Puppeteers from Rivne win first prize
The Rivne Puppet Theater’s play Bu-ra-ti-no took the first place at the Puppet Rainbow Festival. Created in a musical format and based on the famous tale by Aleksey Tolstoy, it won the hearts of the jury and spectators at the Ukrainian Festival of Puppet Theater, which was recently held in Zaporizhia. Dmytro Nuianzin’s play was awarded with a diploma in the “Best Play” nomination. In addition, awards were given to the theater’s actresses: Francesca Barabash (playing Tortilla the Tortoise) for the best actor’s work with puppets, and Olena Podolets (playing Malvina) as the best supporting actress.
The troop was long brooding on the idea of creating a puppet show for adults, too. Soon this dream may come true: the theater’s director Dmytro Nuianzin has started working on a major project — the play Man of La Mancha (based on Don Quixote). Spectators will be invited to watch the play’s premiere at the beginning of next year.
Starting from December 1 a third of medicines will be sold only on prescription
The Ukrainian Minister of Health Zinovii Mytnyk has announced that from December 1 onwards, a third of medicines will be sold on prescription only. This is how the authorities plan to teach Ukrainians not to treat themselves on their own, reports Korespondent. According to the minister, the share of drugs that will be sold on prescription only will reach 70 percent in the future. Moreover, doctors will be required to indicate active substances in Latin in their prescriptions, rather than the name of a drug. As clarified by Mytnyk, Ukrainians should first be taught to desist from self-treatment, and doctors are to be forced to recall their Latin. Later prescriptions will list a drug’s active substance, not its marketing name. “Due to the fact that [doctors] have not written out prescriptions for quite some time, and have lost their Latin writing skills, this will add to their burden,” said Iryna Pylypenko, head of a children’s polyclinic. According to the ministry, prescriptions are to be written in two copies. One copy will remain with the pharmacy and will be stored there for three months. Experts stress that a prescription should be a legal document, and subsequently even a financial one; such regulations will make it easier to prove doctors’ errors. The growing queues in hospitals and clinics have not changed the minister’s mind. Thus, the control of drugs is increasing, but there are no specifics on what penalties pharmacists will face for selling drugs without a prescription. We remind that earlier Mytnyk said that in case of a seasonal flu epidemic or acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in Ukraine he did not expect any problems with drugs and vaccines to appear.
Europe needs a new evangelization
The Ukrainian Catholic University hosted a discussion about the problems that modernity poses for the Christian faith in the form of a roundtable “Cultural and civilizational challenges faced by Christians.” Scholars affirmed that de-Christianization of human souls is the hallmark of the modern world, reports Radio Free Europe. Thus, Pope Benedict XVI’s call for a new evangelization of Europe was perceived as particularly timely. The main contradiction of the modern world, in a philosophical sense, is the struggle between civilization and barbarism. Not all those who claim the title of “civilization carriers” really deserve it. This was stressed by the roundtable’s chief presenter, writer, and theological researcher Myroslav Marynovych. He expressed his belief that the moral decay that is observed today ought to precede a spiritual enlightenment; it is an indication that there is spiritual growth somewhere, albeit invisible for now. It is important for people who can turn society towards goodness and spiritual order to appear, noted Marynovych.






