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Papers please: Ukraine parliament backs government's border control plan

Yulia Tymoshenko Official Website
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:29 EST

The Verkhovna Rada has ratified the Law "On Border Control," which was submitted by the Yulia Tymoshenko government.

The law identifies the legal framework for border control, procedures and conditions for crossing the state border of Ukraine.

According to the law, passports and other documents of Ukrainian citizens, foreigners and stateless persons who are crossing the state border are checked by authorized officials of the State Border Service of Ukraine to establish that they are authentic and belong to the given person. They also determine the presence or absence of grounds for temporarily refusing a border crossing.

Reuters
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:25 EST

Ukraine may delay its presidential elections until May 2010 because of the flu epidemic, the deputy head of President Viktor Yushchenko's secretariat was reported by Itar-Tass news agency as saying on Friday.

"If the government fails to establish control over the situation with the influenza epidemic, the possible imposition of an emergency situation in the country and the postponement of the elections to May 30 (2010) are not excluded," the official, Igor Popov, was quoted as saying. The elections are due to take place on Jan. 17, 2010.

Interfax
Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:20 EST

The Ukrainian authorities are using hysteria over the flu outbreak in the country in order to distract the attention of citizens from economic and social problems, presidential candidate Sergiy Tigipko has said.

"The seasonal flu epidemic has completely pushed off the agenda the fight against the economic crisis and other really urgent social issues," the politician's press service quoted him as saying on Thursday.

"The mission of the World Health Organization is planning to study the situation in Ukraine for another two weeks, and only then draw a conclusion about the danger of the epidemic. However, our authorities have created a sensation, although they in fact appeared to be unprepared for an annual seasonal flu epidemic," Tigipko said.

Victor Yushchenko
President.gov.ua
Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:00 EST

Dear fellow citizens!

I address you in performance of my constitutional duty under the Article 106 of the Basic Law of the state.

The reason is the emergency epidemic situation in the country.

Infections of viral origin, including the A/H1N1 flu, are rapidly spreading across Ukraine.

The emergency is evident in the scale of the epidemic: the speed and the geography of its spreading, rapid progress of the illness and the exceptional number of deaths.

Monika Scislowska
The Canadian Press
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:44 EST

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Friday that his government won't buy vaccines for swine flu that have not been properly tested or from producers who won't take responsibility for possible side effects.

Tusk told reporters that vaccine producers were pressuring governments to buy, but were also demanding that all responsibility and compensation for possible negative side effects fall upon government shoulders.

"Today we are dealing with great pressure from pharmaceutical firms ... we are dealing with expectations that hundreds of millions of zlotys (dollars) will be spent on vaccine while no one wants to guarantee that it has no side effects," he said.

Agence France-Presse
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:21 EST

Tens of thousands of angry demonstrators rallied across Ireland on Friday to protest government plans for tough austerity measures, police and reports said.

The protests were called by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) to back its 10-point plan to spread belt-tightening -- ordered to deal with a ballooning gap in public finances -- over the next eight years instead of four.

Rallies took place in Dublin and seven other centres. Unions also threaten a national strike on November 24. In February 120,000 people took to the streets in Dublin in a similar protest before an emergency budget in April.

RIA Novosti
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:00 EST

Europe's dividing lines survive even 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Russia's PACE delegation head said on Friday.

November 9 marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the 160-km concrete barrier between East and West Berlin, the symbolic demarcation line between the socialist camp in Eastern Europe and the West.

Konstantin Kosachyov said Russia and Europe had retained most of their differences, "which means the dividing lines in Europe have survived the fall of the Berlin Wall."

Kosachyov, who also heads the international affairs committee at the lower house of Russia's parliament, referred to visa restrictions and certain "indirect" limitations for Russian businesses.

Three bald bears perplex 'experts'

BBC
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:33 EST

Bears in a zoo in eastern Germany have lost their fur, but international experts cannot work out why.

Three spectacled bears in Leipzig Zoo are in various states of baldness, with the worst being hairless all over.

Zoo curator Gerd Noetzhold said he had discovered that zoos throughout Europe and further afield had encountered the same problem, but no-one knew why.

One expert suggested it could be caused by climate and the diet of the bears, whose native habitat is South America.

The bears come from the Andean mountains of Ecuador, Peru and northern Bolivia.

Reuters
Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:12 EST

Hundreds of Chinese villagers are protesting after they were registered as dead and struck from village lists.

The taxes villages pay to higher levels of government and the social warfare payments allocated by the central Government are both based on the number of households.

By recording the false deaths, local officials held back payments.

And the victims are also deprived of newly established medical insurance and pension schemes.

The 300 members of Zhouzhuang village - a sixth of the population - discovered they were "dead" when a man tried to apply for a new identity book for his parents, according to a report on China National Radio's website.

Jason Mick
DailyTech
Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:30 EST

When it comes to climate change, just have a little faith!

In an unusual case in the United Kingdom, it has been ruled that climate change beliefs should be afforded the same legal protections as religious freedoms. The bizarre ruling sets a landmark legal precedent and could have broad implications both in Britain and abroad.

The case began when Tim Nicholson, former head of sustainability at property firm Grainger PLC was laid off in July 2008 for his criticism of management on the basis of climate change beliefs. Mr. Nicholson, who renovated his house to be greener and refuses to fly by air, was upset that Rupert Dickinson, the firm's chief executive, had an employee fly to him in Ireland to deliver his Blackberry.

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