Eideard

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Six goldfinch compete for the seeds on five branches. One goldfinch missed out on a meal. The unlucky bird was sixth on the scene with only five perches available on a thistle bush. Photographer Peter Svoboda captured the scene in the Ukraine.

Lovely.

A 77-year-old Ukrainian man won a jar full of sour cream for coming first in a dumpling eating contest and then promptly died, local media reported on Wednesday.

Ivan Mendel ate 10 dumplings in half a minute to win first place and a one-liter jar of sour cream in the contest held in the town of Tokmak in the southeastern Zaporizhya region on September 18, Fakty I Kommentarii newspaper said.

Shortly afterwards, Mendel became unwell and died, according to local news websites.

Dumplings, called “vareniki” in the former Soviet republic, are a staple of Ukrainian cuisine and are often stuffed with a range of fillings from mushrooms to cherries.

WTF?

They didn’t say what the stuffing was for the contest? I prefer potato.

A journalist for national Ukrainian television sparked a scandal on Tuesday by turning up at work in parliament dressed as a bunny in protest at the sometimes farcical behaviour of MPs.

Dressed head-to-toe as a white bunny with two huge ears sprouting from his head, Roman Vintoniv somehow managed to keep a straight face as he conducted lobby interviews with besuited politicians.

He said his action was a protest against the sometimes comic behaviour of lawmakers in the Verkhovna Rada who last week exchanged blows in a bloody punch-up that wounded several of them.

“If the Verkhovna Rada is turning into a circus, then this needs to be officially acknowledged and people need to dress appropriately,” Mr Vintoniv told the news website Ukrainska Pravda.

Ukrainska Pravda said the parliament press service tried to have him expelled on the grounds that his external appearance was not in line with the rules.

But his colleagues then pointed out that the parliament has no dress code and he was able to carry out his work, carrying out interviews with some MPs, video footage posted on the internet showed.

However some of his normal contacts refused to talk to him, Ukrainska Pravda said…

Now, how should an American reporter working Congress dress to express a comparable sentiment.

Poisonally, I think someone would get the most attention costumed as a roll of hundred-dollar bills.

An alleged international credit card trafficker from Russia who sold stolen credit card data has been arrested in France, and the United States will seek his extradition to face charges in this country.

They identified the defendant as Vladislav Anatolieviech Horohorin, 27, of Moscow, an alleged co-founder of the first and only fully automated credit card information online vending site that sold stolen data.

Horohorin, whose online name is “BadB,” was arrested by French authorities on Aug. 7, in Nice as he attempted to board a flight to return to Moscow. He is being detained in France pending extradition to the United States…

According to court documents, Horohorin allegedly used online criminal forums to sell stolen credit card information to online purchasers worldwide. He had been the subject of an undercover investigation by U.S. Secret Service agents.

“The network created by the founders of CarderPlanet, including Vladislav Horohorin, remains one of the most sophisticated organizations of online financial criminals in the world,” said Michael Merritt…

“This network has been repeatedly linked to nearly every major intrusion of financial information reported to the international law enforcement community,” he said in a statement.

Reuters says he’s Russian. Israeli press variously says he’s Israeli – or Ukrainian.

Whatever the flavor – throw away the key!

Three members of a Ukrainian family have died from carbon monoxide poisoning after an attempt to exterminate rats in their basement using a car’s exhaust fumes.

A couple in their 70s and their granddaughter died in the incident, while another granddaughter is said to have been lucky to survive, Pravda reports.

The three were found dead in the basement of their home in Dnepropetrovsk, on the Dnieper River in the east of the country. It transpired that the grandfather, 71, had attached a hosepipe to his ZAZ Zaporozhets car’s exhaust pipe and put the other end through the window of the family basement, and started the engine.

After retiring upstairs for some time, he came downstairs to see whether any rats had died. However, the concentration of carbon monoxide in the basement’s atmosphere caused him to lose consciousness.

When he failed to return, his wife, 77, followed him to see what had happened, and also fainted. The same later happened with their 29-year-old granddaughter.

The three bodies were found when a second granddaughter went to investigate. Authorities said she was herself lucky to survive.

I suppose the only one who deserves – and gets – the Darwin award is grampa. Does he get extra credit for taking out a couple of innocent bystanders?

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

The Ukrainian parliament has approved a bill that effectively rejects any ambition to join NATO.

The law, submitted by President Viktor Yanukovych, cements Ukraine’s status as a military non-aligned country – though it will co-operate with NATO.

President Yanukovych was elected earlier this year, vowing to end Ukraine’s NATO membership ambitions and mend relations with Russia.

His predecessor, Viktor Yushchenko, had pursued a pro-Western foreign policy.

Under him, relations with Moscow had declined dramatically, with the Kremlin refusing to talk to him.

Since his February inauguration, Mr Yanukovych has wasted no time in re-shaping Ukraine’s foreign policy in a more Moscow-friendly way, the BBC’s David Stern in Kiev says.

In April, he agreed to extend the lease allowing Russia’s Black Sea fleet to be stationed in the southern port of Sevastopol by 25 years in return for cheaper gas. An extension of the lease, due to expire in 2017, had been opposed by Mr Yushchenko…

Moscow had made known its opposition to Ukraine’s plans to join Nato, and opinion polls indicate the majority of Ukrainians opposed Nato membership too, our correspondent reports…

However, the new law will not affect Ukraine’s political and economic integration with Europe.

I have friends in Ukraine on both side of the question. So far, it appears that cooler heads prevail.

Cripes – even a bit of democracy.

A court in eastern Ukraine has sentenced a man to life imprisonment for the murder and rape of about 40 girls and young women over 25 years.

At the trial in Dnipropetrovsk, Serhiy Tkach claimed he had murdered 100 people and said he was an animal who deserved the death penalty. An ex-policeman, he suffocated girls aged between eight and 18 and performed sexual acts on their bodies.

Over the years 10 innocent people were jailed for murders he had committed.

Cripes. Has anyone done anything about the poor buggers already in the slammer for his crimes?

A Ukrainian ship seized by pirates off the coast of Somalia was carrying 33 tanks and other weapons, the Ukrainian defence minister has confirmed.

Russia announced on Friday it would start carrying out regular anti-piracy patrols in the waters off Somalia. A navy spokesman said a warship had been sent to the area earlier this week to protect Russian citizens and ships.

Somalia has not had an effective national government for 17 years, leading to a collapse of law and order both on land and at sea.

Somali pirates are currently holding more than a dozen hijacked ships in Eyl, a town in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland.

Senior UN officials estimate the ransoms pirates earn from hijacking ships exceed $100m a year.

Earlier reports suggested that the cargo was destined for south Sudan, however Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua confirmed that the tanks were going to Kenya.

If you don’t know any military history, let me tell you this was how the U.S. Marines got to be well respected around the world. Dealing with pirates in foreign waters.

And btw – lose all the movies showing us how accurately the CIA and NSA can track your footsteps through downtown Cincinnati. They can’t seem to find a fracking freighter trundling along the Horn of Africa.

Russia has announced that it will not participate in a meeting with the United States this week to discuss Iran’s nuclear program, the most significant indication yet of how Russia’s war with Georgia has spoiled relations regarding other security issues.

Moscow’s move apparently scuttled the meeting. The Foreign Ministry issued a biting statement that criticized remarks last week by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who declared that Russia had taken “a dark turn” away from democracy and respect for international norms.

“We would very much like Washington, in the end, to make up its mind what kind of relations they want with Moscow,” a ministry spokesman, Andrei Nesterenko, said in the statement. “If they want to punish Russia, that is one thing. If they agree that we have common interests that need to be jointly advanced, then that’s another…”
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In a potentially significant swing of expert Western opinion, a leading British think tank has urged that Nato membership should not be granted to Georgia or Ukraine.

“The policy of Nato enlargement now would be a strategic error,” said Dr John Chipman, Director General of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). “There is no case for accelerating membership for Georgia and Ukraine. There is a strong case for a pause.”

The IISS intervention shows that following the war in Georgia, a debate is growing about whether a confrontational approach to Russia is the best one.

The IISS is highly critical of Georgian actions – in contrast to the support Georgia has received from the US and some European countries, notably Britain. Naturally, if Georgia is faulted, then less blame can be put on Russia, whatever its reaction or, as some hold, its over-reaction.

Dr Chipman said that the “balance of evidence suggests that Georgia started this war“.

“There have been major errors of presentation of policy towards Russia. The US and Nato have in the past told Russia to accept whatever was happening. There was no give and take. We are disappointed at the way some Western leaders pushed the Cold War button after Georgia,” said Dr Chipman. “We should not over-inflate the crisis.”

The British government, of course, will echo whatever the White House says.