EVENT

UN raises money to help Pakistan

The UN appealed to its member countries to raise 459 million dollars to help the residents of Pakistan, who are suffering major flooding. This natural event, caused by protracted rains, has left at least 14 million people without a roof and means of support — every tenth inhabitant of the country. As the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes stated, this amount of money will help to fulfill priority tasks in assisting victims over the next three months. According to recent figures, close to 1,600 people were killed in the floods. However, Pakistani authorities believe that this figure could rise even higher. The UN Coordinator believes that the lives of millions of Pakistanis now depend on how quickly they will get help — drinking water, food, medicines. The West is also worried that militant groups could strengthen their influence in many parts of the country by distribution of humanitarian aid to the population.

Most households in Ukraine are run by women

Women are the heads of over 50 percent of Ukrainian households, according to the department of family and gender policy of the Ministry of Ukraine for Family, Youth and Sport. Experts say that this is not only the case in urban households but also in rural ones. Men between the ages of 30 and 59 are the heads of one third of households. Every fourth household is headed by woman who is 55 or older, one fifth — by women between 30 and 54, 14 percent are headed by men who are 60 or older. 18 to 29 year-olds predominate in only 10 percent of the households. The quantity of the households headed by people of retirement age is larger in rural areas than in urban ones (49 percent against 37 percent). Households that include two people remain the most widespread in Ukraine (29.1 percent). Their more numerous counterparts (five people and more) can still be found in rural areas (14 percent), but more rarely in urban ones (six percent). Large households (four people and more) prevail in the western regions: Transcarpathian, Volyn, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Ternopil and Rivne (ranging between 50 – 32 percent). As of 2010 there are over 17,000 households in Ukraine. There are 69 percenthouseholds in the urban areas (43 percent live in large cities (population of 100,000 and more), 26 percent - in small towns) and 31 percent in rural ones.

Political prisoners to participate in classes at Lviv schools

Oleh Bereziuk, director of the Administration of the city’s mayoral department, announced this on behalf of the Lviv mayor at the Congress of the All-Ukrainian Society of Political Prisoners and Victims of Political Repression. The press ser-vice of the mayor informed The Day that Andrii Sadovy, Lviv mayor, offered to hold open classes in all the city’s schools together with Society of Political Prisoners and Victims of Political Repression. The project starts on November 1 and it will be held for 9-11 grades. The subject of the classes will be the story of struggle for independence. “A country and a city that do not know their past and do not want to know it will never be successful. They will live in the fantasies of the unreal. Our children, the grandchildren of the political prisoners, should hear the true stories from living witnesses. This is our civic duty,” the Lviv mayor claimed. Let us remind that the 10th Congress of the All-Ukrainian Society of Political Prisoners and Victims of Political Repression took place last Saturday in Lviv. The delegates of 21 regional organization centers participated in the Congress. Petro Franko was elected to head the Lviv Regional Society. By Tetiana Kozyrieva, The Day, Lviv.

UEFA again denies any involvement in road construction in Kharkiv

The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) once again denied having anything to do with the construction of a highway across Gorky Park in Kharkiv. This information was voiced at a briefing held by Gianni Infantino, UEFA General Secretary.

“As far as I know, road construction was discussed as far back as in 2003, long before discussions on the European Championship actually began. We, the UEFA, have nothing to do with the construction of roads,” emphasized the UEFA general secretary. Our readers will remember that on August 3 the UEFA Operations Director Martin Cullen sent the acting mayor of Kharkiv, secretary of the city council Hennadii Kernes a letter concerning the much-disputed road construction in Kharkiv’s green belt area. The UEFA operations director asked Kernes to “once again reconsider the urgency of the new road construction.”

“We hope that it is possible to find an alternative solution which will satisfy all parties to this conflict,” said the letter. Cullen also noted that “the mass media wrongly associate this construction with the preparations for Euro 2012. I would like to emphasize that respect is one of UEFA’s main values, which we follow in all spheres of our activities, in the football pit and outside it. The UEFA does not want to be associated with projects which discredit this main principle,” noted Cullen.

In addition, the UEFA director addressed Borys Kolesnykov, vice prime minister for Euro 2012, with reference to the deforestation of Gorky Park: “Since this situation may damage the image of Euro 2012 UEFA in Ukraine, we would like to draw your attention to this problem and ask you to inform us of any actions directed at the solution of the issue.”

UNDP project to organize “Territory of Action” camp in Cherkasy oblast

An international volunteer camp “Territory of Action” has been launched in the village of Borovytsia (Chyhyryn raion, Cherkasy oblast), on Aug. 14, and will last till Aug. 21, 2010. It is a part of the UNDP project “Youth Social Inclusion for Civic Engagement in Ukraine.” Svitlana Sobova, coordinator of the event, told The Day that volunteers from Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Rivne, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kharkiv oblasts would spend a week learning to design social projects and find resources for their implementation. “We want to get youth involved in solving the problems of their communities,” she emphasized. Moreover, the volunteers are involved in at least four projects aimed at solving problems of the Borovytsia residents. In their task they are assisted by international volunteers from the US, South Korea, the Netherlands, Poland, and Ireland, who are sharing their experience of working in NGOs. Apart from training, the participants had been offered interesting entertainment programs, such as master classes in making true charms in the traditions of American Indians, classes in Korean, making traditional Polish cut-outs, painting Dutch porcelain, and playing Irish football. By Viktoria KOBYLIATSKA, Cherkasy