http://eng.mediaport.ua News of Kharkov Ukraine and the Region: on-the-fly, high-grade and objective en-us Copyright 2008 mediaport.ua Sat, 04 Jul 2009 23:20:01 +0200 admin@mediaport.info http://news.mediaport.ua/eng/eworld/2009/4672.shtml eworld world Pop star Michael Jackson has died in Los Angeles, aged 50. Paramedics were called to the singer's Beverly Hills home at about midday on Thursday after he stopped breathing. He was pronounced dead two hours later at the UCLA medical centre. Jackson's brother, Jermaine, said he was believed to have suffered a cardiac arrest, as BBC reports. Jackson, who had a history of health problems, had been due to stage a series of comeback concerts in the UK on 13 July. Speaking on behalf of the Jackson family, Jermaine said doctors had tried to resuscitate the star for more than an hour without success. He added: "The family request that the media please respect our privacy during this tough time." "And Allah be with you Michael always. I love you." TV footage showed the star's body flown from UCLA to the LA County Coroner's office where a post-mortem is expected to take place on Friday. Concerns were raised last month when four of Jackson's planned comeback concerts were postponed, but organisers insisted the dates had been moved due to the complexity of staging the show. A spokeswoman for The Outside Organisation, which was organising the publicity for the shows, said she had no comment at this time. Broadcaster Paul Gambaccini said: "I always doubted that he would have been able to go through that schedule, those concerts. It seemed to be too much of a demand on the unhealthy body of a 50 year old. "I'm wondering that, as we find out details of his death, if perhaps the stress of preparing for those dates was a factor in his collapse. "It was wishful thinking that at this stage of his life he could be Michael Jackson again." Uri Geller, a close friend of the star, told BBC News it was "very, very sad". Speaking outside New York's historic Apollo theatre, civil rights activist Rev Al Sharpton paid tribute to his friend. "I knew him 35 years. When he had problems he would call me," he said. "I feel like he was not treated fairly. I hope history will be more kind to him than some of the contemporary media." Melanie Bromley, west coast bureau chief of Us Weekly magazine, told the BBC the scene in Los Angeles was one of "pandemonium". "At the moment there is a period of disbelief. He was buying a home in the Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles and the scene outside the house is one of fans, reporters and TV cameras - it's absolute craziness. "I feel this is the biggest celebrity story in a long time and has the potential to be the Princess Diana of popular culture." Musical icon Tributes from the world of music and film have already flooded in from celebrities including Madonna, Arnold Schwarzenegger and ex-wife Lisa Marie Presley. Large numbers of fans have also gathered outside Jackson's home and at the UCLA medical centre with lit candles to mourn the star while playing his greatest hits. Facebook groups have also been set up for fans to share their memories. Paramedics were called to the singer's house in Bel Air at 1221 (1921GMT) following an emergency phone call. They performed CPR on Jackson and rushed him to the UCLA medical centre. A spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department said the robbery and homicide team was investigating Jackson's death because of its "high profile", but there was no suggestion of foul play. Jackson began his career as a child in family group The Jackson 5. He then went on to achieve global fame as a solo artist with smash hits such as Billie Jean and Bad. Thriller, released in 1982, is the biggest-selling album of all time, shifting 65m copies, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. He scored seven UK number ones as a solo artist and won a total of 13 Grammy awards. "For Michael to be taken away from us so suddenly at such a young age, I just don't have the words," said Quincy Jones, who produced Thriller, Bad and Off The Wall. "He was the consummate entertainer and his contributions and legacy will be felt upon the world forever. I've lost my little brother today, and part of my soul has gone with him." The singer had been dogged by controversy and money trouble in recent years, becoming a virtual recluse. He was arrested in 2003 on charges of molesting a 14-year-old boy, but was found not guilty following a five-month trial. The star had three children, Michael Joseph Jackson Jr, Paris Michael Katherine Jackson and Prince Michael Jackson II. He is survived by his mother, Katherine, father, Joseph and eight siblings - including Janet, Randy, Jermaine and La Toya Jackson. null Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:00:16 +0200 http://news.mediaport.ua/eng/eworld/2009/4671.shtml eworld world English Consulting company ECA International aired the list of most expensive cities for tourists and business travelers. As LIGABusinessInform reports, Luanda, Angola’s capital, has been considered the most expensive city in the world. Tokyo, Japan, placed the second position. The third place – Nagoya, Japan. The fourth position – Yokohama, Japan. The fifth place – Kobe, Japan. The sixth position – Copenhagen, Denmark. The seventh place – Oslo, Norway. The eighth position – Geneva, Switzerland. The ninth place went to Zurich, Switzerland. And tenth position – to Basel, Switzerland. The estimation was based on tourists and business travelers’ expenses in 270 large cities. Market basket as well as cost of living have been taken into account in all of these cities. Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:17:55 +0200 http://news.mediaport.ua/eng/eworld/2009/4670.shtml eworld world Officials in Brazil have identified the first 11 of 50 bodies recovered from the Air France disaster in which 228 people died three weeks ago. The bodies were those of 10 Brazilians and one male foreigner, officials said. They gave no further details, according to BBC. The Airbus A330 plunged in the Atlantic on 1 June. The data recorders have not been found, and the cause of the crash remains a mystery. Search teams from several countries are still scanning the search area. Investigators are reviewing the bodies and debris at a base set up in the northern Brazilian city of Recife. Five of the victims were identified as Brazilian men, five as Brazilian women and one as a "foreigner of the male sex", local officials said on Sunday. Speculation about what caused the plane to go down between Rio de Janeiro and Paris has so far focused on the possibility that the airspeed sensors were not working. The plane is known to have registered inconsistent speed readings just before it crashed in turbulent weather. Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:45:17 +0200 http://news.mediaport.ua/eng/eworld/2009/4669.shtml eworld world The president of the southern Russian republic of Ingushetia has been wounded in an assassination attempt. Yunus-Bek Yevkurov has been taken to hospital and his condition is unclear. Three bodyguards are reported to have been killed, as BBC reports. An explosion hit their convoy near the city of Nazran, officials say. No group has said it carried out the attack. Ingushetia, which neighbours Chechnya, has seen an increase in violence in recent years. "A car bomb was set off at about 0820 (0420 GMT) when a motorcade of the Ingush president was going by the highway," said an interior ministry officer. Federal investigators said a car that was parked on the side of the road detonated just as Mr Yevkurov's car passed, AP news agency reported. The brother of the president was among three bodyguards injured in the attack, the spokesman told Itar-tass news agency. Monday's attack is the third to hit the republic in as many weeks. On June 10, gunmen killed Ingushetia's deputy chief supreme court justice in Nazran as she dropped her children at a kindergarten. Three days later, the region's former vice prime minister was shot dead outside his home in Nazran. Hundreds of refugees from the wars in Chechnya have sought refuge in Ingushetia, a mainly Muslim republic, which is itself one of Russia's poorest regions. The North Caucasus region, which also includes Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia, is regarded as a major security challenge for the Kremlin. Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:06:44 +0200 http://news.mediaport.ua/eng/esports/2009/4668.shtml esports region Ukraine`s Vladimir Klitschko retained his world heavyweight titles by beating Russian Chagaev thanks to a technical knockout after the ninth round at the Schalke 04 soccer stadium on Saturday. According to Reuters, Klitschko, 33, held on to his IBF, IBO and WBO belts when the referee stopped the fight before the start of the 10th round in front of 61,000 fans with the Uzbek WBA champion-in-recess bleeding from a large cut above his left eye. Mon, 22 Jun 2009 09:58:24 +0200 http://news.mediaport.ua/eng/esports/2009/4667.shtml esports region World heavyweight champion Vladimir Klitschko will fight Ruslan Chagaev as planned Saturday as the challenger's hepatitis B virus poses no health threat, health officials said Friday. The American Association of Professional Ringside Physicians (AAPRP) had urged organizers Thursday to postpone the fight in front of an expected 60,000 crowd at soccer club Schalke 04's stadium, as Reuters says. The AAPRP said Uzbek Chagaev's hepatitis B virus could be a health threat to people in and around the ring given the fighter could be injured and his blood could infect trainers or spectators in or near the ring. "The risk of infecting officials and visitors is beyond minimal," Gelsenkirchen health department chief Henriette Reker told reporters. Reker said all possible risks had been considered and said there was no need to re-evaluate the situation. Chagaev's promoters said the boxer was not infectious. "After achieving hepatitis B many years ago Ruslan Chagaev has never been sick due to hepatitis B. He is just a healthy carrier of hepatitis antigen with constantly normal liver enzymes," Universum Box-Promotion doctor Michael Ehnert said on the promoters' website (www.boxing.de). "Infection doesn't mean illness. According to international expert opinions Ruslan Chagaev is regarded as non-infectious." Ukraine's 33-year-old Klitschko, the IBF, IBO and WBO champion, was inoculated earlier this week against hepatitis B and said he was comfortable fighting Chagaev. Klitschko, whose brother Vitaly holds the WBC crown, was initially scheduled to fight David Haye before the Briton pulled out with an injury earlier this month. Undefeated Chagaev, 30, is the WBA champion-in-recess and so cannot defend that title against Klitschko. Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:32:01 +0200 http://news.mediaport.ua/eng/eworld/2009/4666.shtml eworld world San Francisco conceptual artist and journalist Jonathon Keats is trying to rejuvenate literature in the age of hyperspeed media by writing a story that will take a millennium to tell. The catch? The story, printed on the cover of the recently released Infinity issue of Opium Magazine, is only nine words long, according to The Wired. “I’m interested in exploring deep time,” the thought experimentalist and Wired contributor explained in an e-mail to Wired.com during a visit to Europe, where he is probably concocting a scheme to wormhole Paris or something. “Like most people, I live my life in a rush, consuming media on the run,” said Keats, who has copyrighted his mind, tried to pass a Law of Identity and attempted to genetically engineer God. “That may be fine for reading the average blog,” he said, “but something essential is lost when ingesting words is all about speed. My thousand-year story is an antidote. Given the printing process I’ve used, you can’t take in more than one word per century. That’s even slower than reading Proust.” The printing process in question is a simple but, as usual with Keats, pretty clever idea. The cover is printed in a double layer of standard black ink, with an incrementally screened overlay masking the nine words. Exposed over time to ultraviolet light, the words will be appear at different rates, supposedly one per century. “The precise quantity of ink covering each word is different, so that the words will appear one at a time,” Keats said. “Provided that your copy of Opium is kept out in the open, and regularly exposed to sunlight over 1,000 years to be read progressively by the next dozen or so generations. Or very, very slowly if you happen to be Ray Kurzweil.” The odds are very good that Keats’ brainy game will outlive print itself, at least as far as magazines are concerned. But will the pages of Opium last long enough for his story to be told? “The high-quality acid-free paper on which Opium is printed will certainly last that long,” Keats answered. “Whether humankind will, of course, remains an open question.” Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:08:42 +0200 http://news.mediaport.ua/eng/eworld/2009/4665.shtml eworld world A Ukrainian aircraft reported to be carrying crates of weapons has been detained in Nigeria. It had made an emergency landing in the northern Nigerian city of Kano while on a flight to Equatorial Guinea, as BBC reports. Nigerian security officials say 18 crates with mines and ammunition were on board, but there are no details of exactly who the cargo was destined for. The three crew members, reported to be Ukrainian, are being questioned, but few details other have been released. BBC reporter Mustafa Mohamed, in Kano, says the aircraft was placed under guard, and security forces are continuing their investigations. It is believed the plane made the emergency landing because of a technical fault. Attack on palace Earlier this year, the authorities in Equatorial Guinea arrested a number of people in connection with an attack on the presidential palace in the capital, Malabo. A the time of the incident, in February, state radio in Equatorial Guinea said that those detained had been operating with other members of a rebel group based in Nigeria's Niger Delta region. It said some of those who attacked the palace had been killed or wounded. Rebels of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) denied involvement. The Equatorial Guinea President, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, later dismissed several government ministers. The president has been in power in the oil-rich former Spanish colony since seizing power in a coup in 1979. His government has long been accused of human rights abuses and of suppressing political opposition. Last year, a former British army officer, Simon Mann, was sentenced to 34 years in jail for plotting to overthrow him in 2004. Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:15:49 +0200 http://news.mediaport.ua/eng/eworld/2009/4664.shtml eworld world Rescuers have completed their search and rescue operation at the site of a building which collapsed in central Moscow on Wednesday, a municipal emergencies service spokesman said on Thursday. Three people, all construction workers from former Soviet republics, died when the building collapsed, according to RIA Novosti. Renovation work was being carried out on the building, located at Sadovnicheskaya Naberezhnaya 78, at the time of the collapse. The accident occurred at around 5:00 p.m. Moscow time [13:00 GMT]. Three people have been rescued and three others made their way out from under the rubble independently after the collapse. A Moscow construction official said the building collapsed due to unauthorized work to make the basement wider and deeper. Deputy Moscow Mayor Vladimir Resin earlier that said all the people in the building at the time of the incident were workers from former Soviet republics, who were working and living in the building. Resin also said the building, which was protected by law as a historical landmark, would now most likely be demolished "to prevent similar incidents in the future." Six construction workers died late last year in central Moscow after a building partially collapsed. Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:25:18 +0200 http://news.mediaport.ua/eng/eukraine/2009/4663.shtml eukraine region After December 13, all officers from the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) represented at the Russian Black Sea Fleet must leave Ukraine. Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Chief Valentyn Nalyvaychenko said this in an interview with the BBC Ukrainian Service. UNIAN reports that he noted that the Russian side had been officially informed about this. According to Nalyvaychenko, there were currently 19 FSB officers at the Russian Black Sea Fleet. They are involved in intelligence activities. He said that all functions foreseen by Ukrainian laws, including on the safety of Russian sailors, had been imposed on SBU military intelligence units in Sevastopol and Symferopol. As UNIAN reported earlier, the SBU head had told the Russian newspaper Nezavizimaya Gazeta that Ukraine could itself ensure the safety of the Russian Black Sea Fleet on its territory. Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:19:22 +0200 http://news.mediaport.ua/eng/eukraine/2009/4662.shtml eukraine region Kyiv, Odesa and Kharkiv top the May list of most active blogs and communities, Ukrainian News has learned from a statement made by the Ukrainian representative office of Russia's Yandex. Information from the company, the number of active blogs in Kyiv totaled 16,376, in Odesa 3,085, 2,687 in Kharkiv, according to Ukrainian News. The number of active communities in Kyiv was 844, in Odesa 207 and in Kharkiv 92. Also, according to Yandex, at the moment Ukrainian users are keeping more than 420,000 personal journals and about 20,000 communities. About 80% of Ukrainian blogs hosted by livejournal.com, blogs.mail.ru and liveinternet.ru, about 15% by Ukrainian blog hosts dnevnik.bigmir.net, blog.i.ua, blog.meta.ua and blox.ua. Yandex stressed, women were more inclined to blogging and participating in communities than men, each woman posting for 14 communities on average, man for 11, but males make more friends, 23 on average, while females only 15. Yandex describes common Ukrainian blogger as a 22-year-old girl from Kyiv, having 19 friends, participating in 13 communities, keep her journal for a year and three months, 21 users subscribed for it. A blog is a webpage for regularly adding posts, images or media. For blogs it is natural short record or temporal importance, sorted in reverse chronological order (the latest post on top). As Ukrainian News earlier reported, yandex.ru is second search engine generating hits for Ukrainian websites (16.95% in May). The Yandex trademark was registered in March 2005 in Ukraine, and the Ukrainian representative office of Russia's Yandex opened the yandex.ua portal in September 2005. Yandex runs domains yandex.ua and yandex.com.ua. According to a report by Bigmir-Internet (bigmir-internet.com.ua) the number of Internet users in Ukraine totaled 11.815 million people in May, 2009. Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:11:39 +0200 http://news.mediaport.ua/eng/eukraine/2009/4661.shtml eukraine region Israel is reconsidering the rationality of a mutual renunciation of travel visas with Ukraine in the wake of the economic crisis, Israeli Minister of Tourism Stas Misezhnikov told a news briefing in Jerusalem Tuesday. Although the abolition of travel visas for tourists between Israel and Russia has proved efficacious in the conditions of the crisis, the situation with Ukraine is somewhat different, ITAR-TASS says. “The abolition of travel visas for Russian tourists proved efficacious, since that country has felt a much smaller damage from the crisis than other European countries and, by and large, the curve of the demand for tourism did not suffer as much as in Ukraine where the middle class was impoverished,” Misezhnkov said. “That’s one of the reasons why the Israeli Foreign Ministry is currently reviewing the rationality of visa-free traveling for the Ukrainians,” he said. “As for Russia, the situation is different.” An agreement on visa-free mutual trips by Russian and Israeli tourists went into effect in September 2008. Soon after that, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said Ukraine would be the next country in the post-Soviet space it would hold talks with on the abolition of visas. Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:55:15 +0200 http://news.mediaport.ua/eng/eukraine/2009/4660.shtml eukraine region Yosyp Vinsky, Transport and Communications Minister of Ukraine, claims that he has resigned due to serious disagreements with Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, the ministry`s press service reported on Wednesday. "In line with Article 18 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Cabinet of Ministers”, I have submitted my statement of resignation as the Transport and Communication Minister of Ukraine”, Vinsky’s statement reads. “My statement was stipulated by serious disagreements with Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko over political, staff, and economic issues, as well as the ethics of relations between members of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine," Vinsky said as UNIAN reports. According to him, “The Prime Minister has been blocking reforms that are extremely important for the branch, as well as the allocation of funds required to build infrastructure facilities linked to Ukraine’s hosting the Euro 2012 Football Championship”. As UNIAN reported earlier, Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko said on ICTV television channel on June 15 that she did not rule out bringing a case against Vinsky for his attempts to misuse 15 million hryvnias, belonging to Ukrposhta state-owned mailing enterprise, for publishing posters for electoral campaign of the Minister, who would run for the presidency. Vinsky, in turn, refuted reports of his plans to run for the presidency. Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:48:56 +0200 http://news.mediaport.ua/eng/eworld/2009/4659.shtml eworld world A coal mine explosion in Indonesia's Sumatra island has killed 28 miners and 12 others are missing, officials said Wednesday. The explosion, Tuesday, may have been caused by a build-up of methane gas in the mine in Parambahan, West Sumatra. The miners have been trapped underground for around 30 hours, according to Washington Post. Rustam Pakaya, the head of the health ministry's disaster center, said in a telephone text message that 28 had been confirmed dead, 8 were still in hospitals, one had been discharged and 12 were missing. Local police chief Jasman, who like many Indonesians uses one name, said the prospect of finding more survivors in the mine, which according to media reports is 150 meters (500 ft) deep, were fading. The mine hit by the explosion was locally owned and produced only about 1,500 tonnes of coal a month and supplied local paper and power companies. Indonesia, which is the world's largest thermal coal exporter, is expected to produce around 230 million tonnes of coal this year, according to a government estimate. Indonesia has rich mineral resources with many coal and other mines, but often tends to use open-pit mining rather than underground mining. Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:33:30 +0200 http://news.mediaport.ua/eng/eworld/2009/4658.shtml eworld world The first deals have been done at this year's Paris Air Show, with Qatar Airways ordering 24 Airbus A320 jets. The list price of the planes is $1.84bn (£1.13bn), but airlines usually get discounts, especially in recessions, as BBC says. Orders are expected to be relatively slow at the show, with many airlines considering delaying existing orders as they struggle to fill their flights. But Spanish airline Air Nostrum has confirmed an order for 35 Bombardier CRJ-1000 jets, listed at $1.75bn. The airline is the launch customer for the new model. Bombardier had previously announced the order, but not the customer. In another development, aerospace giant Rolls Royce said it had clinched a $1.5bn order to supply and maintain engines for 20 Airbus A330 aircraft in Bahrain-based Gulf Air's fleet. 'Freefall has stalled' Boeing has said it is not expecting large number of orders at the show. "We don't save the orders for the air shows," Boeing's chief of commercial aeroplanes, Scott Carson, told the BBC earlier on Monday. But the airlines are not really cancelling existing orders either, for fear of falling behind rivals once an economic recovery gets underway. Such a recovery could be well underway by the time the air show returns to Farnborough next June, Mr Carson said, insisting "the freefall has stalled". In the meantime, Boeing and rival aircraft maker Airbus are both having to help the airlines buy their planes by assisting them in raising finance. In some cases, this involves them lending the airlines money, which in turn diverts funds from other activities, such as takeovers or research and development. But this is a short-term problem, Mr Carson stressed, pointing to a considerably brighter future. "Long-term, we see this as a great market," he said. Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:24:51 +0200 http://news.mediaport.ua/eng/ecity/2009/4657.shtml ecity region Workers have installed the last element of iron shed – “crab” frame around the sports arena Metalist. All the metal construction to surround and cover the stadium weighs 3.5 thousand tons. “The construction is mounted in the way that reminds a gigantic crab holding the whole abat-jour without leaning on grandstands” – vice-governor of the region Serhiy Storozhenko explains. Workers managed to mount it within quite short terms – throughout eight months, as the official website of the regional state administration says. This project has been exclusive – there are no similar sheds any in the world so far. Kharkiv planners had worked on the metal construction. The frame itself is home made. It was special composition alone that was brought from abroad. It will cover the stadium and allow rays of light. Matches are planned to be held in July, however the final date of the commissioning is November 2009. Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:39:17 +0200 http://news.mediaport.ua/eng/eworld/2009/4656.shtml eworld world Religiously devout Jews barred by rabbis from surfing the Internet may now "Koogle" it on a new "kosher" search engine, the site manager said on Sunday. Yossi Altman said Koogle, a play on the names of a Jewish noodle pudding and the ubiquitous Google, appears to meet the standards of Orthodox rabbis, who restrict use of the Web to ensure followers avoid viewing sexually explicit material, according to Reuters.com. The site, at www.koogle.co.il, omits religiously objectionable material, such as most photographs of women which Orthodox rabbis view as immodest, Altman said. Its links to Israeli news and shopping sites also filter out items most ultra-Orthodox Israelis are forbidden by rabbis to have in their homes, such a television sets. "This is a kosher alternative for ultra-Orthodox Jews so that they may surf the Internet," Altman said by telephone. The site was developed in part at the encouragement of rabbis who sought a solution to the needs of ultra-Orthodox Jews to browse the Web particularly for vital services, he said. Nothing can be posted on the Jewish Sabbath, when religious law bans all types of work and business, Altman said. "If you try to buy something on the Sabbath, it gets stuck and won't let you." Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:39:41 +0200 http://news.mediaport.ua/eng/eworld/2009/4655.shtml eworld world The BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2009 final has been won by Russian soprano Ekaterina Shcherbachenko. Speaking after the result was announced, the 32-year-old said it was the "happiest day" of her life, as BBC reports. She beat four other finalists from Japan, Italy, Ukraine and the Czech Republic to win a trophy and £15,000. Shcherbachenko performed in French and Italian in a packed St David's Hall, before closing in English with Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress. The £2,000 Audience Prize, chosen by public telephone vote, was the youngest competitor - 21-year-old Italian tenor Giordano Lucà. In all, 25 competitors were selected from more than 600 original entrants to the competition. The four other finalists were: soprano Eri Nakamura, 31, from Japan; Luca, 21, from Italy; bass Jan Martiník, 26, from the Czech Republic and 30-year-old counter-tenor Yuriy Mynenko, from Ukraine. Martinik beat four other finalists, including Welsh soprano Natalya Romaniw, 22, from Morriston, Swansea, to win the competition's £5,000 song prize. This year all the singers are eligible to benefit from a new bursary to help towards the development of their musical careers. A follower of BBC Cardiff Singer of the World, Annie Sankey, has left the competition a bequest and a new bursary in her name to support singers who take part in the competition has been established. Menna Richards, director of BBC Cymru Wales, said: "The bursaries will help support the studies of competitors, including helping with travel and the purchase of musical scores." Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:27:16 +0200 http://news.mediaport.ua/eng/eworld/2009/4654.shtml eworld world Iran's government has banned a rally by supporters of defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, amid growing unrest over last week's presidential poll. The interior ministry said the planned march against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been planned by "sedition elements", according to the BBC. Mr Mousavi, a moderate, called for the results to be annulled, alleging fraud. Mr Ahmadinejad says the poll was fair. Tens of thousands rallied in Tehran on Sunday to celebrate his victory. Responding to the opposition move, the interior ministry: "Some seditious elements had planned to hold a rally." It added: "Any disrupter of public security would be dealt with according to the law." 'Death to the dictator' There were clashes between the police and anti-Ahmadinejad protesters in several parts of the city for a second day on Sunday. Police hit protesters with batons and charged them on motorbikes. Mousavi supporters cried "death to the dictator" into the evening. Scores of people are reported to have been arrested. There have been reports of tear gas being fired and rooms being searched at Tehran University. The BBC's Jon Leyne in Tehran says the rapidly spreading protests are a challenge not just to the election result, not just to President Ahmadinejad, but to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself. That means it is, he says, a challenge to the whole basis of the Islamic Republic. Mr Ahmadinejad dismissed the unrest as "passions after a soccer match". International concern Mr Mousavi's website carried a statement saying he had formally called on Iran's Guardian Council, which must certify the counting, to annul the election. He added: "I urge you, Iranian nation, to continue your nationwide protests in a peaceful and legal way." A supporter of Mr Mousavi, Shahab Tabatabaei, told the Associated Press news agency the candidate had met Ayatollah Khamenei to press his call. But the BBC's John Simpson in Tehran says the call is almost certain to fail. Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:09:04 +0200 http://news.mediaport.ua/eng/eworld/2009/4653.shtml eworld world Although the influenza A(H1N1) infection may not be making news headlines like it did several weeks ago, it is continuing to spread globally and the United Nations health agency is considering raising its pandemic alert level, a spokesperson for the body said. “Certainly two or three weeks ago the headlines were all about A(H1N1); now that’s not the case so much,” Gregory Hartl of the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said in an interview with UN Radio, according to WHO information. “But the threat of A(H1N1) becoming a pandemic virus is even greater than it was two or three or four weeks ago,” he stated, adding that the agency is closely watching how the infection is developing outside of the Americas. According to WHO, 66 countries have officially reported 19,273 cases of the new flu strain, including 117 deaths, as of today. The agency’s pandemic alert level remains at Phase 5 – on a six-point warning scale – meaning that sustained human-to-human transmission of the virus on a community level is mostly restricted to a single geographic region, in this case North America. Mr. Hartl said WHO is closely monitoring the situation. “We would say not for anyone to let down their guard because we might be living through a few weeks or months in the Northern Hemisphere of reduced influenza activity because it is the summer. “I think everyone though would be well advised to be ready and aware of the fact that in the autumn in the Northern Hemisphere – in the autumn anywhere – his virus could reappear very strongly again.” He added that it is possible to see an easier spread of the virus in the Southern Hemisphere, where winter is just beginning. “We need to watch the behaviour of A(H1N1) very carefully as it encounters other influenza viruses circulating during the winter season in the Southern Hemisphere,” WHO Director-General Margaret Chan told the World Health Assembly in Geneva recently. “The current winter season gives influenza viruses an opportunity to inter-mingle and possibly exchange their genetic material in unpredictable ways,” she noted. Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:22:17 +0200