Ukraines Yanukovich pledges to quarrel countrys woes

Natalya Zinets and Richard Balmforth KIEV Thu Feb 25, 2010 6:38am EST Related News Yanukovich is Ukraine"s unlikely comeback kidWed, Feb 24 2010

KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine"s Viktor Yanukovich was sworn in as president on Thursday and immediately pledged to fight corruption and poverty, and restore political stability to win back foreign support for the struggling economy.

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Yanukovich took the oath of office in a low-key ceremony which reflected a bitterly-contested election -- still disputed by his rival, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko -- and which highlighted deep divisions in the country.

All the same, his inauguration marked a comeback from humiliation in 2004 when mass protests, called the Orange Revolution, overturned an election that had been rigged in his favor.

Speaking to a gathering of officials, lawmakers and foreign dignitaries after accepting the traditional trappings of office, the 59-year-old Yanukovich said the country faced "colossal debts", poverty, corruption and economic collapse.

"Ukraine needs a strategy of innovative movement forward and such a strategy has been worked out by our team," he said.

Turning to the paucity of foreign investment in the ex-Soviet republic of 46 million, and its notoriously unpredictable business climate, he said he sought to restore political stability, end corruption and set out rules governing links between the state and business.

These were all "necessary conditions for investors and international financial institutions to establish trust in Ukraine," he said.

Ukraine"s economy has been hit hard by the global downturn which hurt its vital exports of steel and chemicals and halved the hryvnia"s value to the dollar over the past 18 months.

The country is dependent on a $16.4 billion International Monetary Fund bail-out program, but lending was suspended late last year and is only likely to resume when stability returns.

The finance ministry said on Thursday that an IMF technical mission would visit on April 7. This usually leads to full-blown visit from IMF officials who may later decide whether to restart the program.

TIES WITH RUSSIA

A burly former mechanic backed by wealthy industrialists, Yanukovich had a deprived childhood in eastern Ukraine and as a young man was convicted twice for petty crime including assault.

He is expected to improve ties with Russia, Ukraine"s former Soviet master, after five years of estrangement under the pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko.

He has hinted at possible concessions to Moscow over the future of Russia"s Black Sea fleet forces in Ukraine"s Crimean peninsula and has proposed the creation of a consortium including Russia to run the country"s gas pipelines.

However, he says he wants to change a 10-year-old agreement on supplies of Russian gas to Ukraine which was negotiated by Tymoshenko and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

He also says he will pursue a balanced foreign policy and has vowed to push for closer ties with the European Union.

In his speech on Thursday, he kept all his options open, saying his foreign policy would be one of "equal and mutually-advantageous ties" with Russia, the EU and the United States which would reap "maximum results" for Ukraine.

His web site later quoted him as confirming he would go to Brussels next week, a visit which EU officials say will take place on Monday. He is also intending to visit Moscow in the first 10 days of March, his Regions Party said.

Yanukovich beat Prime Minister Tymoshenko by 3.5 percentage points but won the support of only a third of the 37 million-strong electorate.

The voting pattern highlighted a sharp split between Russian-speaking voters in the industrial east and south who backed him, and Ukrainian-speakers in the west and center who voted for Tymoshenko.

Tymoshenko dropped her legal challenge to Yanukovich"s election only last Saturday. But she maintains he was not legitimately-elected and she and most of her bloc in parliament stayed away on Thursday, giving the ceremony a hollow ring.

Despite Yanukovich"s call for the establishment of a "competent executive power", Tymoshenko is still resisting attempts to oust her as prime minister, signaling continued political tension at least in the short-term.

She is trying to persuade her allies to close ranks round her in parliament, while his party and its powerful backers are seeking to draw deputies away from her coalition and forge a new one.

Forging a coalition requires some tricky horse-trading and could be a lengthy process. If Yanukovich fails to secure a new coalition, he will reluctantly have to call new parliamentary elections, further prolonging uncertainty.

(Additional reporting by Sabina Zawadzki, Yuri Kulikov and Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Jon Boyle)

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David Cameron suggested to glance at Gordon Brown by choosing guru

David Cameron is likely to try his new tactics on Gordon Brown

David Cameron has been secretly advised to stare at Gordon Brown in televised Election debates to make him feel uncomfortable.

It is one of a series of tactics that the Conservatives hope will give Mr Cameron the edge over the Prime Minister and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg.

According to documents seen by The Mail on Sunday, the Tory leader has also been urged to avoid drinking water provided by television studios because it is served so cold it ;tightens the throat.

The advice comes from Canadian political strategist Patrick Muttart, who has contacted the Tories as they are preparing for the 90-minute TV debates, the first to be held in Britain.

Mr Muttart is credited with masterminding Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harpers election victories.

In Canada and the United States, televised debates have long been a key feature of campaigns and have attracted huge audiences.

In the documents, Mr Muttart says Mr Cameron should ;practise staring down Brown while the camera is focused on the moderators, other leaders. Makes your opponent feel uncomfortable.

But he adds that when Mr Cameron is ;attacking/rebutting he should ;look at his opponents shoulder and not his face. Facial reactions can be distracting/destabilising.

Personal attacks, meanwhile, should be ;well-timed and well-constructed but used infrequently ;for the biggest impact.

Most of Mr Muttarts advice is listed under a section entitled ;key presentation points. It states: ;Ensure Cameron has room-temperature water. Cold water (with ice) tightens the throat. You should control his water not the TV studio.

"When Brown/Clegg is addressing Cameron he should not write notes. To viewers it looks rude.

Mr Cameron"s long-time friend Steve Hilton and wife Rachel Whetstone

There are no clear policies on either taxation or spending. Nor, worst of all, can the Conservatives nail Labour for its myriad and very obvious failures.

Almost incredibly, there is no campaign manager taking charge of what comes out of the Conservative campaign headquarters. I say incredibly because there is no shortage of senior figures advising the Tory leader.

Steve Hilton, a long-time friend of Cameron, is responsible for strategy. He is seen as so important that he was allowed to do his job from California when his wife Rachel Whetstone went to work at Google HQ.

George Osborne, who is the Election co-ordinator as well as the Shadow Chancellor, is a talented strategist in his own right, and Andy Coulson, the straight-talking former News Of The World editor, is the Partys media man.

George Bridges has been brought back by Osborne to serve as his campaign deputy. Bridges is a more tribal Conservative than many of those around Cameron.

Word has it that Osborne lured him back precisely because he wanted his more traditional instincts represented.

This structure, though, is top-heavy. Differences of opinion are inevitable but, as one insider puts it, the problem comes with ;lots of people having the authority to interfere but no one having the authority to decide.

Hilton, who is viewed as an iconoclast within the Party, believes the Conservatives should stick to just a few broad messages.

Osborne, in contrast, thinks they should be emphasising different things to different groups.

While Hiltons approach might seem ;touchy feely to traditionalists, Coulson represents a rather more straightforward, ;pub-ready version of Conservatism.

He is meant to be the man who understands what will rally ;Essex man to the Tories.These structural problems have been compounded by various errors.

On the first Monday of the year, Cameron found himself unable to remember what his policy on marriage was.

Then came the shift in the leaderships rhetoric about how much public spending it would cut.

The Cameron operation is a tight-knit circle but they need to remember that they arent running a leadership campaign but a Party.

They would be well advised to make more of a show of listening and consulting the Party and explaining to it why things have to change.

There are signs of things improving, though. The Tories successful offensive on Gordon Browns ;death-tax, forcing him to explain how he would pay for extravagant expenditure on care for the elderly, was an encouraging sign.

Cameron and Osborne and their staffs have now moved out of their Parliamentary offices to Conservative headquarters, signalling a move into Election mode.

In a stirring address to staff on Monday, Osborne told them that the next 80 days were the most important of his professional life and theirs.

A sense of camaraderie between the wider Party staff and the leadership - something that has been lacking - is now being fostered.

Clearly, there is work to do and Cameron needs to sound a more certain trumpet.

Without that, it will be hard to persuade Conservative MPs, let alone the voters, that the Tories are heading in the right direction.

Is kosher food healthier?

Peta Bee & , : {}

On her weekly outing to the supermarket, Jo Ormond heads true for the kosher food section. There she fills her trolley with what she describes as tantalizing delights from the dried, solidified and cold products on offer. I scour kosher shelves and dilettante shops, she says. There is an extraordinary butter surrogate called Tomor and I love the kosher guacamole and Rakusens potato latkes, a sort of poke that comes in bags.

Yet Ormonds unrestrained for kosher food is not desirous by religion, for she is not Jewish. She is one of a flourishing rope of kosher converts who buy normal Jewish transport in the idea that it is healthier and purer than alternative sorts of food.

Ormond, a 28-year-old vegan, came opposite kosher food when she was selling online at Waitrose and a kosher pesto salsa was endorsed as the usually one free of animal products. She began to try the kosher beliefs of food prolongation and found that it met her harsh dietary demands. I buy it given there are great vegan options but additionally given it is done intensely safely and cleanly, she says. And it tastes good.

It is not usually vegans and vegetarians who are being drawn to kosher food by the prolongation methods used. People with allergies increasingly buy kosher, and so do those endangered about decay and food sourcing. A new Mintel inform in America suggested that usually about fifteen per cent of people who buy kosher right away do so for eremite reasons majority contend that they have the switch given of the peculiarity and healthfulness of the food. Figures are not nonetheless accessible for the UK, nonetheless a inform is planned, but there are signs that the kosher food blast is mirrored here.

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Rabbi Jeremy Conway, executive of the kosher food multiplication at the London Beth Din, that approves majority kosher products in the UK, says that there has been a extensive climb in direct for kosher food and in applications from manufacturers to plead their products as kosher. Most vital supermarket bondage right away batch estimable kosher ranges. Among the ultimate to get the sign of capitulation are Mars, Galaxy and Snickers bars, that have the go-ahead to supplement the kosher trademark over the subsequent couple of months. The makers of Walkers crisps, Oreo biscuits and Ryvita crispbreads are in between those who have paid to have their prolongation processes assessed by a rabbi to get kosher approval.

There is a flourishing notice in between the non-Jewish village that kosher food is cleanser and so less expected to equates to dietary problems, says Rabbi Conway.

Many kosher converts are unknowingly of the formidable laws that underpin Jewish dietary traditions. For eremite Jews, kosher definition purify or fit to eat includes usually beef from animals with cloven hooves that gnaw grass, so deer, cows and sheep are in but pigs and horses are forbidden. Fish with fins and beam are excellent but not shellfish or shark, and all birds can be eaten solely vultures, owls and ostriches. All animals and birds contingency be rubbed with caring during hold up and killed by slitting the carotid artery, with the red blood rinsed from carcasses with salt and water. Meat and dairy contingency never be churned in majority Jewish households, cutlery, crockery, tea towels and work surfaces are colour-coded to equivocate mix-ups, and majority rabbinical authorities direct on a three-hour opening in between eating beef and dairy foods.

For non-Jews, the interest is that kosher food seems to suggest a pledge of virginity and creditable source. There is no common have use of of apparatus and the traceability of mixture and batches of food is guaranteed, says Rabbi Conway. Vegetarians can rest positive that a parve tag equates to that food contains no beef or dairy (though it might enclose eggs and honey).While allergy experts highlight that kosher food offers no sole benefits over alternative prolongation methods, they concur that it can be utilitarian for those with food problems. Keeping kosher can have it simpler to conduct dairy allergies given divert and beef dishes are so particularly separated, says Jackie Gaventa, an confidant for Allergy UK.

Gill McKeown, 41, from London, switched to shopping kosher substitutes for dairy dishes such as margarine and mayonnaise when a nutritionist endorsed that she cut out lactose and gluten to assistance to heal her skin problems and irked bowel syndrome. It creates it majority simpler to shop, she says. Avoiding my trigger dishes keeps me on an even keel but I couldnt do it as simply if I didnt buy kosher.

But is kosher unequivocally safer? Scientific analysis has constructed churned results. Three years ago, researchers at the US Department of Agriculture analysed the superiority of salmonella, campylobacter and listeria on conventional, kosher and organic-reared chickens paid for in supermarkets. They found that organic duck contained the majority salmonella, kosher the majority listeria. Although the required ornithology had the majority campylobacter, it was the slightest infested overall. However, in a 2008 investigate published in the Journal of Food Safety, researchers putrescent duck skin with salmonella prior to initial requesting kosher salt, afterwards rinsing the skin with cold water. Their formula indicated that, whilst salt alone done small difference, the kosher multiple of salt and rinsing marked down micro-organism levels by 80 per cent.

Leslie Bunder, editor of the website somethingjewish.co.uk, additionally has reservations about the health worth of kosher foods. There are viewed nutritive benefits but Im not certain they are genuine ones, he says. If you compared a range of kosher and required products, for instance, a lot of the kosher dishes would have extreme amounts of salt.

Gaventa says that people with bulb or seed allergies should beware. Kosher bakeries are especially small, family-run businesses and food is mostly sole lax and unlabelled, so decay from trays that have contained seeds and nuts is a big problem, she says. A lot of dishes alien from Israel enclose nuts, sesame and poppy seeds, and majority kosher restaurants follow Middle Eastern in progress styles, that can be a calamity for any one with nut, chickpea and sesame allergies.

And kosher is not cheap. A family-sized kosher duck costs about 12, up to 40 per cent some-more than a non-kosher one; a kosher fritter of white, sliced bread costs 1.30, up to stand in the cost of a required loaf. Not that this is stemming the kosher boom, as manufacturers onslaught to encounter demand. Rosie Ben-Sushan, from North London, says that her family commercial operation creation kosher Italian pasta salsas and bruschetta toppings has taken off given Tesco began stocking her range.I get orders from vegetarians, Muslims and people with food intolerances, she says. Very couple of of the new inquiries are from Jewish people.

hair wig

Revenue take authorised movement opposite Portsmouth administration department Portsmouth

Nick Szczepanik & , : {}

Portsmouth, it seems, cannot even go pennyless properly. The Barclays Premier Leagues bottom bar will be behind in the High Court currently after Revenue Customs challenged the basement on that they entered administration department department department department department department department department on Friday.

The bar took the choice of administration department department department department department department department department to equivocate a winding-up apply to presented by Revenue over delinquent taxes of 12.1 million. The apply to was due to be listened on Monday after being shelved on Feb 10 and it was voiced last week that it had been cancelled by the entrance in to administration.

However, it is supposed that Revenue doubts the authorised right of Balram Chainrai, the owner, to put the bar in to intentional administration. Only a cumulative creditor competence do so, and it questions Chainrais standing as such, even though he has loaned Portsmouth an estimated eighteen million.

For Chainrai to put the bar in to administration department department department department department department department department as the owners rather than a creditor would have compulsory an focus to the justice that he did not have prior to Fridays move and that competence have been refused. A source inside of Revenue all but ruled out the probability that the bar would be wound up today. More approaching is a enlarged hitch of authorised jousting and requests for clarification, followed by an demurral prior to the administration department department department department department department department department is supposed or a new date set for the winding-up apply to to be heard.

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However, it is transparent that the plea is dictated as a sign to Portsmouth that the taxation authorities, nonetheless not a elite creditor, intend to replenish as most of the 12.1 million they are due as possible.

This shows that the Revenue are severely angry and probably fright that they are being taken value of, pronounced Danny Davis, an penury consultant at Mishcon de Reya, the lawyers. If they are going to these lengths, they competence feel that something is wrong in the process. The decider could defend their explain and cruise the administration department department department department department department department department invalid, boot it, or potentially sequence the association to be wound up.

Andrew Andronikou, the lead administrator, said: We are not unduly endangered by this. They [Revenue] are going by the routine and the justice conference is the one that was changed from today.

They are receiving the event to see at the [administration procedure]. There is an component of brinkmanship. But we are only forgetful about it. We have the papers they have asked to see, so the lawyers are really loose about the total thing and as far as we are concerned, it is commercial operation as usual.

A winding-up apply to opposite the bar by Grosvenor Basingstoke Properties is additionally to be heard, but Andronikou is some-more endangered with fighting a nine-point reduction approaching to be imposed by the Premier League. Premier League sources demand that Portsmouth have no box for maintaining the points, but Andronikou feels he has to try.

I would be pilloried if, when the subsequent Premier League bar go in to administration, they found the loophole that meant they did not have a points reduction and I had not looked at it, he said. So I have an requisite to take these steps.

Non-playing staff have nonetheless to be told if they will keep their jobs. Obviously at this time I need in accord with remit to get things done, Andronikou said. We should know a lot some-more by Thursday. We are still going by the routine of redundancies. The list is not finalised.

¤ Victor Cattermole, the New Zealander businessman, pronounced on Monday that he was still meddlesome in shopping the bar notwithstanding unwell with an attempted takeover prior to they went in to administration.

"If the bar gets relegated afterwards a lot of the income in the subsequent seasons is compromised," Cattermole said. "The bar has to be cheaper since it"s been devalued."

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Tories plans for propagandize supports wouldnt assistance the bad contend economists

Greg Hurst, Education Editor & , : {}

Plans by David Cameron to give some-more income to schools training the lowest young kids suffered a blow yesterday as economists expel disbelief on their impact.

Extra appropriation would broach usually medium improvements in formula and would not finish separation in between renouned schools and those portion deprived areas, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said.

The Conservatives plans would additionally meant cuts in the budgets of one in five secondaries and one in eight primaries, with bigger shortfalls in regions such as Yorkshire and the East Midlands, the researchers found. The Tories doubtful this, observant that it would be one some-more money, but gave no details.

The think-tank carefully thought about the partys plans to give additional supports to schools receiving deprived children, by a student premium. The Conservatives have nonetheless to endorse how they would do so but the IFS looked at the indication it judged majority likely.

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It pronounced that experts were widely separated on either higher spending led to softened tutorial achievement and that any alleviation was expected to be modest, depending on how schools outlayed the additional funds.

Higher budgets for schools with some-more deprived pupils were doubtful to capture middle-class parents, the authors said. Nor would it inspire schools to partisan poorer children. They said, however, that the process should inspire new schools to be set up in bad communities.

The Tory plans would cost about �1 billion and meant that young kids from the lowest communities would capture additional appropriation of up to �4,660 each if it was allocated by address, as due by the think-tank Policy Exchange, rather than desert to free meals.

Hurt Locker writer slapped with Oscars anathema Film

Nicolas Chartier (right) with associate Hurt Locker producers Mark Boal (left) and Greg Shapiro (second from right), and senior manager Kathryn Bigelow, with their Baftas for most appropriate picture. Photograph: Daniel Deme/EPA

A writer on Oscar frontrunner The Hurt Locker has been criminialized from Sunday night"s awards rite for campaigning plainly opposite a opposition film. Nicolas Chartier, who financed the $15m Iraq fight play himself, sent emails propelling Academy electorate to opinion for his movie and "not a $500m film", a transparent anxiety to James Cameron"s Avatar, that is additionally in the using for the most appropriate design prize.

The Hurt Locker Production year: 2008 Country: USA Cert (UK): fifteen Runtime: 131 mins Directors: Kathryn Bigelow Cast: Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Christian Camargo, David Morse, Guy Pearce, Jeremy Renner, Ralph Fiennes More on this movie

The Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences pronounced yesterday that Chartier was censured by the senior manager cabinet of the producers" bend during a special event on Monday for "an reliable lapse". Academy manners demarcate "casting a disastrous or derogative light on a competing film". For his pains, Chartier will be barred from the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles this weekend, nonetheless he will embrace a statuette after if The Hurt Locker takes the gong.

The move is being seen as a high-profile bid to military overzealous awards campaigning, though

Latin America backs Argentina in Falklands row with Britain

Hannah Strange & , : {}

Argentina was celebrating a tactful manoeuvre currently after winning the subsidy of Latin American countries in an sharpening brawl with Britain over oil training in the Falklands.

Thirty-two heads of state and supervision from Latin America and the Caribbean concluded at a limit in Mexico to await "the bona fide rights of the commonwealth of Argentina in the supervision brawl with Great Britain".

That represented a feat for President Kirchner and her bid to hindrance what it says is "illegal" oil and gas scrutiny in the South Atlantic archipelago it claims as the own.

Almost 3 decades on from the short but full of blood 1982 brawl that saw Britain repel an Argentine advance of the islands, tensions in between the dual former adversaries are once again on the climb with the designation of a British oil rig, the Ocean Guardian, 100 miles from the Falklands coastline.

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The rig, engaged to Britain"s Desire Petroleum, yesterday began training underneath the seabed among hopes of a black bullion pour out that could renovate the mercantile prospects of the isolated, empty islands.

In Argentina, where Mrs Kirchner has finished the liberation of the islands a key thesis of her presidency, the training has regenerated long-simmering resentments at what is viewed as a unfamiliar "occupation".

Last week, Mrs Kirchner altered to hinder reserve to the oil operations, commanding shipping controls requiring all nautical trade by Argentine-claimed waters to the Falklands to find permission from Buenos Aires.

Amid an heightening transatlantic fight of words, Mrs Kirchner altered to diffuse conjecture over probable conflict, however, insisting after the assembly that Argentina would not besiege the islands but instead aspire to "legal" options to hindrance the exploration.

Speaking after securing the stipulation at the limit in Playa del Carmen, Ms Kirchner pronounced that winning such clever subsidy in the territorial brawl was an critical development.

But she warned that "even some-more critical will be to grasp a shift of perspective in the big powers, in this box those that have a permanent chair on the United Nations Security Council".

The Argentine Foreign Minister, Jorge Taiana, is to encounter Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary General, tomorrow and hopes to force Britain to reside by UN resolutions requiring dialogue.

The Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez, was specially outspoken in his await for the Argentinians, charity Buenos Aires troops support. Characterising Britain as an imperialist relic, Mr Chávez demanded the lapse of "Las Malvinas", as they are well known to Argentinians.

The English are still melancholy Argentina. Things have changed. We are no longer in 1982, he warned. If brawl breaks out, be certain Argentina will not be alone identical to it was behind then.

Falkland islanders reacted with finalise this afternoon, claiming that the upping of the tongue by Mrs Kirchner was formed around her own disappearing domestic fortunes domestically.

Jan Cheek, a part of of the eight-strong Falklands Legislative Assembly, said: "A really clever perspective in the islands is that they are utilizing us as they have finished most times in the past, when a supervision is in difficulty it does lend towards to try and inhibit courtesy to the Falklands issue, on that they think they can joined the people."

She combined that she upheld the designation of the British oil rig: "We resolutely hold that we have a right to work on the own resources. Constitutionally those resources are ours to develop."

And she pronounced she did not hold the Mexican summit"s await for Argentina would have most impact, observant Latin American forums had finished identical declarations in the past. "We"ve seen this occur so most times before."

Neither did she hold the shipping controls would block operations. "It"s really most commercial operation as common for shipping around the islands," she said. "I would be really astounded if they interfered with any shipping in the seas."