Since the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine roiled global markets, a climbing number of low-income BRI countries have struggled to repay loans associated with the initiative, spurring a wave of debt crises and new criticism for BRI. In Pakistan, for example, imports required to build CPEC infrastructure contributed to a widening budget deficit, ultimately resulting in a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). And in Ghana and Zambia, high debt loads that partly consisted of BRI loans led to sovereign default. However, many countries that sign on to BRI have few alternatives, Sacks says.
Elsewhere, two more ships carrying corn and soybeans left from Ukraine's Black Sea ports, taking the total number of shipments to 10 since a new deal aimed at alleviating a worsening global food crisis was launched last week.
europe edition 3 $1 serial number
Some land speculators took advantage of legislative loopholes. Others hired phony claimants or bought abandoned land. The General Land Office was underfunded and unable to hire a sufficient number investigators for its widely scattered local offices. As a result, overworked and underpaid investigators were often susceptible to bribery.
The table below compares countries/economies according to their level of deployment of HSR railways, in order from most development to least, based on data from the International Union of Railways (UIC) and from other sources that provide updated data. A number of other countries are listed as having long-term planning for HSR, but no funding has been allocated to their programs to date. In addition, other sources indicate that some countries have HSR systems in place even though UIC has indicated that they do not.
Economic Viability. Analysts have suggested that some countries may have over-extended their HSR networks, claiming that revenues and profit margins have fallen, and cheap flights and car-sharing services may draw some customers away from rail options. The facts, however, seem to belie these warnings. In China, HSR lines have proven their profitability, and throughout Asia and Europe, HSR is providing a lower cost and shorter travel time alternative to air travel for many of the shorter routes. Advocates argue that by increasing the number of cities that have HSR hubs, the network effect will geometrically multiply the utility of HSR to travelers, and hence will provide long-term economic and lifestyle benefits for all citizens.
HSR advocates further argue that the throughput (in terms of numbers of people moved from place to place for a given investment) provided by high-speed rail far outpaces those provided by highways or airports. In the chart to the left, the US High Speed Rail Association depicts how high-speed rail offers significant time savings compared with flying or driving between downtown San Francisco and downtown Los Angeles in California.
Energy savings. Reducing the number of cars on roads and highways translates into big energy savings and a reduced demand for oil. According to International Union of Railways (UIC) data, high-speed rail is more than four times as energy efficient as driving in cars and nearly nine times more efficient than flying.
The global pathway to net zero emissions by 2050 detailed in this report requires all governments to significantly strengthen and then successfully implement their energy and climate policies. Commitments made to date fall far short of what is required by that pathway. The number of countries that have pledged to achieve net zero emissions has grown rapidly over the last year and now covers around 70% of global emissions of CO2. This is a huge step forward. However, most pledges are not yet underpinned by near-term policies and measures. Moreover, even if successfully fulfilled, the pledges to date would still leave around 22 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions worldwide in 2050. The continuation of that trend would be consistent with a temperature rise in 2100 of around 2.1 C. Global emissions fell in 2020 because of the Covid-19 crisis but are already rebounding strongly as economies recover. Further delay in acting to reverse that trend will put net zero by 2050 out of reach.
The contraction of oil and natural gas production will have far-reaching implications for all the countries and companies that produce these fuels. No new oil and natural gas fields are needed in our pathway, and oil and natural gas supplies become increasingly concentrated in a small number of low-cost producers. For oil, the OPEC share of a much-reduced global oil supply increases from around 37% in recent years to 52% in 2050, a level higher than at any point in the history of oil markets. Yet annual per capita income from oil and natural gas in producer economies falls by about 75%, from USD 1 800 in recent years to USD 450 by the 2030s, which could have knock-on societal effects. Structural reforms and new sources of revenue are needed, even though these are unlikely to compensate fully for the drop in oil and gas income. While traditional supply activities decline, the expertise of the oil and natural gas industry fits well with technologies such as hydrogen, CCUS and offshore wind that are needed to tackle emissions in sectors where reductions are likely to be most challenging.
Game Availability: Game titles, number, features and availability vary over time, by region and platform. See the current game library at -game-pass/games. Learn more about supported regions at
You can also choose how many decimal places appear in cells that contain numbers, currency units, or percentage values, even if the exact value entered in the cell has more decimal places than you want to show. The actual value entered is always the value used in calculations, regardless of how many decimal places appear in the cell. If a formula refers to text in a cell, the displayed value is used in the calculation.
By default, Numbers formats table cells automatically, so letters and numbers are formatted and appear the way you type them. If you change the data format for a cell, you can always revert back to the automatic format.
Fraction: Displays numbers with a numerator and a denominator. Choose an option from the Accuracy pop-up menu to specify the maximum number of digits you want displayed, or to round the value to the nearest half, quarter, and so on.
By default, cells formatted as currency display two decimal places. You can change this setting so cells display as many decimal places as you type in them, or so all cells display the same number of decimal places.
Amazon Cognito uses Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) for delivery of SMS text messages. If you are sending a text message through Amazon Cognito or Amazon SNS for the first time, Amazon SNS places you in a sandbox environment. In the sandbox environment, you can test your applications for SMS text messages. In the sandbox, messages can be sent only to verified phone numbers.
Amazon Cognito uses Amazon SNS to send SMS messages to your user pools. You can also use a Custom SMS sender Lambda trigger to use your own resources to send SMS messages. The first time that you set up Amazon SNS to send SMS text messages in a particular AWS Region, Amazon SNS places your AWS account in the SMS sandbox for that Region.Amazon SNS uses the sandbox to prevent fraud and abuse and to meet compliance requirements. When your AWS account is in the sandbox, Amazon SNS imposes some restrictions. For example, you can send text messages to a maximum of 10 phone numbers that you have verified with Amazon SNS. While your AWS account remains in the sandbox, do not use your Amazon SNS configuration for applications that are in production. When you're in the sandbox, Amazon Cognito can't send messages to your users' phone numbers.
Starting June 1, 2021, US carriers require an origination identity to send messages to US phone numbers. If you don't already have an origination identity, you must get one. To learn how to obtain an origination identity, see Requesting a number in the Amazon Pinpoint User Guide.
When you have more than one origination identity in the same AWS Region, Amazon SNS chooses an origination identity type in the following order of priority: short code, 10DLC, toll-free number. You can't change this priority. For more information, see Amazon SNS FAQs.
To use your app in production, move your account out of the SMS sandbox and into production. After you have configured an origination identity in the AWS Region that contains the Amazon SNS resources that you want Amazon Cognito to use, you can verify US phone numbers while your AWS account remains in the SMS sandbox. When your Amazon SNS environment is in production, you don't have to verify user phone numbers in Amazon SNS to send SMS messages to your users. 2ff7e9595c
Comments