As of the end of March, the US Federal Reserve posted $330 billion in unrealized losses on its Treasury and mortgage-backed securities, demonstrating the impact of rising interest rates on the market value of the Fed’s balance sheet.
Losses on the Fed’s investment, a $8.5 trillion portfolio that has skyrocketed on asset purchases designed to keep financial markets stable during the pandemic, pose a potentially difficult policy challenge for the central bank.
If the Fed decides to sell some of the assets, then the unrealized «paper» losses will have to be recorded as tangible losses.
The amount of $2.77 trillion in mortgage-backed securities it purchased decreased at fair market value by $164 billion and stood at $2.606 trillion as of March 31.
The Fed’s portfolio could suffer big losses as interest rates are expected to rise further.
<<< May 29, 2022 Feed >>>
In the United States, they decided to make it easier for the so-called ethical, or “white hat” hackers who break into security systems solely to detect vulnerabilities and without malicious intent. Now they are effectively exempt from prosecution at the federal level.
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The Verkhovna Rada allowed foreign troops to enter Ukraine for joint military exercises in 2022. 318 people’s deputies voted for the corresponding presidential bill. Thus, about 11.5 thousand NATO servicemen with their equipment will visit Ukraine in 2022 for joint military exercises.
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German automaker Mercedes-Benz has unveiled a new feature for its upcoming G-Wagon EQG premium electric SUV. The electric car is able to rotate 360 degrees around its axis due to the transmission with four engines. The company calls this trick the G-Turn.
The EQG handles the G-Turn with a quad-motor drivetrain that allows it to spin each wheel independently. So, the pairs of wheels on each side move in opposite directions, thereby causing the car to rotate like a tracked vehicle.
The electric SUV is expected to go on sale sometime in 2024 or 2025 and is rumored to cost around $150,000.
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Gazprom continues to supply gas to Europe through Ukraine. Gas transit passes through the gas measuring station (GIS) «Sudzha», said the official representative of the energy company Sergey Kupriyanov. The volume of daily fuel supplies remains at 44.1 million cubic meters. m per day.
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The Czech Republic sent assistance to Ukraine in the amount of 140 million euros.
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Serbia will continue to buy gas from Russia at an «extremely favorable» rate. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that he agreed on this with Vladimir Putin. The term of the new contract will be three years, not several months, as before, Vučić said.
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NASA has announced a 30-day manned mission to Mars. So far, we are talking about a working concept, but there are already some details. There will be 2 people on the team, and their first priority will be to test the ability to work on Mars, study the impact of the red planet on health and lay the foundation for the following missions
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On the yachts of Russian oligarchs, location-tracking devices began to be turned off. According to an investigation by the British The Observer, at least six superyachts did this. For example, Oleg Deripaska’s Clio, Andrei Melnichenko’s Motor Yacht, or Vagit Alekperov’s ex-head of Lukoil’s Galactica Super Nova. All of them turned off the identification system (AIS) for more than a month. Obviously, this is how the oligarchs are trying to hide their yachts — from arrest.
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Rosneft currently does not own any assets in Ukraine, the company said. Earlier, the Security Service of Ukraine announced that it had initiated the procedure for seizing the assets of a Russian oil company for $677,000. As Rosneft noted, the company had previously supplied oil products to a European distributor in the Ukrainian market, and there will be no supplies if its property is seized
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American scientists have created a wireless pacemaker that dissolves in the body after the expiration of its service life. The device is 0.25 millimeters thick and weighs less than half a gram. It works without a battery. Power is supplied from an external antenna via near field coupling.
Sensors on the skin monitor body temperature, oxygen levels, respiration, muscle tone, physical activity, and the electrical activity of the heart. Based on these data, the stimulation mode is calculated. Information can be sent to the application and forwarded to the attending physician
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The University of the Netherlands announced that a small local network has been built that can transmit information to physical locations using quantum teleportation. This is very significant — after all, we are talking about a hypothetical Internet with zero delay and infinite speed.
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Russia has begun testing the blocking of popular VPN protocols: IPsec and IKEv2, GlobalCheck reports. Now it takes place in certain regions — Western Siberia and southern Russia (Krasnodar and Rostov-on-Don).
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EU ambassadors at an emergency meeting before the EU summit could not reach a compromise even on a light version of the oil embargo against the Russian Federation, which provided for the restriction of maritime supplies and the withdrawal from sanctions of supplies via the Druzhba pipeline. Hungary and Slovakia oppose the embargo.
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Germany will provide Ukraine with one billion euros in grant assistance. This was announced by the Ambassador of Germany in Kyiv Anka Feldhusen after a meeting with the Minister of Finance of Ukraine Serhiy Marchenko.
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NASA has published a video of the longest flight of the Martian helicopter Ingenuity. The device went into flight on April 8 — it rose to a height of 10 meters and overcame 704 meters at a speed of 19 km / h. The entry was published only on May 27th.
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Indonesian immigration authorities have included Russia in an updated list of countries whose citizens can obtain a 30-day tourist visa directly at an Indonesian airport, including the airport in Denpasar on the island of Bali, according to the travel portal Bali.com. The cost is $35. There is one extension for another 30 days for this category of visa.
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Norway has officially changed the name of Belarus. Now in Norwegian the country will be called «Belarus» (Belarus), and not Hviterussland (literally — «White Russia»).
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Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous «Mona Lisa» smeared with a cake at the Louvre. A man in a wheelchair and wearing a wig drove up to the canvas, suddenly jumped up and tried to break the bulletproof glass that protects the painting. And when nothing happened, he smeared it with a cake and scattered rose petals nearby.
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The Ukrainian group Kalush Orchestra sold a crystal microphone, which they received for winning the Eurovision Song Contest 2022, at a charity auction for $900,000.
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The level of democracy in the modern world is at its lowest level since 2006. Only 46% of the world’s population lives in countries that, at a stretch, can still be called democratic. — Economist Intelligence Unit
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Stocks of precious metals in terms of gold in Russian banks decreased in February-March by about 20%. The balance of gold decreased, among other things, due to its active export: market participants “in anticipation of sanctions” sold the metal in February, and in March there was practically no export of gold, a representative of Sovcombank noted
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Governor of the Kurgan Region Vadim Shumkov: “I treat the words “democracy” and “tolerance” with caution. For me, the concept of «tolerance» is generally something indecent. It means something of sexual seduction. It’s from there somewhere. I don’t like it»
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Krasnoyarsk, Krasnodar, Perm and Voronezh became million-plus cities. This is evidenced by preliminary data from the 2021 All-Russian Population Census.
Thus, now in Russia there are 16 cities, the population of which exceeds one million people. In total, from 2010 to 2021, the number of residents increased in 28 regions. In particular, in Moscow, Moscow region, St. Petersburg, Leningrad region and Kuban. At the same time, in other subjects, the population, on the contrary, decreased. Especially in the regions of the Far Eastern, Central, Northwestern and Volga Federal Districts.
In addition, more than 5.4 million people moved to the country for permanent residence, and more than 3 million left. Most of the migration increase (93.5%) fell on the countries of the former USSR. In particular, to Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.
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At the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office, Roskomnadzor blocked the website of the Human Rights Center «Memorial». It is reported by Roskomsvoboda. Also, information about the blocking is confirmed by the GlobalCheck service, according to which the availability of the site is 0%.
Memorial is a non-governmental organization created to study political repression. Previously, the Human Rights Center was put on the list of «foreign agents» as a minus.
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Over the past two months, there has been a change in demand in the book market: sales of books about business, investment and self-development have fallen, while demand for fiction has increased. At Alpina, the popularity of Viktor Frankl’s famous book on the psychology of being in a concentration camp has skyrocketed. In Ozon, she became the top seller in March-April.
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The Board of Directors of Rosneft recommended the meeting of shareholders to pay dividends for 2021 in the amount of 23 rubles. 63 kop. per share. In total, 441.5 billion rubles will be paid. dividends
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The Ministry of Digital Development of Russia has agreed on a bill on fines for the leakage of personal data of customers. It provides for the introduction of turnover fines of 1% in the event of a leak and 3% if the company concealed the incident.
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According to the Association of International Road Carriers (ASMAP), the income of Russian truckers on European routes was €2.5–2.7 billion, and the Russian budget received 40–45 billion rubles of tax and non-tax payments from them annually. Now this market is almost completely monopolized by foreign carriers, which have increased tariffs for the delivery of goods from Europe to Russia and back several times.
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Serbia will pay approximately $400 per 1,000 cubic meters. m under a new agreement with Gazprom. This was told by Deputy Prime Minister of the country, Minister of Mining and Energy Zorana Mihajlovic.
The Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia added that the countries had to agree on additional volumes of supplies. They, according to Zorana Mihajlovic, «of course, will be more expensive, but still not as expensive» as on the stock exchange.
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Since Monday, the Bank of Russia has limited exchange trading in securities of foreign issuers to “minimize the risks” of investors. This ban did not apply only to depositary receipts of issuers whose majority of business is located in Russia, such as X5 Retail, Polymetal, Globaltrans, Yandex, TCS Group and others
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The rules for the operation of traffic cameras for the first time will become mandatory in GOST, developed by the structures of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The document, Kommersant found out, introduces stricter requirements than today for photographs illustrating traffic violations and the evidence base for traffic police fines. In addition, all cameras must be synchronized with electronic traffic signs and scoreboards, as well as have the function of recognizing license plates installed on the vehicle upside down.
If GOST is introduced, a significant part of the road complexes will not be allowed to operate, the association of manufacturers and operators of photo-video-fixation systems fears.
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The Embassy of Denmark in Moscow suspends the acceptance of applications for short-term visas, as well as residence permits. The exception is official visits.
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According to the Federal Bailiff Service, in 2021, the total alimony arrears in Russia amounted to 156 billion rubles. Hundreds of thousands of parents are debtors. In order to somehow solve this problem, this year the FSSP even held an all-Russian action «Bailiffs for Children», timed to coincide with Children’s Day. Among other things, for example, bailiffs organize raids together with the traffic police «to improve the efficiency of collecting alimony
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In Russia, the production of refrigerators of the Soviet brand «Orsk» was resumed. They promise that he will work for 40 years. The company has already begun mass production of equipment and plans to significantly increase its capacity in the near future, the Ministry of Regional and Information Policy of the Orenburg Region told the Rise newspaper. The authorities note that the new Orsk costs 20-25 thousand rubles, refrigerators are designed for the middle class.
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The Israeli aviation authorities refused to serve the planes of the Belarusian airline Belavia, which is why the company had to cancel all flights to Tel Aviv for the summer season until October 27. Earlier, Belavia was issued a flight permit.
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The official representative of the online cinema Netflix confirmed the shutdown of the service for Russian users. According to a spokesman for the company, this measure was the last step in the process of leaving the Russian market. It is noted that the company was waiting for the previously paid subscriptions of users from the Russian Federation to expire.
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In Russia, the number of transactions in the primary and secondary real estate market has decreased on average by a third, and the number of registered mortgage transactions has decreased by 43%, Nikolai Zaymentsev, Deputy Head of the Strategic Development and Digital Transformation Department of Rosreestr, said. The indicators were provided based on the results of April
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Japanese SoftBank cut the salaries of top managers after it reported a record loss of two investment funds. The salary of the head of the company, billionaire Masayoshi Son, was not affected by the reduction
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In the IT sector of Belarus, the hiring of new employees has sharply decreased, while in January-April of this year, 1.5 times more people left the companies than were employed, the profile publication dev.by reports, citing official statistics.
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Russia last week exported 329 thousand tons of wheat, which is 7.8% more than a week earlier.
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Germany’s Siemens Mobility has signed a contract with the Egyptian government to build the country’s high-speed rail system, which will connect 60 cities and become the sixth largest in the world.
The contract for 8.1 billion euros provides for the laying of about 2,000 kilometers of high-speed railways, the supply of trains, and also includes a 15-year maintenance agreement, the press service of the company said. Due to the implementation of the contract in Egypt, up to 40,000 new jobs will be created.
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Israel will once again begin the process of exploration for gas fields in its waters, reports The Jerusalem Post. According to the head of the Israeli Ministry of Energy Karin Elharar, the global energy crisis gives Israel the opportunity to develop gas exports to Europe.
Currently, Israeli gas is supplied mainly to the domestic market, as well as to neighboring Egypt and Jordan. However, this year Israeli exporters have increased gas supplies to Egypt.
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The Board of Directors of PJSC Rostelecom recommended the annual meeting of shareholders to approve the payment of dividends for 2021 in the amount of 4.56 rubles per ordinary and preferred shares, the company said.
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