Yanukovych leading with over 30% in Ukraine election

Opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych is leading with over 30% of the vote in the first round of Ukraine's presidential election on Sunday, exit polls said.

According to the National Exit Poll-2010, he is gaining 31.5% and is followed by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko with 27.2% and Serhiy Tyhypko who has 13.5%. Statistical margin of error is 0.5%.

Another exit poll by SOCIS company for Inter TV said Yanukovych is gaining 36.6%, Tymoshenko 25% and banker Tyhypko 13.5%.

The ICTV channel's exit poll gave Yanukovych who leads the Party of Regions slightly over 35%, Tymoshenko 25.7%, and Tyhypko close to 13.5%.

Matias Ersi, the head of the Council of Europe delegation at the election, said the election was transparent and in line with international standards.

The Ukrainian president is elected for five years. The election comes off if 50% of voters have cast their ballots, and according to the Central Election Commission, the turnout today was 65.68%.

In order to win the election in the first round, a candidate should gain 50% plus one vote. As none of the candidates is gaining the necessary amount, a runoff is likely to be held February 7.

KIEV, January 17

RIA Novosti

'Bling ring' on trial for Hollywood celebrity burglaries

Stars such as Orlando Bloom, Megan Fox, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan were 'cased' online before well-heeled, young gang struck, prosecution will allege

Paul Harris

It was only a matter of time before burglars would use social networking websites to identify likely targets. This week in Los Angeles, prosecutors will claim that the "Bling Ring", four Hollywood teenagers and two twentysomething men, robbed celebrities whose houses they cased via the internet.

The alleged victims include some of the biggest Hollywood A-listers, including Orlando Bloom, Megan Fox, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. In total, the gang is believed to have bagged more than $3m worth of loot, mainly jewellery.

It has also brought together a murky tale that seems to combine many of the dominant themes of cultural angst in America: the boredom of the young and rich; the fetishisation of fame; and the disappearance of privacy in the wake of Google, Facebook and Twitter.

The hearing this week will see four of the Bling Ring up in court for preliminary hearings on the evidence against them, kicking off what many observers feel will be a dramatic legal case.

Certainly the accused are not stereotypical burglars. Instead they are young, relatively well off and linked to the Hollywood social scene which they stand accused of exploiting. One of them, Alexis Neiers, 18, was arrested while she was on the set of a pilot for a reality tele vision show that she was filming. Her sister is a Playboy model. Another, Nick Prugo, 19, appeared in a 2003 film called Little Lost Souls.

The neighbourhood from which the gang mostly hailed is also an atypical hotbed of criminal activity. Most of the gang knew each other from the wealthy suburb of Calabasas, 30 minutes' drive away from Hollywood Hills, where most of the celebrity victims lived.

Far from being crime-ridden, Calabasas boasts several stars among its residents, including actor Will Smith and reality TV star Kourtney Kardashian.

Though it has been reported that some of the stolen goods were fenced for cash, the members of the gang were also allegedly spotted wearing much of their loot, especially the jewellery and watches that had belonged to the stars.

"They came from privileged backgrounds. These people were not conducting crimes because they needed the money or the stolen goods. They did it probably for the thrill of it," said Elizabeth Kelley, a criminal defence attorney who has been following the case.

The gang's modus operandi seems disarmingly simple, police say, comprising merely consulting gossip websites such as TMZ or supermarket tabloids to check the latest fashions and designer jewels being worn by Hollywood's young stars. They would then use the same websites, and social media tools such as Twitter, on which many young stars post constant updates, to see if potential targets were out of town. In particular, they employed a website called Celebrityaddressaerial.com, which displays photographs of celebrity houses. It is meant for the simply curious, but for the Bling Ring it allegedly became a tool for choosing their next victim. "The internet has meant a new era for the criminal mind. There is more and more information out there, but there is less privacy," said Kelley.

Thanks to online research, the gang could strike knowing that the target was not at home. It is alleged that some celebrities, including actress Rachel Bilson and Paris Hilton, were hit more than once. In most cases the burglars found that doors had been left unlocked. The gang's hauls could be spectacular. In July 2009 Bloom was relieved of $500,000 of jewellery, watches and other goods.

While only the trial will reveal the strength of the prosecution and defence cases, either way the Bling Ring did not seem to have covered its tracks as carefully as it planned its strikes. Prugo is reported to have told investigators that artwork stolen from Bloom was hanging in one of his friend's bathrooms, while photographs have emerged of some gang members posing in stolen jewellery. They also kept personal photographs of Hilton and personal items from Lohan and Audrina Partridge, a reality TV actress on the MTV show The Hills.

So far, about $2m of merchandise has been recovered. "It as if they were cut off from reality. It's something that began on things like Facebook, but it is going to end with them wearing handcuffs," said celebrity interviewer and author Gayl Murphy.

The case also reads like a movie script, which probably won't upset the accused. "I wouldn't be surprised if there were two or three screenplays already being written with just this plot," said Murphy.

The Observer

Haitians Seek Solace Amid the Ruins

By MARC LACEY and DAMIEN CAVE

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — With their churches flattened, their priests killed and their Bibles lost amid the rubble of their homes, desperate Haitians prayed in the streets on Sunday, raising their arms in the air and asking God to ease their grief.

Outside the city’s main cathedral, built in 1750 but now a giant pile of twisted metal, shattered stained glass and cracked concrete, parishioners held a makeshift service at the curb outside, not far from where scores of homeless people were camping out in a public park. The bishop’s sermon of hope was a hard sell, though, as many listening had lost their relatives, their homes and their possessions.

“We have to keep hoping,” said Bishop Marie Eric Toussant, although he acknowledged that he had no resources to help his many suffering parishioners and did not know whether the historic cathedral would ever be rebuilt. He said the quake had toppled the residences where priests stayed, crushing many of them.

Baptized at the cathedral, Jean Viejina, 68, said she had visited the church every Sunday morning for as long as she can remember, using it to help her endure what she described as a challenging life raising six children. Now, even this place of refuge, like so much in Port-au-Prince, was gone.

In a sign of the importance of churches in Haitian society, President Rene Preval called together religious and business leaders Saturday at the police station that has become his headquarters. He asked the churches to focus on keeping people fed, but gave little guidance on what the government would be doing.

“They are still trying to figure out what to do,” said Haiti’s Episcopal bishop, Zache Duracin. “I have not seen anything”.

Lt. Gen. P.K. Keen, the deputy commander of the United States Southern Command who is overseeing military relief, said in an interview Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “we had a good day yesterday,” with 1,000 American military personnel on the ground in Haiti and 3,000 others on ships offshore delivering 130,000 rations and 70,000 bottles of water.

Calling the catastrophe “a disaster of epic proportions,” he said that American soldiers there are trying to balance security and the urgency of delivering supplies swiftly. “Our experience there is there is calm on the streets,” General Keen said.

Rajiv Shah, director of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said on the same program that three water purification units had been put into operation and were producing 100,000 liters of clean water a day. Search and rescue teams in Port-au-Prince had managed “dozens of successes” in pulling out both Haitians and Americans from the rubble of collapsed buildings, he said.

Former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, who were appointed by President Obama to raise funds for relief through the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund, made the rounds of the Sunday morning television news programs to discuss the needs in Haiti. President Bush said one of the lessons that previous disasters like Hurricane Katrina taught him is that “it takes time to get supplies in”.

“It’s important for our country not to give up on Haiti,” he said on “Meet the Press.” “There’s too much suffering that can take place if we abandon Haiti”.

President Clinton praised the current Haiti government and said Haitians have “shown a willingness to change to improve their own circumstances.” Before the earthquake, he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” “they were on the blade of building a modern society”.

In Port-au-Prince on Sunday, some people seemed far too concerned with survival, or too confused, to think of church. One young man living in the park across from the presidential palace with thousands of others made homeless looked puzzled when asked if he would be going to church.

“Is it Sunday?” he said.

But other Haitians spent the morning searching for spiritual solace.

Carrying Bibles, they traversed the dusty streets on foot looking for outdoor prayer gatherings. Churches once full of passionate parishioners stood empty, if they stood at all.

At Holy Trinity Episcopal church, the world-renowned murals in the sanctuary had been reduced to rubble as drab as chalk. Only one wall stood, showing the baptism of Christ. The rest of Jesus Christ’s life, as depicted by artists like Wilson Bigaud who displayed biblical figures with dark skin and tropical-colored clothes, were all destroyed.

Three older women arrived there around 9 a.m. looking for a service, wearing dresses that were remarkably clean and wrinkle-free.

The gathering they found, however, dealt with the physical and not the spiritual. More than 1,200 people were camping out in the soccer field of the campus, and in a grove of shade, a man with a megaphone and Latex gloves advised the group about hygiene.

“We need to make plans to pick up the garbage,” he said.

The three women sat down at first, then moved on when an argument broke out about whether women would be allowed to use the priest’s toilet.

Later, more people came and left, including Dorsainvil Joseph, 53, who carried a red leather Bible in his one good hand. The other looked broken. It was swollen, held up in a sling made of thin, white rope.

His head was wrapped in a bandage.

“We would like to pray, but we haven’t found anyone,” Mr. Joseph said.

Bishop Duracin said organization and survival were still the priorities for both people and institutions.

“Most of the churches are down,” he said, estimating that more than 100 of the 140 Episcopal churches here had collapsed. “There is almost no place for worship or prayer”.

People are afraid to go into buildings, including churches, that did not collapse, he said, including himself. His home was completely destroyed, so he was sleeping one of the red Coleman tents that he distributed to about 40 families.

He said that since the earthquake, he had not given a single sermon and was still trying to figure out what to say. When asked what parts of the Bible he had been contemplating lately, he answered quickly: “Job,” he said.

Like Job, who persevered through death and destruction, Bishop Duracin said he hoped that Haiti would soon find a way to continue living.

“We have to look for opportunities from the disaster,” he said. “We have to mourn. We have to suffer. But we have to get up because life has to continue”.

Joseph Berger contributed reporting from New York

The New York Times