduce the financial and technological ability of the terrorist country to kill Ukrainians. One of the platform’s “leverage” is cooperation with the World-Check database, which is used by banks and insurance companies to assess risks.
The municipal enterprise of urban electric transport Zaporozhelektrotorans has announced two tenders for the purchase of new low-floor trolleybuses and electric buses within the framework of the project “Urban Public Transport of Ukraine” financed with funds from the European Investment Bank (EIB), according to the August 4 EU Official Gazette announcement made public in ProZorro on Monday.
The first tender with an estimated value of EUR4.03 million excluding VAT (including EUR3.03 million EU Neighborhood Investment Platform (NIP) grant) involves the purchase of fully low-floor trolleybuses 11.9 – 12.7 m long with dynamic charging from the catenary network, equipped with a battery for autonomous running. The contract amount includes equipment and tools for maintenance, a set of spare parts, and related services.
Passenger capacity of the trolleybus is at least 100 people, including 30 (+/-10%) seated. Folding seats are not allowed, but there must be one seat for a passenger in a wheelchair and four for passengers with low mobility.
Bids are scheduled to be opened on September 19, 2023, with the arrival date of the first shipment no later than eight months from the date of receipt of the advance payment, for a total contract period of 11 months.
According to experts’ estimates, 14-16 trolleybuses can be purchased for this amount.
The second tender for an estimated contract amount of EUR9.84 million of EIB funds involves the purchase of two-axle low-floor electric buses with a length of 12.5 meters (+/-0.5 meters), including charging stations.
The expected passenger capacity is at least 105 people, including 30 (+/- 10%) seating places. The cabin must have one seat for a passenger in a wheelchair, seats for passengers with low mobility, and a seat for a guide dog.
The contract period is 12 months and the first shipment must be delivered no later than 9 months from the date of receipt of the advance payment.
Disclosure of bids is scheduled for September 20.
Price is not the only criterion for awarding these contracts, but all criteria are specified in the procurement documents only.
The number of ships in the port of Izmail (Odessa region), according to data from the Marine Traffic monitoring application, decreased to 48 on Monday, compared to 120 last week. 22 vessels are expected to arrive.
The number of vessels at the port of Reni decreased to 12 on Monday, compared to 58 last week. Another nine vessels are expected to arrive.
The number of vessels in the port of “Izmail” has been decreasing since Thursday, on Friday there were 113 vessels in the port, 21 vessels were expected to arrive. On Sunday the number of vessels dropped to 99 and another 25 vessels were expected to arrive.
At the port of Reni on Thursday, there were 52 vessels at the port and 12 were expected. On Sunday it was 33 and 11 were expected.
The ports of Greater Odessa did not resume work after the termination of the “grain initiative”.
Earlier it was reported that due to the Russian night attack on Wednesday night on the seaport “Izmail” and the infrastructure of the “Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company” destroyed 40 thousand tons of grain, which was expected by African countries, China and Israel.
In addition, about 10 residential houses, 15 apartments, hotel and office buildings of the “Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company” and an educational institution were damaged or destroyed.
After the attack on Wednesday night, two ships heading to the port of Izmail for loading refused to dock.
European Union countries increased beer production by 7% in 2022, almost to 34.3 billion liters, the EU statistics office said.
The bottling volume thus approached the pre-pandemic 2019 figure of 34.7 billion liters.
The production of beer with an alcohol content of less than 0.5% (non-alcoholic beer) remained unchanged at 1.6 billion liters.
Total beer output per capita amounted to about 80 liters last year, the report said.
Germany remains the main producer. It accounted for more than 22% of the total volume, or 7.6 billion liters of beer containing alcohol. It is followed by Spain (3.9 billion liters, or more than 11%), Poland (3.7 billion liters, or 11%), and the Netherlands (2.6 billion liters, or almost 8%).
At the same time, the Netherlands continues to be the main exporter of beer, having shipped 2.6 billion liters outside the country, including EU states, in 2022 (up 0.7 billion liters from the previous year). This represents 27% of total EU export sales.
The second place was taken by Belgium (1.6 billion liters, 17%), the third – by Germany (1.5 billion liters, 16%). The Czech Republic (0.6 billion liters, 6%) and Ireland (0.4 billion liters, 5%) were also in the top five.
The main destinations for beer exports outside the EU were the UK (860 million liters, 21%) and the USA (716 million liters, 18%), as well as China (349 million liters, 9%), Russia (271 million liters, 7%), and Canada (155 million liters, 4%).
France remained the largest importer of beer in the European Union, purchasing 0.9 billion liters of beer from union members and other states, accounting for 17% of the total volume. Next came Italy (over 0.7 billion liters, or 14%), Germany (just under 0.7 billion liters, 12%), the Netherlands (0.6 billion liters, 11%) and Spain (0.5 billion liters, 10%).
Britain imported the most significant volumes of beer into the EU (excluding union members) – 290 million liters, or 57% of all shipments. It also imported 99 million liters of Mexican beer (19%), 40 million liters of Serbian beer (8%), 15 million liters of Ukrainian beer (3%) and 11 million liters of Chinese beer (2%).
Extremely high temperatures since the beginning of this week are again registered in the countries of southern Europe, including popular tourist destinations, European media reported on Monday.
Temperatures are expected to reach about 44 degrees Celsius in the Seville region of Spain this week. More wildfires are feared in the country.
In Cyprus, where a major fire is raging near Limassol, it is recorded at about 35 degrees, with strong winds likely to increase the burning area. There, local authorities have appealed for help from European and regional partners, Jordan and Greece have already sent firefighting aircraft to Cyprus.
In Greece, firefighters finally managed to bring about 70 fires under control over the weekend, but several regions of the country are still under the threat of fires due to increased winds. In July, severe fires led to the evacuation of thousands of tourists from the island of Rhodes.
Fire brigades are fighting fires on the Italian island of Sardinia. At least three people have been injured, about 600 had to be evacuated, two highways have been blocked. On Monday, the island declared the maximum, red level of danger.
At the same time, temperatures in central Europe and the northwest were below normal. It is expected that in London and Paris the temperature in the evening may fall to about +14 degrees Celsius.
Storm Hans has reached the north of Europe, causing widespread flooding in several countries, with warnings even issued in Sweden. Big delays are observed at Stockholm airport, ferry service to Poland has been interrupted.
The Norwegian Water and Energy Authority has raised the flood warning to the highest possible level.
Primary registrations of used passenger cars imported from abroad in July increased by almost 9% compared to June-2023 – up to 18.8 thousand units, which was the highest number of registrations per month for the last 11 months, the association “Ukravtoprom” reported in the Telegram channel.
As reported, the demand for new passenger cars in July turned to negative dynamics, having decreased by 5% by June-2023, to 5.3 thousand units.
According to the association, the largest share in the segment of imported used foreign cars still belongs to gasoline cars – 44% (in June – 43%), followed by diesel cars – 33% (35%), electric cars – 15% (14%), cars with HBO – 5% (no change) and hybrids – 3% (3%).
The average age of used cars that switched to Ukrainian license plates in June is 10 years (10.5% in June).
Volkswagen Golf remains the leader of July registrations (1616 units), followed by Renault Megane (1234 units) and Skoda Octavia (929 units).
The top 10 in this market also include Volkswagen Passat, 741 units; Nissan Leaf, 535 units; Ford Focus, 400 units; Volkswagen Touran, 384 units; Nissan Qashqai, 377 units; Volkswagen Tiguan, 377 units and AUDI A4, 369 units.
In total, in January-July, 106 thousand used cars imported from abroad were first registered in Ukraine, which is 3.3 times more than the sales of new cars in the same period last year.
As reported, Ukrainians in 2022 registered 388.5 thousand imported used cars, which is almost a quarter less than a year earlier, but more than 10 times more than the market for new cars.
