Tunisians in historic vote spurred by Arab Spring

October 26, 2014

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisians expressed tentative hope for the future as they lined up early Sunday to choose their first five-year parliament since they overthrew their dictator in the 2011 revolution that kicked off the Arab Spring.

The past three and a half years have been marked by political turmoil, terrorist attacks and a faltering economy which has brought disillusionment to many over the democratic process, even though Tunisia is widely seen as the country that has the best chance for democracy in the Arab world.

"We are proud to vote. It's our duty as citizens and I am optimistic," said Zeinab Turabi, a lawyer in the affluent Tunis neighborhood of Sukra. "If you don't vote, you'll get Libya," he added, referring to the neighboring country which has been taken hostage by violent militias since the downfall of dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

At polling stations in the 27 districts across Tunisia, citizens have a bewildering array of candidates to choose from with more than 50 choices laid out on enormous ballots, though the Islamist Ennahda Party is expected to do well.

The election in this country of 11 million is for the 217 seat parliament and the largest party will get the right to form a government. Presidential elections are in November. "I came to vote to save my country from many things, primarily terrorism, and then inflation and unemployment," said Wafaa Masmoudi, a civil servant voting in the Tunis suburb of Carthage.

As recently as Friday, police stormed a house full of suspected militants after a 24-hour standoff, killing five women and a man, all described as "terrorists" by the government. The Ennahda Party did well immediately after the revolution, though many criticized the Islamists' turbulent two years in power and they later stepped aside in favor of a transition government ahead of elections.

"I don't want the same people to stay in power, that is why I came to vote to prevent that from happening," said Amira Medeb, a bank director who admitted she was afraid for the future. In the lower income Tunis neighborhood of Yasmina, voters chose to separate themselves into male and female lines while waiting to vote, officials said.

"We wanted this separation because it is not logical for men and women to be mixed in the same line, we must respect each other," said Mohammed Saleh Mellouli, a middle-aged man with a beard. He cited the economy as his main concern in the election.

Despite Sunday being a weekend in Tunisia, people woke early to vote, citing the five hour long lines in 2011. "The last three years have been really bad, but we're hoping it will get better," said Mehdi Omar, a taxi driver, his finger stained blue from the indelible ink used to mark voters.

Associated Press writer Bouazza ben Bouazza contributed to this report.

Tunisians skeptical on eve of historic election

October 25, 2014

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — In a raucous cafe in a Tunis slum, men talked in loud voices and paid little attention to the politicians debating on the television mounted on the wall. Qais Jebali swiftly made espressos behind the bar and explained why no one in the gritty neighborhood of Tadamon cared about the upcoming elections.

"We've had five governments since 2011 and nothing has changed on the ground," he said, arranging the cups of strong black coffee on a tray with a bowl of sugar. "The poor people don't trust the government because they are marginalized, harassed by police and don't have money to pay bribes."

Outside, members of the National Guard in bullet-proof vests and carrying assault rifles waved cars through a dilapidated traffic circle. Security was heightened because a standoff with suspected militants was taking place just a few kilometers (miles) away.

On Sunday, Tunisians will vote for their first five-year parliament since they overthrew dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, marking the end of the democratic transition that they alone among the pro-democracy Arab Spring uprisings have managed to achieve. Now, many Tunisians are expressing disillusionment over democracy.

They say it has not brought prosperity and seems largely to involve squabbling politicians and attacks by Islamic militants, raising fears that many may not turn out to vote in a country that has been described as the best chance for democracy in the Arab world.

"There is a depression after these three years of seeing rulers lying, not keeping their word, not doing or not even trying to do what they promised to do, and especially, in the midst of a dire economic situation," said Chawki Gaddes, a political analyst at Tunis University.

In 2011, the moderate Islamist Ennahda Party dominated elections and formed a coalition government with two secular parties. Over the next two years, the country was buffeted by punishing inflation, attacks by radical Islamists, assassinations and the daily spectacle of squabbling politicians in a country accustomed to a half century of one-party rule.

As the government and opposition deadlocked amid the rising political acrimony — and against the backdrop of a military coup against the Islamist government in nearby Egypt — the Islamist-led government stepped down at the end of 2013 in favor of new cabinet of technocrats.

Polling from the Pew Research center in Tunisia has seen support for democracy as the best form of government drop from 63 percent in 2012 to 48 percent, while the demand for a strong leader rose from 37 percent to 59 percent.

The disaffection is particularly strong among young people, the group that so spectacularly took to the streets to fight Ben Ali's riot police and force him out of power three years ago. In the neighborhoods like Tadamon, it's difficult to find any young people registered to vote. According to Mouheb Garoui of the election monitoring group I Watch, some 60 percent are undecided just days before the election.

"There were so many promises in 2011 and now the same promises are being made in 2014," he said. "There is discontent and apathy among youth." The Islamist-led government managed to lay down many of building blocks of a new political system and, together with the opposition, write a constitution described as one of the most progressive in the region. Yet the turmoil and deadlock kept away foreign aid, tourism and investment.

"The question of the economy was neglected in the three years of the revolution — it was years of political wrangling and political transition," Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa, the interim prime minister that succeeded the Islamist government, told The Associated Press. He says his administration, which succeeded the Islamist government, has begun the necessary economic reforms to stabilize the country. Under his watch, foreign aid has flowed back to the country.

In the past year, security forces have also carried out a string of attacks to dismantle suspected militant cells, most recently on Friday when a counterterrorism operation in the suburbs resulted in the deaths of six alleged militants — five of them gun-toting women, according to police.

The party most hoping to capitalize on voters' disaffection is Nida Tunis (Tunisia's Call) run by charismatic — albeit 87-year-old — politician Beji Caid Essebsi, who is clearly trying to evoke the good old days of an educated, modern Tunisia without the dictatorship.

Formed after the revolution, the party brings together trade unionists, businessmen and more than a few politicians from Ben Ali's time that are united by little more than opposition to the Islamists. The main message of their campaign has been that their party represents progress in the face of what they call the reactionary policies of Ennahda.

"We needed a party to bring back the middle class that was pushed to the side by the aggression of the Islamists and their beliefs," said Mustapha Ben Ahmed, a member of the party's executive bureau. "This historical bloc can restore the prestige of the state."

The party is probably the only one that can compete with Ennahda's impressive organization around the country and is running equal in polls. With the anti-Islamist vote divided among many parties all promising jobs and stability, Ennahda likely will have to be part of any future coalition — a possibility Ben Ahmed fervently condemned as an "unnatural alliance."

The leader of Ennahda, however, has said his party is ready to make a coalition with whomever else the voters choose, though Nida Tunis would not be his first choice. Rachid Ghannouchi told AP that the lesson he has learned from the party's first experience in power was the need for an even broader-based coalition to carry out the difficult reforms need to get the country on track.

"Before when we came to power we were just activists and not statesmen but today we have both activists and statesmen," he said. "We have gained experience and become more realistic with a better understanding of the problems of the people."

At a massive Ennahda rally in the heart of downtown on the iconic Bourguiba Avenue on the eve of the election, thousands cheered and waved flags, showing none of the flagging enthusiasm for politics found elsewhere.

For supporters of the party, any past missteps are made up for by the belief that the Islamists have their best interests at heart. "They were learning," said Kamal Ali as he drove his car through downtown. "Do children on the first day of school already know how to read and write?"

He gestured at the still damaged husk of the old ruling party headquarters nearby. "The others they knew how to do politics, but they also knew how to steal — morals is the most important thing."

Associated Press writers Bouazza ben Bouazza and Sam Kimball contributed to this report.

Tunisia holds election dry run

By Jamel Arfaoui in Tunis for Magharebia
22/10/2014

To prepare for all surprises on the real election day, Tunisia held a test vote last Saturday (October 18th).

"Preparations have reached final phases," said Mohamed Chafik Sarsar, who heads the Independent High Electoral Commission (ISIE).

"ISIE employees and cadres are putting the final touches before election day on October 26th," he said.

The election dry run, attended by ISIE representatives and civil society groups, was held in the Tunis suburb of Ben Arous.

The test starting with receiving election documents, tools and printed materials at the polling stations.

It then simulated the experience of voters, from the time they arrive to cast their ballots: identity checks, receiving the ballot, entering the voting booth and putting the ballot in the box.

Other practice runs focused on preventing voter fraud at the ballot box level.

These included carrying the ballot boxes to the collection center (there is an assembly center in each constituency) and the attendees learning how to take down the results based on sorting reports received from polling stations. This is to be conducted manually, with the data later entered into a computerized system.

"For a moment, I felt as if it was a real election day," Abir al-Saidi, who took part in the dry run, told Magharebia. "The scene was well organised, and our army and police forces were present in the place wearing their official uniforms."

Her colleague Tarik Bouziane urged citizens to abide by instructions and to go to polling stations early on October 26th.

"We all have to take advantage of this day to confirm our patriotism and cherish our right to freely choose those who will represent us in parliament," Bouziane said.

More than 5 million citizens have registered for the vote.

Security forces have been deployed around polling stations to provide protection until the end of voting and sorting.

The dry run capped a training course for some 50,000 workers who will secure the poll, the ISIE chief said. The initiative was launched after some expressed concerns about potential technical and human disruptions.

ISIE member Nabil Bafun said that the election would take place smoothly and that the commission was prepared for all surprises.

"ISIE will also respect election law by announcing the election results within three days," he told TAP.

"The supervising electoral committee has gained enough experience to make the vote a success on October 26th," voter Samia El Alaoui told Magharebia.

Source: Magharebia.
Link: http://magharebia.com/en_GB/articles/awi/features/2014/10/22/feature-02.

Derna Islamists open Sharia court

2014-10-23

The Shura Council of Islamic Youth officially launched its own court in Derna, Libya Herald reported on Wednesday (October 22nd).

The former al-Qaeda affiliate and Ansar-al Sharia branch, which recently declared allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS), set up the Sharia court in the legal aid building next to King Idris library.

Daesh signs are now on buildings across Derna. Another banner saying "Islamic Police" was put up at one station. Police vehicles also bear the new markings.

The Yemeni head of Derna's new Sharia court, Abu Taleb Al-Jazrawi, reportedly demanded that schools stop teaching foreign languages, physics, chemistry and biology.

The group on Saturday flogged several young men for drinking alcohol. In late August, the Shura Council of Islamic Youth staged a public execution at the local football stadium.

Source: Magharebia.
Link: http://magharebia.com/en_GB/articles/awi/newsbriefs/general/2014/10/23/newsbrief-01.

Benghazi welcomes Libyan army

By Nadia Radhwan in Benghazi for Magharebia
23/10/2014

Libyan army forces on Wednesday (October 22nd) entered Sidi Khalifa in the eastern suburbs of Benghazi with little resistance from Shura Revolutionary Council fighters.

The army's reconnaissance vehicles were met with cheers and applause by citizens in the al-Wahaishi and al-Salam neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, the air force on Wednesday evening targeted the headquarters of Raf Allah al-Sahati brigade, one of the biggest terror strongholds in the al-Hawari area.

Fighter jets also attacked the al-Quarshah gate, another terrorist stronghold. Supplies coming from western Libya to terrorist groups in the east pass through the gate.

The Libyan army said terrorist Tawfik Makhlouf al-Hejazi and his son were killed following desperate resistance after he refused to turn himself in. The event capped several developments on a tense day in the Deriana area, east of Benghazi.

A suicide bomber attacked a security checkpoint in the same area early Wednesday morning, AFP reported. One person was killed and four were wounded in the car bombing.

At least 10 others were slain in Benghazi on Wednesday, bringing the death toll in the recent clashes to 110 people.

The army declared a curfew in Benghazi from 7:00pm Wednesday to 7:00am Thursday and warned that it would open fire on any movement, especially in areas where the terrorist group Ansar al-Sharia is active.

Benghazi district youths shared a circular on social networking websites in which they warned about three large garbage trucks loaded with snipers and suicide bombers on their way to al-Salam neighborhood where the army's reconnaissance vehicles entered. Pictures of al-Hejazi going around that area Wednesday evening were also shared on social networking websites.

Meanwhile, a Libyan soldier was killed Wednesday evening as he dismantled a landmine in Sidi Mansour, east of Benghazi.

Two decomposed bodies were also found in Sidi Mansour as the army combed the area and cleared explosives and landmines.

Skirmishes continue around the February 17th Brigade camp as remnants of the Islamist forces battle the Libyan army's 204th Tank Battalion and 21st Special Operations Battalion. The army is combing the area, prompting fierce battles between the Special Forces and the extremists at the university campus, which they penetrated after their February 17th Brigade base was captured by the army. As a result, shells hit the public administration building.

The army also said it had cleared Benina and Sidi Faraj of extremist militias, which had controlled them for months.

"We express our respect and appreciation to our army's officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers for their great sacrifices for Libyans," commented Marwan al-Kharam, a 35-year-old journalist. "We pray to God to have mercy on those who died for the true Islam, not the Islam of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), and on those who died for truth, homeland, pride, honor and dignity."

For her part, lawyer Najlaa al-Zaydi said: "The internal security and intelligence agency must be activated as of now in Benghazi. We call upon all former security agencies to return to work."

"We also call upon all honest people and heroes, all those who love Benghazi, the cradle of revolution, our land and home, which has always been generous to everyone, all military units and all those whose hands haven't been stained with blood, to return to work and join the army. Those who fail to do that will be deemed as traitors who have no place among honest people," she added.

"This is the hour of decisiveness," al-Zayda said.

Source: Magharebia.
Link: http://magharebia.com/en_GB/articles/awi/features/2014/10/23/feature-01.

Japan, North Korea start talks on abductions

October 28, 2014

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Japanese and North Korean officials held talks in Pyongyang for the first time in 10 years Tuesday, meeting to assess progress into North Korea's investigation into the fates of Japanese citizens who were abducted in the 1970s and '80s.

The abduction issue has long been a major obstacle in the frosty ties between the two nations, which have no formal diplomatic relations. The Japanese delegation, led by Junichi Ihara, head of the Asia and Oceania affairs bureau at Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is to stay in North Korea for four days.

After years of denial, North Korea acknowledged in an unprecedented 2002 summit between Kim Jong Il and then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that its agents had kidnapped 13 Japanese, mainly to train spies in Japanese language and culture. It allowed five of them to return to Japan that year, but said the others had died.

Japan believes hundreds more may have been abducted and some may still be alive. In what was seen as a significant breakthrough after years of stalemate, North Korea agreed in May to launch a new probe into the abductions. In exchange, Japan agreed to ease some unilateral sanctions on North Korea, though it continues to enforce sanctions backed by the United Nations over North Korea's nuclear and long-range missile programs.

But progress in North Korea's re-investigation has been slower than Tokyo had hoped. In September, Ihara and his North Korean counterpart, Song Il Ho, held a meeting in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang. Japan was hoping then to receive a preliminary report on the investigation, but none was presented.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the delegation is being sent to convey that the resolution of the issue is a high priority for Japan. He has promised not to relent until all of the abductees are returned to Japan or accounted for.

That could prove to be a very complicated and sensitive matter since estimates of the number of abductees range from the 17 that the Japanese government officially acknowledges to more than 800 that Japanese police list as cases of missing persons in which abductions by North Korea cannot be ruled out.

The last time the two sides had talks in Pyongyang was in November 2004, six months after Koizumi's second visit.

Taiwan reveals new plans to send nuclear waste abroad

Taipei (AFP)
Oct 14, 2014

Taiwan on Tuesday unveiled plans to process nuclear waste abroad for the first time as its power plants reach capacity -- but environment groups slammed the proposal as "too risky".

The government is under growing public pressure over its unpopular nuclear policy as concerns over the safety of its plants have grown since the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan.

Authorities were forced in July to seal off a new power plant due to open next year, pending a referendum on its future.

But the government says Taiwan will run out of energy if it ditches nuclear power -- the three plants currently operated by state-owned Taipower supply 20 percent of the island's electricity.

The new proposals, announced on Tuesday by a special government task force, pave the way for used nuclear fuel rods stored at two plants to be shipped abroad to be processed.

A reduced amount of nuclear material would then be sent back to Taiwan and re-stored at the sites, which are due to come out of commission within the next few years and are reaching storage capacity.

"The storage sites of the two plants would run out of capacity next year and the plants would have to be shut down if these plans were not carried out," Bob Lee, spokesman for the task force, told AFP.

He added that open bidding was scheduled for next year to pick a contractor. One Taipower official said a French firm had already voiced interest in processing the waste.

The government and Taipower say the processing plan could significantly reduce the amount of used nuclear fuel and that only a few countries have the technology to carry it out.

But the plan sparked opposition from environmental protection groups who questioned the safety of shipping the fuel.

Activist Pan Han-shen of the Tree Party warned it was "too risky".

"Any risks in the process of transportation could be a huge disaster," he said.

The two plants which currently store the spent fuel rods were launched in 1978 and 1981 -- they will each be decommissioned once they have been operational for 40 years.

Concerns about Taiwan's nuclear power facilities have mounted since 2011, when Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant was hit by a tsunami which knocked out power to its cooling systems and sent reactors into meltdown.

Like Japan, Taiwan is regularly hit by earthquakes. In September 1999 a 7.6-magnitude quake killed around 2,400 people in the island's deadliest natural disaster in recent history.

Source: Nuclear Power Daily.
Link: http://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/reports/Taiwan_reveals_new_plans_to_send_nuclear_waste_abroad_999.html.

Hong Kong activists mull Beijing visit during APEC

October 31, 2014

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong student protest leaders are considering visiting Beijing while it hosts a major Asian summit next week to press their demands for greater democratic reforms.

Student leader Alex Chow said at a rally late Thursday that protest organizers would discuss the idea of trying to talk to Chinese officials during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum that begins Nov. 5.

Chow said it's unclear whether protest leaders would even be allowed to make it past mainland Chinese border checkpoints. "If we can cross the border then naturally we hope to have direct dialogue with authorities," Chow told reporters.

"But if we can't cross the border, then we'll know that Beijing has sent a message to Hong Kongers ... that they're completely ignoring Hong Kongers demands" to drop proposed curbs on the inaugural election of the city's leader, he said.

The student leaders are trying to maintain momentum for their movement, which is now in its second month. The government has not responded to a request earlier this week to arrange a meeting with senior Chinese officials.

Authorities in Beijing have been tightening up security ahead of next week's APEC summit. President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other leaders from the group's 21 member economies will attend the meeting.

Protesters are in a standoff with the government over the Chinese government's requirement for a Beijing-friendly committee to screen candidates for the 2017 vote, blasting it as fake democracy. The protesters have been occupying major streets in three districts around Hong Kong for five weeks to press their demands.

Hong Kong's government appears to be trying to wait out the protesters and has not offered any concrete concessions. Chow told the rally that Hong Kong officials had passed the buck to Beijing, "so we thought why not seek out Beijing directly" to drop the election curbs.

The Last Hieroglyphic Language on Earth and an Ancient Culture Fighting to Survive

By April Holloway, www.ancient-origins.net
October 21, 2014

The Dongba symbols are an ancient system of pictographic glyphs created by the founder of the B?n religious tradition of Tibet and used by the Naxi people in southern China.  Historical records show that this unique script was used as early as the 7th century, during the early Tang Dynasty, however, research conducted last year showed that its origins may date back as far as 7,000 years ago. Incredibly, the Dongba symbols continue to be used by the elders of the Naxi people, making it the only hieroglyphic language still used in the world today.

The Naxi people lived in the beautiful mountain province of Yunnan (“south of the clouds”) for thousands of years, where they developed their own rich and enduring culture. Today, most of the 270,000 Naxi people live in the county of Lijiang where they retain many of their ancient traditions.

The Dongba script of the Naxi people is both pictographic and ideographic. The writing, unlike anything known elsewhere, superficially resembles the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, but it has a certain action and humour that distinguishes it from other scripts. While there are only about 1,300 symbols in total, the script has been used to write a huge number of scriptures, from incredible tales of creation to methods for carrying out exorcism. They also provide a kind of encyclopaedia of the ancient Naxi people, recording in detail their beliefs, customs, traditions and ways of life.

It is not a simplistic system of writing. Illustrations were used to represent not only material objects but also abstract ideas, syllables, and even methods of pronunciation. For example, the character ‘cliff’ has the form of a cliff and it has the same pronunciation as ‘chicken’, which is illustrated by a chicken head drawn inside the cliff.  A single pictograph can also be used to recite different phrases or an entire sentence. The script is incredibly logical – when a symbol is drawn upside down it indicates negation; straight lines drawn between people indicates ‘fight’, while entwined lines represent ‘discuss’; a dead animal is drawn as usual but without pupils in the eyes.

The symbols on the left represent the sun, moon, and rain. But far from being simplistic, these symbols have been incorporated into in-depth accounts of creation. For example, the below fragment of “The War between Dong and Shu”, one of the most important myths to the Naxi, reads: “In the old times, when the sky and the earth had not still been formed, the sun and moon had still not been created, the stars had still not arisen, mountains and ravines had not still been formed, trees and stones had not still arisen…”

Historically, the Dongba script was used by the Dongba priests, and the creation and development of the script is closely connected to the emergence of the Dongba religion.  The Dongba religion was rooted in the beliefs of the Tibetan B?n religion – the word “Dongba” literally means “wise man” in the Naxi language. Historians have traced origins to a B?n shaman from eastern Tibet named Dongba Shilo, who lived in a cave near Baishuitai 900 years ago.

B?n lamas are believed to have settled among the Naxi as farmers, and to have begun to practice exorcisms as a way of earning a little money on the side. By the early nineteenth century, the Dongba priests had created a huge religious vocabulary accompanied by a variety of rituals.  Their scriptures contain several kinds of rituals and also legends, poetry, prayers, astronomy, medicine, and divination. As Zhu Bao-Tian, a noted cultural anthropologist from the Yunnan Provincial Museum in China, said: “The Naxi manuscripts are a living fossil for the study of ancient culture”.

Although today many Naxi are not religious, in the 1940s there were more than 4,000 Naxi Dongba priests. Their religion was characterized by a fascination with power and miracles, and belief in a multitude of gods and demons who could be manipulated with magic. However, the numbers of Dongba priests drastically declined following the communist revolution in China in 1949, during which thousands of manuscripts were destroyed and a war was declared on teaching language and traditions that were considered “superstitious.” It is estimated that today there are only about 60 Dongba priests remaining who can read and write the Dongba script. Most of those priests are over 70 and they are afraid that when they die, the traditions and writing of their people will die with them.

Today, the incredible pictographic Dongba script is nearly extinct, though a revival has recently occurred. Over 30 books have now been published with instruction on how to read the Dongba symbols. Young students regularly visit the Lijing Dongba Museum to learn about the language, while others study the script full time.

Since 1998, the people from Lijiang have been receiving free tuition on the Dongba language, culture and dancing, with the goal of transmitting this ancient knowledge to the coming generations.

Source: The Epoch Times.
Link: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1033184-the-last-hieroglyphic-language-on-earth-and-an-ancient-culture-fighting-to-survive/.

Central Europe, Britain oppose Ukraine rebel vote

October 30, 2014

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — The foreign ministers of four Central European countries and Britain have condemned a plan by pro-Russia insurgents in eastern Ukraine to hold local elections.

In a joint statement after their meeting Thursday in the Slovak capital of Bratislava, the ministers called the vote set for Sunday "illegitimate" and in breach of a cease-fire deal reached in Minsk, Belarus, last month.

"We call on all parties to observe the Minsk Protocol and the Minsk Memorandum and to act toward the peaceful solution of the conflict and restoring stability based upon the full respect of the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine," they said.

The ministers representing Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland together with their British counterpart, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, also urged Russia not to recognize the vote. "We call upon the Russian Federation to significantly contribute to the peaceful solution of the conflict by refusing to acknowledge such 'elections,'" they said. "The only elections that have legitimacy in Ukraine are those held under Ukrainian law."

The EU has already warned that it wouldn't recognize the vote but Russia says a rejection of the rebel vote could undermine the entire peaceful settlement. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also said the rebel vote would breach both the Ukrainian constitution and national law.

In Moscow, former rebel leader Igor Streklov told reporters that he did not think the cease-fire in eastern Ukraine would last long and fighting would resume soon. The conflict that began a month after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in March has killed at least 3,000 people and left sections of eastern Ukraine under rebel control.

Ukraine says Moscow supports the rebels, a charge that Moscow denies.

Brutal winter set to hit war-torn eastern Ukraine

October 30, 2014

DONETSK, Ukraine (AP) — Dark tunnels in the basement of a bombed-out hospital in the eastern city of Donetsk lead to a makeshift shelter. Opening the door hardly alleviates the gloom, for the only lighting inside is the flicker of handmade oil lamps.

The inhabitants move around like shadows, eyes dull and faces weary with hardship, dressed in several layers of worn-out sweatshirts, vests and jackets. The tiny rooms are lit with sunflower oil poured into saucers and set aflame.

These people took refuge in the abandoned hospital's basement after their own homes were destroyed. They are either too poor or old to flee the brutal separatist war that has ravaged Ukraine's east. Their dire situation is about to become much worse as Donetsk, which has lost nearly half of its 1 million-strong population, braces for winter. In eastern Ukraine, where temperatures typically stay below freezing all winter, damage to critical infrastructure and lack of adequate shelter for the newly homeless could mean death from cold for many.

"We have nowhere to go," says Vera Dvornikova, a 70-year-old janitor who has been living in the basement of Hospital 18 on the northern outskirts of town since her apartment was obliterated by shelling in late July.

Her murky room is cluttered with shabby relics of the past, battered old chairs and something with a blanket on it, which could be a bed. "We don't even know who we should ask for help," she says. "We just sit here like rats."

The basement that Dvornikova shares with 19 others has no running water or heating, and electricity has been cut off for a month. Asked how she is preparing for winter, Dvornikova mutters vaguely about keeping warm with an oil cloth and two blankets which she took from the hospital upstairs.

The hospital lies in a residential area full of five-story blocks with missing roofs, gaping holes in the walls and gutted windows. The neighborhood is across the bridge from the airport which has been an epicenter of heavy fighting between pro-Russian rebels and government forces for weeks. As the homeless huddle in basements, gangs of purring stray cats roam the streets outside.

A few blocks away, a repair team is fixing a hot water pipe that will soon switch heating on for one of the damaged houses. Alexander Zuyev, the team's supervisor, says it is not within his power to help Dvornikova and her fellow lodgers because the hospital, like many buildings in the neighborhood, has been too heavily damaged. Without the roof and windows, he said, fixing the heating is pointless.

Some of Donetsk's boiler stations that provide heat to homes are situated on the front line of fighting. Accessing them to switch on the heating — if the equipment is intact — is simply too dangerous, Zuyev says.

About 1,000 houses and apartment blocks, some 10 percent of the city's total, have been damaged by shelling, according to Maxim Rovinsky, a former official in the Donetsk City Hall. Many are beyond repair. The rebel government says that over 3,000 homes have been damaged.

Ukraine's Social Affairs Ministry says the government has compensations measures in place for damaged houses, adding that regional governments are obliged to provide temporary accommodation for people in need. But in reality, residents of destroyed homes find no officials to turn to — forcing them to find their own shelter like the residents of the hospital basement.

As of Tuesday, nearly 2,000 private houses and several dozens of apartment blocks were without electricity, while 49 villages and 3 towns in the region were partly or fully cut off, according to the local energy company DTEK. The separatists' self-proclaimed prime minister, Alexander Zakharchenko, said Russia is helping with funds to repair infrastructure but he did not specify how much money was at their disposal.

Compounding Ukraine's energy woes, European Union-brokered talks to guarantee Russian gas imports into Ukraine throughout the winter broke up inconclusively early Thursday, with a draft for a 'common understanding' sent to Moscow and Kiev for consideration, according to an EU official who asked not to be named because an agreement had yet to be reached.

Heating woes aside, the rebel stronghold is surprisingly well-stocked considering it is almost entirely surrounded by government troops. Many grocery stores, pharmacies and open-air markets are open. One upscale restaurant, well-established before the war, is offering its customers oysters this fall.

Food prices have shot up, however. Valentyna Dedyk, director of the wholesale food distributor Sotrudnichestvo, says her suppliers have raised prices by about 25 percent since June. Some foodstuffs are produced in Donetsk, she says, but many are shipped from other Ukrainian regions across the enemy lines — increasing costs. The goods are now shipped with the help of an intermediary who can guarantee the cargo clears checkpoints on both sides.

And the sight of well-stocked markets in Donetsk can be deceiving. The elderly residents who stayed behind cannot afford to buy from them since most have not received pensions for at least three months. Coal miners and municipal workers like Zuyev and his team who were repairing pipes have not been paid for months, either.

Even after losing control of the area in spring, the Ukrainian government kept paying pensions and benefits there before they froze them in May. The press office of the Social Affairs Ministry said the government has cut off pensions to about half a million people in the area under rebel control "as the cash could simply be stolen." But the pension can be withdrawn from "any location under government control." Rebel leader Zakharchenko said on Wednesday they were going to start paying "part" of the pensions next month.

In the basement of Hospital 18, auto mechanic Vladimir Tumanov, whose home was destroyed in late August, lives in limbo with his 73-year-old mother who is too ill to leave town. "We will get through this winter somehow as long as mortars ... stop falling on our heads," Tumanov says. "Everyone here prays every day for the war to end."

Yuras Karmanau in Kiev, Ukraine, contributed to this report.

Sweden recognizes Palestinian state; Israel upset

October 30, 2014

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Sweden on Thursday became the biggest Western European country to recognize a Palestinian state, prompting a strong protest from Israel, which swiftly withdrew its ambassador from Stockholm.

The move by Sweden's new left-leaning government reflects growing international impatience with Israel's nearly half-century control of the West Bank, east Jerusalem and its blockade of the Gaza Strip. It also comes during increased tensions between Arabs and Jews over Israel's plans to build 1,000 housing units in east Jerusalem.

Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said Sweden, fulfilling a promise made when the Social Democratic-led government took office earlier this month, believes the Palestinians have met the criteria under international law for such recognition.

"There is a territory, a people and government," she told reporters in Stockholm, adding that Sweden was the 135th country in the world to recognize a Palestinian state. It is the third Western European nation to do so, after Malta and Cyprus. Some Eastern European countries recognized a Palestinian state during the Cold War.

Israel was quick to condemn Sweden's announcement, with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman describing it as "a miserable decision that strengthens the extremist elements and Palestinian rejectionism."

"It's a shame that the government of Sweden chose to take a declarative step that only causes harm," he added. Foreign Ministry spokesman Paul Hirschson said Israel's ambassador to Sweden was being recalled for consultations but declined to say how long he would remain in Israel.

Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestinian official, welcomed the move by Sweden, a European Union member, as "a principled and courageous decision." "It is our hope that other EU member states and countries worldwide will follow Sweden's lead and recognize Palestine before the chances for a two-state solution are destroyed indefinitely," Ashrawi said.

Israel says Palestinians can gain independence only through peace negotiations, and that recognition of Palestine at the U.N. or by individual countries undermines the negotiating process. Palestinians say Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu isn't serious about the peace negotiations.

The latest round of U.S.-brokered talks collapsed in April. American officials have hinted that Israel's tough negotiating stance hurt the talks, and Netanyahu has continued to settle Israelis in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

More than 550,000 Israelis now live in the two areas, greatly complicating hopes of partitioning the area under a future peace deal. The two territories and the Gaza Strip are claimed by Palestinians for a future state.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the U.S. supports Palestinian statehood but added it can only come through negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians that resolve status issues and end their conflict.

"Some countries (are) responding to the lack of a resolution of a peace process out there," she said. Wallstrom, the Swedish foreign minister, said she had anticipated Israeli criticism against Sweden's decision.

"It happens that ambassadors are recalled for consultations. It is part of the diplomatic toolkit," Wallstrom said. "I am convinced that both our countries have an interest in maintaining and strengthening our good bilateral ties."

While the U.S. and European powers have so far refrained from recognizing Palestinian independence, they have become increasingly critical of Israeli settlement construction. The 28-nation European Union has urged that negotiations to achieve a two-state solution resume as soon as possible.

In a symbolic move, British lawmakers earlier this month voted in favor of recognizing Palestine as a state. Some other Western European countries — including Germany, Denmark and Finland — have said they're not planning to follow Sweden's lead.

Associated Press writers Matti Huuhtanen in Helsinki, Karin Laub in Jerusalem and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

Ukraine looks to reform with an eye on Europe

October 27, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — As Ukraine's most ardently pro-European parties pocketed a resounding collective election triumph Monday, thoughts turned to a reform agenda that promises pain and progress in equal doses.

Although the outcome of Sunday's vote is in part fruit of a surge in anti-Russian sentiment, Moscow says it will recognize the result and urged Ukraine's new order to grapple with the country's most pressing problems.

With 72 percent of the vote counted Monday, the three main Western-leaning parties alone stood to win a combined 54 percent of the vote. Coalition negotiations were already underway. Parliament is now largely purged of the loyalists of former President Viktor Yanukovych, who sparked months of protests — and eventually his ouster in February — with his decision to deepen ties with Russia instead of the European Union.

Of the European-minded parties, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk's Popular Front had 21.9 percent of the vote while President Petro Poroshenko's party had 21.5 percent. A new pro-European party based in western Ukraine was running third with 11 percent.

The Fatherland party of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who has argued strongly for NATO membership and is likely to join a pro-Europe coalition, had 5.7 percent of the vote. Poroshenko last month laid out an ambitious agenda envisioning significant changes to Ukraine's police, justice and tax systems, defense sector and health care — all to be completed by 2020. Among the tougher decisions ahead will be allowing the cost of utilities in the cash-strapped country to float in line with market dictates.

"Ukraine is pregnant with reforms," said political analyst Oleksiy Haran. "The elections showed that both the government and voters expect structural changes to bring Ukrainians closer to the European Union."

Haran said measures to simplify regulations for private enterprise and to attract investment need to be adopted first. Hopeful businessmen in Ukraine complain that if excess red tape doesn't kill their ventures at birth, corruption does so further down the road. For that reason, initiatives to curb graft and overhaul the justice system should follow suit, Haran said.

Poroshenko has also said he wants to see Ukraine become more self-reliant for its energy needs and farm out more powers to local government. The precise recipe of policies to be pursued is subject of coalition negotiations.

Messages from Western governments congratulating Ukraine on its election pressed the reform theme further. President Barack Obama said in a statement Monday that the United States would assist Ukraine "promote further democratic development, strengthen the rule of law, and foster economic stability and growth in Ukraine."

Alluding to the unrest still raging in Ukraine's east, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European President Jose Manuel Barroso said a reinvigorated reform process must include an effort to establish national dialogue.

Despite the nominal truce agreed in early September, battles between government troops and pro-Russian separatist fighters remain a daily constant. Rebel authorities spurned Ukraine's election and almost 3 million potential voters in areas under their control did not cast their ballot.

Talk of Europe is anathema to the separatists and there are some pockets of resistance to the broad consensus in Kiev too. Political analyst Mikhail Pogrebinsky described the elections as a "sad story" and said he had little trust in the government that will take shape.

"Under the guise of reforms, they will pump cash out of the West and plunder it the usual way, and then write it off as a cost of war," Pogrebinsky said. The most staunchly dissenting group in parliament will be the Opposition Bloc. That party attracted much of its votes from government-controlled areas in the east and has within its ranks several figures from Yanukovych's once-ruling Party of Regions. With its 10 percent of the vote, Opposition Bloc believes around 60 candidates on the party list will take up seats in 423-strong Verkhovna Rada.

The also-rans that didn't make it into parliament are notable. The Communist Party failed to pass the 5 percent vote threshold and finds itself unrepresented for the first time in the nation's history.

Alarmism about a major surge among far-right wing forces has also proven overstated. By late Monday, the nationalist Svoboda party looked to have scraped 4.7 percent of the vote, meaning only a handful of its deputies directly voted in first-past-the-post constituencies will make it.

Anton Shekhovtsov, an expert on radical parties in Europe, said that if Svoboda fails to exceed the 5 percent barrier, there would likely be around 11 members of parliament in total from far-right parties.

"It was quite clear after the revolution that the far-right were not doing well, despite the media focus," Shekhovtsov said. International observers hailed Sunday's election as a step forward in building democratic institutions. Kent Harstedt, who oversaw the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe observer mission, said the election offered voters a real choice and showed "respect for fundamental freedoms."

The OSCE said, however, that there were isolated security incidents on election day and instances of intimidation and destruction of campaign property ahead of the vote. Russia had criticized Ukraine's election campaign before the vote but Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday that Moscow would recognize its outcome.

"It is very important that in Ukraine, at last, there will be a government that is occupied not with ... the pulling of Ukraine either to the West or to the East, but with the real problems that are facing the country," Lavrov told Russia's Life News.

Views among Ukrainians have ranged from content to cautious. Anton Karpinsky, a 36-year-old doctor in Kiev, said he was delighted that Ukraine will now have a pro-Western government. "Our revolution and fight was not in vain," Karpinsky said. "The election shows that Ukraine sees its future in Europe and NATO, and we will get there step by step."

Stepan Burko, a 67-year-old retiree whose $140 monthly pension barely covers his food bills, worried difficult times remain ahead. "The only certain winners in Ukraine are slogans. But it is much more difficult to overcome poverty and war," Burko said. "If it weren't for my children's help, I would go hungry. These are the problems the new authorities should tackle."

Some hoped that a strong government could negotiate an end to the war in the east. "The main thing is to put a stop to the war. We are so tired of killings, shelling and weapons," said Tatyana Rublevskaya, a 48-year-old shopkeeper.

Associated Press writer Lynn Berry in Moscow contributed to this report.

2 pro-Europe parties leading Ukraine vote

October 27, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Two pro-European parties that campaigned for tough reforms to battle corruption shared the lead Monday after Ukraine's parliamentary election, according to partial results.

With more than half the votes counted, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk's Popular Front was leading with 21.6 percent of the vote while President Petro Poroshenko's party had captured 21.5 percent. A recently formed pro-European party based in western Ukraine called Samopomich was running third with around 11 percent of the vote.

Negotiations on forming a broad reformist coalition are expected to begin immediately. Sunday's vote overhauled a parliament once dominated by loyalists of former President Viktor Yanukovych, who sparked months of protests that caused his ouster in February with a decision to deepen ties with Russia instead of the European Union.

Anti-Russian sentiment has spiked in Ukraine as the country battles separatists in the east whom many believe are supported by Moscow. Still, the Opposition Bloc, which pundits believe largely drew its support from Yanukovych's once-ruling Party of Regions, put in a strong showing with around one-tenth of the vote.

International observers hailed the vote as a step forward in building democratic standards despite the unrest as the government battles separatists in eastern Ukraine. Kent Harstedt of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said the ballot offered voters a real choice and showed "respect for fundamental freedoms."

Poroshenko has laid out an ambitious agenda envisioning significant changes to Ukraine's justice system, police, tax system, defense sector and health care to be completed by 2020. Among the tougher decisions ahead will be allowing costs of basic utilities in the cash-strapped country to float in line with market demands.

While around 36 million people were registered to vote Sunday, no voting was held on the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in March, or in parts of Ukraine's easternmost regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, where shelling remains a daily constant.

The OSCE said there were few disturbances and isolated security incidents on election day. It noted, however, that the days before the vote saw instances of intimidation and the targeted destruction of some campaign property.

Anton Karpinsky, a 36-year old doctor in Kiev, said he was delighted that Ukraine will now have a pro-Western government. "Our revolution and fight was not in vain," Karpinsky said. "The election shows that Ukrainian sees it future in Europe and NATO, and we will get there step by step."

Stepan Burko, a 67-year old retiree whose $140 monthly pension barely covers food bills, said difficult times remain ahead, despite Poroshenko's efforts to radiate optimism. "The only certain winners in Ukraine are slogans. But it is much more difficult to overcome poverty and war," Burko said. "If it weren't for my children's help, I would go hungry. These are the problems the new authorities should tackle."

Some hoped that a strong government could negotiate an end to the war. "The main thing is to put a stop to the war. We are so tired of killings, shelling and weapons," said Tatyana Rublevskaya, a 48-year-old shopkeeper.

Poland in defense shift as security concerns rise

October 28, 2014

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland is planning a major realignment of its military structure because of the conflict in neighboring Ukraine, the country's defense minister said Monday, a move that could shift thousands of troops to its eastern border.

"The geopolitical situation has changed. We have the biggest crisis of security since the Cold War and we must draw conclusions from that," Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak told The Associated Press.

Although Poland joined NATO in 1999, most of its 120,000-member army is based along the country's western border, as a relic of its former status as a Soviet bloc member. That is going to change, Siemoniak said, adding that at least three military bases in the east will increase from the current 30 percent of capacity to almost 90 percent by the end of 2017. That's a potential increase of thousands of troops, although Siemoniak wouldn't specify a precise overall figure.

Up to 400 jobs would be filled in the air defense unit in Siedlce alone by 2017, he said. "I believe that what happened to the east of Poland does not represent a threat to us for the next months, or two or three or five years. It is a need to draw conclusions for the decades to come," he added in explaining the large scope of the plans.

The announcement follows a visit by U.S. President Barack Obama to Estonia last month in which he urged NATO members to do more to assist Ukraine. There was no immediate reaction in Moscow to the planned Polish military moves. The Russian government may be reluctant to criticize Poland since Russia had insisted on the right to position its forces as it wishes within its own country when confronted by the West over the deployment of Russian troops along the Ukrainian border.

Charles Heyman, editor of the Armed Forces of the United Kingdom publication, said Poland's eastward movement is "part and parcel" of a larger NATO re-deployment. "We'll see other NATO nations probably stationing troops in Poland on a permanent basis as well," he said. "Not large numbers, but maybe a small NATO brigade of 2,500 that would be rotated every six months."

He said this would make it clear to Russia that "there are red lines that cannot be crossed." "It gives the other side a message: You've gone far enough," he said. In a restructuring after Poland became a democracy in 1989, the number of troops was gradually cut down from some 400,000 and the draft was discontinued, basing the armed forces on career officers and enlisted troops. Ever-limited means have been spent on upgrading the units, rather than on restructuring the whole infrastructure. Poland intends to increase its spending on the army to 2 percent of its GDP starting in 2016, from the current 1.95 percent.

Wedged between Germany and Russia, Poland has been the site of invasion and warfare. It was carved up by Nazi Germany and then-Soviet Union at the start of World War II, leading to the death of some 6 million of its citizens. Liberated by the Soviet Red Army, it was put under Moscow's domination for decades of communist rule after the war.

Poles value the independence they regained after the peaceful ouster of communism in 1989 and are worried by the Russia-Ukraine conflict. "People have realized that security does matter and that you cannot forget about the army," Siemoniak said. "No one wants war."

Associated Press reporters Lynn Berry in Moscow, Peter Leonard in Kiev and Greg Katz in London contributed to this report.

Poland to move 1,000s of troops east

October 27, 2014

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland will move thousands of troops toward its eastern borders in a historic realignment of a military structure built in the Cold War, the country's defense minister told The Associated Press on Monday.

Tomasz Siemoniak said the troops are needed in the east because of the conflict in neighboring Ukraine. "The geopolitical situation has changed, we have the biggest crisis of security since the Cold War and we must draw conclusions from that," Siemoniak said.

He said that at least three military bases in the east will see their populations increase from the current 30 percent of capacity to almost 90 percent by 2017, and that more military hardware will be moved to those bases as well.

He said it was not some "nervous or radical move" but that because of this "situation of threat we would like those units in the east of Poland to be more efficient." Although Poland joined NATO in 1999, most of Poland's 120,000-member army is based along the country's western border, as a relic of its former status as a Soviet Bloc member.

The units in the east, like the air defense unit in Siedlce, have only 30 percent of jobs filled in line with a plan that calls for 100 percent of troops "only in the case of war."

France hosts talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan

October 27, 2014

PARIS (AP) — The leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia restarted a dialogue Monday during a three-way meeting in Paris with French president Francois Hollande, in an effort to ease tensions in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region of the southern Caucasus.

Armenian President Serge Sarkisian and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev agreed Monday to exchange information on the persons who disappeared during the six-year separatist war that ended in 1994. The process will be conducted under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross, according to a written statement released by the French presidency.

They also agreed to continue the dialogue at new meeting in September 2015 on the sidelines of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York. Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan but it and some surrounding territory have been under the control of Armenian soldiers and local Armenian forces since a 1994 cease-fire. Since then, there have been sporadic clashes, but last summer tensions rose sharply as 19 soldiers were killed in multiple confrontations.

Years of diplomatic efforts under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have made little visible progress in resolving the dispute. Earlier Monday, Hollande met separately with each leader.

During a one-to-one meeting with Aliyev, the French president evoked the situation of the prominent human right activist Leila Yunus, who is jailed in Azerbaijan. Yunus was arrested with her husband and charged with spying for Armenia last July.

Aliyev "has made commitments" on that matter, said a top French official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak publicly on the matter. He didn't give details because of the sensitiveness of the issue.

UK ends combat operations in Afghan province

October 26, 2014

LONDON (AP) — Britain has ended combat operations in the Helmand province in Afghanistan, defense officials said Sunday.

They said U.K. troops have witnessed the lowering of the Union flag for the last time at the Camp Bastion complex in Helmand. U.S. and Afghan soldiers also observed the ceremony, which marked the end of operations for the Southwest Regional Command, a U.S. and U.K. coalition operating under NATO's International Security Assistance Force, British officials said.

Camp Bastion has been the center of U.K. operations in Afghanistan since 2006. The handover of the base to Afghan control ends an important chapter in the 13-year Afghan campaign, which started after the terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001.

UK Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said in a statement that the end of combat operations is being announced "with pride" and that Britain has helped give Afghanistan "the best possible chance of a stable future."

But he told BBC's Andrew Marr show that there is "no guarantee that Afghanistan is going to be stable and safe." He said the mission has succeeded in the sense that Afghanistan is no longer a safe haven for terrorists planning atrocities against Britain and the rest of Europe.

Fallon said Britain's commitment to support Afghanistan will continue "through institutional development, the Afghan National Army Officer Academy, and development aid." Britain plans to withdraw its final combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year and is planning to give Afghan forces control of a base in Kandahar, the country's second most populous city.

Military advisers and trainers are expected to stay in the capital Kabul. Brigadier Rob Thomson, senior U.K. officer in Helmand, said Afghan National Security Forces are "more than ready" to assume responsibility for the country's security.

Britain suffered 453 fatalities during the campaign. The vast majority of the fatalities happened in Helmand province.

Sweden May Become First Cashless Society

By Susanne W. Lamm, Epoch Times
October 21, 2014

GOTHENBURG, Sweden—Sweden could become one of the first cashless countries, a new report finds. Swedes already conduct four out of five transactions without involving cash.

The report, partly produced by the Royal Institute of Technology, argues that Sweden may be completely cashless in 2030. It is a long road, but Bengt Nilervall, commercial policy expert at the Swedish Trade Federation believes that cash transactions in Sweden may drop to a mere five per cent in the next ten years.

Why is it that Sweden is so far ahead of other European countries in this regard? In southern Europe for instance, three out of four consumer transactions are still paid in cash.

The Swedish curiosity for new technology is one piece of the puzzle, Nilervall says. Staff is expensive in Sweden, which drives the development of other technical solutions, such as robots instead of cashiers. Another piece is the fact that Swedes have a comparatively high trust in institutions, such as politicians, government authorities, and banks, compared to other countries.

Retail will likely be the last industry to abandon cash, Nilervall says. There is a great awareness of the fact that some groups don’t use cards, such as senior citizens, small children, and people with disabilities. In some cases, cash is more convenient.

“In retail, the margins are so small, and the competition is so fierce, that I find it hard to believe that cash would disappear completely,” he said. “We are so sensitive to the customers’ needs that we will offer them as many means of payment as they want.”

But the use of cash will likely decline, Nilervall thinks, especially as handling cash becomes more expensive. Banks, who control both cash and cards, pretty much call the shots. Once they make it too expensive and difficult to handle cash, their customers are likely to gravitate towards cards.

“It’s a natural step, from trading pearls and golden bricks and giant coins to other solutions,” he said. “Things are constantly evolving, the world is shrinking, so it’s only natural that new solutions arise.”

Sweden is already full of non-cash solutions in everyday life. You can pay for your parking, your public bathroom visit, and your cup of coffee with a text message.  Even a magazine sold by, and for the benefit of, homeless people on the street are trying out credit card readers. Even church offerings can be paid electronically in some places.

Some businesses have ditched cash entirely. One of them is the ABBA Museum in Stockholm. As it turns out, a member of Sweden’s most legendary pop music institutions, Bj?rn Ulvaeus, has a stake in the battle for a cashless Sweden. He has written opinion articles on the matter, arguing that coins and bills are expensive, support crime, and are “riddled with germs”.

The ABBA Museum declined to answer questions about their cashless operations, but their press representative confirmed that this is Ulvaeus’ own initiative. Bj?rn Ulvaeus himself was not available for a comment, but in one of his articles on the matter, he writes:

“What will a thief do with stolen goods in a cashless society? How will street drug deals work? Imagine you’re a thief, what will you do with the TV set you just stole? Neither the fence nor the supermarket wants it, and you’re all out of milk at home.”

Ulvaeus was inspired to work for a cashless society after his son was robbed a few years ago, he told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.

Digital transactions are not safe either, however, and as online crime leads to service disruptions and stolen card information, there is always a chance for a backlash.

“This can become a bump in the road for this development, so everyone must double down on security,” Bengt Nilervall said.

However, cash or no cash, Sweden is getting a whole new range of coins and bills in a few years time, so it seems they might be around for a while.

Source: The Epoch Times.
Link: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1033301-sweden-may-become-first-cashless-society/.

Hubble uses gravity lense to find extremely distant galaxy

Washington DC (SPX)
Oct 22, 2014

Peering through a giant cosmic magnifying glass, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a tiny, faint galaxy -- one of the farthest galaxies ever seen. The diminutive object is estimated to be more than 13 billion light-years away.

This galaxy offers a peek back to the very early formative years of the universe and may just be the tip of the iceberg.

"This galaxy is an example of what is suspected to be an abundant, underlying population of extremely small, faint objects that existed about 500 million years after the big bang, the beginning of the universe," explained study leader Adi Zitrin of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California.

"The discovery is telling us galaxies as faint as this one exist, and we should continue looking for them and even fainter objects, so that we can understand how galaxies and the universe have evolved over time."

The galaxy was detected by the Frontier Fields program, an ambitious three-year effort that teams Hubble with NASA's other great observatories -- the Spitzer Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory -- to probe the early universe by studying large galaxy clusters.

These clusters are so massive their gravity deflects light passing through them, magnifying, brightening, and distorting background objects in a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. These powerful lenses allow astronomers to find many dim, distant structures that otherwise might be too faint to see.

The discovery was made using the lensing power of the mammoth galaxy cluster Abell 2744, nicknamed Pandora's Cluster, which produced three magnified images of the same, faint galaxy. Each magnified image makes the galaxy appear 10 times larger and brighter than it would look without the zooming qualities of the cluster.

The galaxy measures merely 850 light-years across -- 500 times smaller than our Milky Way galaxy-- and is estimated to have a mass of only 40 million suns.

The Milky Way, in comparison, has a stellar mass of a few hundred billion suns. And the galaxy forms about one star every three years, whereas the Milky Way galaxy forms roughly one star per year. However, given its small size and low mass, Zitrin said the tiny galaxy actually is rapidly evolving and efficiently forming stars.

The astronomers believe galaxies such as this one are probably small clumps of matter that started to form stars and shine, but do not yet have a defined structure. It is possible Hubble is only detecting one bright clump magnified due to the lensing. This would explain why the object is smaller than typical field galaxies of that time.

Zitrin's team spotted the galaxy's gravitationally multiplied images using near-infrared and visible-light photos of the galaxy cluster taken by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys. But they needed to measure how far away it was from Earth.

Usually, astronomers can determine an object's distance based on how far its light has been stretched as the universe slowly expands. Astronomers can precisely measure this effect through spectroscopy, which characterizes an object's light. But the gravitationally-lensed galaxy and other objects found at this early time period are too far away and too dim for spectroscopy, so astronomers use an object's color to estimate its distance.

The universe's expansion reddens an object's color in predictable ways, which scientists can measure.

Zitrin's team performed the color-analysis technique and took advantage of the multiple images produced by the gravitational lens to independently confirm the group's distance estimate. The astronomers measured the angular separation between the three magnified images of the galaxy in the Hubble photos. The greater the angular separation due to lensing, the farther away the object is from Earth.

To test this concept, the astronomers compared the three magnified images with the locations of several other closer, multiply-imaged background objects captured in Hubble images of Pandora's cluster. The angular distance between the magnified images of the closer galaxies was smaller.

"These measurements imply that, given the large angular separation between the three images of our background galaxy, the object must lie very far away," Zitrin explained.

"It also matches the distance estimate we calculated, based on the color-analysis technique. So we are about 95 percent confident this object is at a remote distance, at redshift 10, a measure of the stretching of space since the big bang. The lensing takes away any doubt that this might be a heavily reddened, nearby object masquerading as a far more distant object."

Astronomers have long debated whether such early galaxies could have provided enough radiation to warm the hydrogen that cooled soon after the big bang. This process, called reionization, is thought to have occurred 200 million to 1 billion years after the birth of the universe. Reionization made the universe transparent to light, allowing astronomers to look far back into time without running into a "fog" of cold hydrogen.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/NASAs_Hubble_Finds_Extremely_Distant_Galaxy_through_Cosmic_Magnifying_Glass_999.html.

Argentina launches its first telecom satellite

Moscow (RIA Novosti)
Oct 21, 2014

Argentina has successfully launched its first domestically designed and developed geostationary communications satellite Thursday, USA Today reported.

"ARSAT-1 is on its way to space. What a thrill," Argentina's President Cristina Kirchner wrote on her Twitter account.

The satellite will occupy the 81 West orbital slot, 36,000 km away from earth.

ARSAT-1 is the first satellite of its type constructed and orbited by a Latin American country. It is the product of seven years of work of 500 scientists. The cost of the satellite was about $250 million, and it will be operational for the next 15 years.

The ARSAT-1 satellite is developed to provide digital television and cellphone services to Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. It will also improve telephone and Internet connections in remote regions.

Fernandez said that through ARSAT-1, Argentina joins an "elite club", able to build rockets capable of space flight, whose members include the United States, Russia, China, Japan, Israel and the European Union countries.

ARSAT-1 is the first stage of a program by Argentina's government to orbit a fleet of satellites able to transmit and relay signals to all of Latin America. A second satellite is planned to be launched in 2015.

Source: Space Mart.
Link: http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Argentina_Successfully_Launches_Its_First_Telecom_Satellite_999.html.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Studies Comet Flyby

Pasadena CA (JPL)
Oct 21, 2014

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has sent home more data about Mars than all other missions combined, is also now providing data about a comet that buzzed The Red Planet.

The orbiter continues operating in good health after sheltering behind Mars during the half hour when high-velocity dust particles from comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring had the most chance of reaching the paths of Mars orbiters. It maintained radio communications with Earth throughout the comet's closest approach, at 11:27 a.m. PDT (2:27 p.m. EDT), and the peak dust-risk period centered about 100 minutes later.

"The spacecraft performed flawlessly throughout the comet flyby," said Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project Manager Dan Johnston of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "It maneuvered for the planned observations of the comet and emerged unscathed."

Following the critical period of dust flux, the orbiter is communicating at 1.5 megabits per second with NASA's Deep Space Network. It remained on Side A of its two redundant computers, and all subsystems are working as expected.

Downlink of data has begun of the comet observations by three instruments on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The full downlink may take days. These instruments -- the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), the Compact Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM), and the Context Camera (CTX) -- also observed the comet for days before the flyby and will continue to make observations of it in the next few days.

The orbiter's other three instruments are being used to study possible effects of gas and dust in the comet's tail interacting with the atmosphere of Mars. These are the Mars Climate Sounder (MCS), the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) and the Mars Shallow Radar (SHARAD).

Three NASA Mars orbiters, two Mars rovers and other assets on Earth and in space are studying comet Siding Spring. This comet is making its first visit this close to the sun from the outer solar system's Oort Cloud, so the concerted campaign of observations may yield fresh clues to our solar system's earliest days more than 4 billion years ago.

Following the comet flyby, operators of NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) orbiter are assessing the status of that orbiter and operators for NASA's Mars Odyssey are anticipating resumption of communications.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission met all its science goals for the two-year primary science phase ending in 2008. The spacecraft's overtime work since then has added to the science returns.

The mission has provided more than 240 trillion bits of data about Mars, a volume equivalent to three-and-a-half months of nonstop, high-definition video. The data it acquired during the comet's closest approach to Mars are now being transmitted to Earth, but it will take many hours before downlink is complete and processing can start.

Objectives of the observing program are to attempt to image the comet nucleus, to study its surrounding coma of dust and gas, and to search for signatures of that material interacting with the Mars atmosphere. Observations of the comet will continue for another day or so, as the comet and Mars separate, with the comet reaching its closest approach to the sun in about a week, on Oct. 25.

Source: Mars Daily.
Link: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Mars_Reconnaissance_Orbiter_Studies_Comet_Flyby_999.html.

Heavy Metal Frost On Venus

Boulder CO (SPX)
Oct 21, 2014

Venus is hiding something beneath its brilliant shroud of clouds: a first order mystery about the planet that researchers may be a little closer to solving because of a new re-analysis of twenty-year-old spacecraft data.

Venus's surface can't be seen from orbit in visible light because of the planet's hot, dense, cloudy atmosphere. Instead, radar has been used by spacecraft to penetrate the clouds and map out the surface - both by reflecting radar off the surface to measure elevation and by looking at the radio emissions of the hot surface.

The last spacecraft to map Venus in this way was Magellan, two decades ago. One of the Venusian surprises discovered at that time is that radio waves are reflected differently at different elevations on Venus. Also observed were a handful of radio dark spots at the highest elevations. Both enigmas have defied explanation.

"There is general brightening upward trend in the highlands and then dark spots at the highest locations," explained Elise Harrington, an Earth sciences undergraduate at Simon Fraser University, in British Columbia, who revisited the Venus data during her internship at the Lunar and Planetary Institute, under the direction of Allan Treiman.

Brightening, in this case, means the radio waves reflect well. Dark means the radio waves are not reflected. In other words, the higher you go on Venus, the more radio reflective the ground gets until it abruptly goes radio black.

"Like on Earth, the temperature changes with elevation," Harrington explained. And the cooler temperatures at altitude lead to ice and snow, which create a similar pattern of brightening for Earth - but in visible light.

"Among the possibilities on Venus are a temperature dependent chemical weathering process or heavy metal compound precipitating from the air - a heavy metal frost."

Getting to the bottom of these mysteries has been very hard because Venus has not been revisited since Magellan and no better data is available.

So Harrington and Trieman made do by re-purposing the old data. They used recently-available stereo radar elevation data (from Dr. R. Herrick, University of Alaska) rather than using the lower resolution radar altimetry. That increased their altimetry resolution from seeing patches 8 by 12 kilometers to just 600x600 meters.

They also used Magellan's Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), with its 75x75-meter footprint, to look at radio reflectance, rather than the data on radio emissions from the surface, which had a coarser 15 by 23 kilometer resolution.

They applied these to two areas in the Odva Regio highlands region of Venus where they confirmed the same pattern of radar reflections brightening with increasing elevation, as was found by previous researchers. The radar reflection was low at the lower 2,400 meter (7,900 foot) elevation, then rapidly brightens up to 4,500 meters (14,700 feet). But they also found a lot more of those strange black spots, with a precipitous drop in the reflections at 4,700 meters (15,400 feet).

"The previous author saw a few dark spots," said Harrington. "But we see hundreds of them."

Years ago it was proposed that some sort of ferro-electric compound might be the cause of the brightening and the dark spots, but so far no specific compound has been identified which does the trick. Then again, with the surface of Venus being at almost 900 F (500 C) under more than 90 times the air pressure of Earth's atmosphere at sea level, with occasional showers of acid, it's not easy to test the properties of materials under Venusian conditions.

"No one knows what explains the sudden darkness," said Harrington, who will be presenting the work at the meeting of the Geological Society of America in Vancouver, B.C., on Monday, Oct. 20. "We think this might spur some more interest in Venus."

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Heavy_Metal_Frost_On_Venus_999.html.

Evidence Shows Acupuncture Helps Cancer Patients

By HealthCMi
October 21, 2014

A new meta-analysis finds evidence that acupuncture is effective in controlling cancer related symptoms. Acupuncture has now been proven to relieve cancer related pain, nausea and depression.

Studies support the use of acupuncture for the treatment of cancer related pain, nausea, fatigue, hot flashes, insomnia, vomiting, anxiety, depression and dry mouth. Based on these findings, the researchers suggest expanding studies into the beneficial clinical effects of acupuncture for cancer patients.

Further, the researchers note that acupuncture used in the field of oncology requires a “constant dialog” between acupuncturists and other treating physicians for improved clinical outcomes.

The researchers note that acupuncture promotes several biological changes.

Acupuncture activates neural, endocrine and immunological regulation. Citing modern evidence that acupuncture regulates the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems, the researchers suggest that this may be a biomedical correlate for the ancient Chinese theory that acupuncture balances yin and yang.

They added that electro-acupuncture induces “serotonin release from the upper brain stem region and hypothalamus and stimulates endogenous opiate release (b endorphin, enkephalin, endomorphin, and dynorphin) which then alleviates cancer pain.”

The research team also notes that acupuncture regulates the immune system in part by stimulating leukocytes, both granulocytes and lymphocytes. This is accomplished by acupuncture’s ability to stimulate the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis.

Additional research presented demonstrated that acupuncture benefits both T-lymphocyte and Natural Killer cell (NK cell) function.

The analysis found significant positive clinical outcomes. A comparison study of sham acupuncture and true acupuncture demonstrated that only true acupuncture was effective in reducing hot flashes in breast cancer patients.

Xerostomia, dry mouth, due to radiation therapy is of major concern. The research shows that acupuncture improves salivary flow rates and decreased overall xerostomia including reductions of related pain and dysfunction.

Chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting is also of major concern. The findings demonstrate that acupuncture reduces both nausea and vomiting for chemotherapy patients.

Many cancer patients take analgesics to reduce pain but continue to experience severe discomfort. The researchers identified a 90 patient randomized controlled study wherein cancer patients taking analgesics experienced significant additional pain reduction with the addition of acupuncture to their regime of care.

Additionally, patients taking aromatase inhibitors for the treatment of cancer experience joint pain and stiffness. This class of drugs is often used for the treatment of breast and ovarian cancer. The researchers found randomly controlled trials demonstrating that body style acupuncture and auricular acupuncture are both effective in reducing pain associated with the use of this class of cancer medication.

A comparison study of sham acupuncture with true acupuncture for the treatment of chemotherapy related fatigue concluded that only true acupuncture reduced overall fatigue and improved motivation.

This was confirmed by a phase 2 single-arm study wherein acupuncture demonstrated the same results. Another randomly controlled trial of 80 cancer patients demonstrated that acupuncture reduces depression and improves overall sleep quality.

Improvements in immunohistochemistry, CT technology and MRI imaging have led to improved studies on the effective mechanisms of acupuncture. This, combined with improvements in controlled clinical trials, has yielded important results demonstrating the ability of acupuncture to relieve suffering.

This recent meta-analysis reflects this enormous leap forward of acupuncture research on the relief of suffering associated with cancer. The next step will be to continue the acupuncture continuing education and research while expanding integrative medicine implementation for the benefit of patients.

Source: The Epoch Times.
Link: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1032233-evidence-shows-acupuncture-helps-cancer-patients/.

Hong Kong protesters scrap vote on what to do next

October 26, 2014

HONG KONG (AP) — The leaders of Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests on Sunday canceled a vote on what the next step should be in their monthlong street occupation, saying they hadn't properly consulted with the demonstrators before calling the referendum.

The two-day vote, which had been scheduled for Sunday and Monday, was supposed to have gauged the protesters' support for counterproposals to offers made by Hong Kong's government following talks last week between student protest leaders and authorities.

The government offered to submit a report to Beijing noting the protesters' unhappiness with a decision to have an appointed committee screen candidates for the semiautonomous city's leader, known as the chief executive. Protesters are demanding open nominations for chief executive in the city's inaugural direct election, promised for 2017.

"We admit that we did not have enough discussion with the people before deciding to go ahead with the vote and we apologize to the people," the protest leaders said in a statement. They also cited "differing opinions regarding the format, motions and effectiveness" of the referendum.

Two student groups — the Hong Kong Federation of Students and Scholarism — and the activist group Occupy Central With Peace and Love had called for the referendum on Friday. The vote would have asked the protesters whether they supported having the government's report ask Beijing to consider open nominations for 2017 election candidates. The government had also made a vague offer for dialogue with the protesters, and the vote would have gauged support for ensuring it covered reforming Hong Kong's legislature.

The groups behind the referendum had called for voting to be held only at the main downtown protest site, upsetting demonstrators at two other occupation sites located elsewhere in Hong Kong. The protesters are facing growing pressure, with the demonstrations, which began Sept. 28, stretching into their second month and no sign of concession from the government.

Although thousands of people remain camped out at the main protest site, demonstrators said this past week that they did not see any resolution in sight. "I think we should think about our plan and think about whether to retreat," protester Jo Tai said Sunday. "We can't occupy the streets with no time limitations."

Hong Kong protesters to vote on govt offers

October 25, 2014

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong democracy activists will hold a two-day referendum starting Sunday to gauge protesters' response to government proposals to end the monthlong street occupation.

Protest organizers said late Friday they would register public opinion at the main downtown protest site, where thousands remain camped out, and two other satellite protest zones. Hong Kong's government has offered to submit a report to the central government noting the protesters' unhappiness with a Beijing-dictated plan to have a 1,200-person committee screen candidates for the city's top leader in the inaugural 2017 election.

Protesters say the committee is weighted toward the central government's preferences and should be scrapped or at least reformed to better represent the Asian financial capital of 7.2 million people. Hong Kong officials have also offered to hold regular dialogue with protesters about democratic reforms if they end their occupation of three of the city's busiest areas.

The Hong Kong Federation of Students, one of the main organizers behind the protests, has already rejected the government offer but still called for the Sunday referendum. Another organizer, Occupy Central, said the poll would ask two questions. One is on whether the government report should also include asking China's legislature to reconsider its August decision on the committee vetting candidates. The other is on whether the dialogue should also cover reforms to the local legislature.

Speaking publicly for the first time since the protests began, Tung Chee-hwa, the city's first chief executive after its 1997 transition from British to Chinese rule, said Friday that the protesters' demands were not realistic and that they should accept a longer timeline for electoral reforms.

"Students, I hope you listen to what this old man is saying," the 77-year-old said in a news conference. "It's time to go home."

Ukraine votes to overhaul parliament

October 26, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Voters in Ukraine headed to the polls Sunday to elect a new parliament, overhauling a legislature tainted by its association with ousted President Viktor Yanukovych.

The election is set to usher in a contingent of largely pro-Western lawmakers. President Petro Poroshenko's party has campaigned on an ambitious reform agenda and is expected to get the largest share of the vote, but there is a strong likelihood it will need to rule in a coalition.

While around 36 million people have been registered to vote, the election will not be held on the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in March, or in the eastern regions where unrest is still rumbling and armed pro-Russia separatist rebels have taken firm hold. Nongovernment watchdog Opora estimates some 2.8 million people in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east — more than half the potential 5 million voters there — will be unable to cast their ballot.

Tamara Shupa, a 62-year old retiree, said she hoped incoming lawmakers would put an end to the war. "We are very tired of the war," Shupa said. "To bring about change, we need peace." The election marks a closing chapter in the reset of Yanukovych's legacy. The former leader was deposed in February after months of sometimes violent protests sparked by his snap decision to put ties with the European Union on hold in favor of deepening trade relations with Russia.

The protests, which broadened into a mass uprising fueled by rage at the pervasive corruption seen as a leading cause of the country's economic sluggishness, culminated in snipers shooting dead dozens of demonstrators.

Andrei Voitenko, a 40-year old teacher casting his ballot at a school in the capital, Kiev, said a new parliament would have to work toward repaying the high price paid by his fellow Ukrainians. "We are overhauling the government because Ukraine and Ukrainians have made a European choice," Voitenko said. "Now we need a new parliament to make a European future. We have drawn a line under our Soviet past."

Other parties expected to win seats in parliament include Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk's Popular Front and the Fatherland party of Yulia Tymoshenko. Another strong contender is firebrand nationalist Oleh Lyashko's Radical Party, which has commanded much public attention through lavish campaign spending.

The political forces with the best prospects in the vote all broadly share a pro-Western posture and have stated their ambition to promote the thorough reforms needed to reverse Ukraine's cataclysmic economic decline.

Ukraine's woes have been compounded in recent months by a conflict against armed separatists on the border with Russia that has claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people. The country has enjoyed close if often strained relations with Russia since gaining independence. The public mood has turned sharply against the leadership in Moscow, however, over what is widely seen as its direct role in fomenting separatist unrest.

"Russia cannot interfere with Ukraine. We will become part of Europe," said 30-year old economist Anton Rushailo, after voting in Kiev. "Sooner or later, we will join NATO, and today we are taking an important step in that direction."

The outgoing parliament was previously dominated by Yanukovych's Party of Regions, which had its main base of support in the heavily Russian-speaking industrial east. Some supporters of the Party of Regions are seen as likely to back the Opposition Bloc party, which includes many former Yanukovych associates. It was unclear if it will be able to overcome the 5 percent vote threshold needed to enter parliament.

Igor Seleznev, a retired 65-year old economist, said he cast his ballot for Opposition Bloc as he believes it is the only party willing to resist the emerging pro-reform consensus. "For now, I see only change for the worse. Standard of life is getting worse, we are at war with Russia and there is economic chaos," Seleznev said. "There should be people in parliament that speak truth to power."

Ukraine pauses before decisive vote

October 25, 2014

MARIUPOL, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine braced for decisive parliamentary elections Saturday against the backdrop of unrest in eastern regions roiled by conflict between government troops and pro-Russian separatist forces.

Campaigning material was being taken down across the country in line with election laws ahead of a vote Sunday that pollsters say will be dominated by President Petro Poroshenko's party. Parliament is seen changing composition completely with the former ruling party of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted by a street revolt in February, set to disappear from the legislature.

Speaking in a televised address Saturday, Poroshenko said the election would lead to a "full reset of power" and enable the formation of a reform-minded legislature. "It is very difficult to press on the gas pedal with reforms when hundreds of deputies are simultaneously and in a coordinated fashion slamming the brakes," he said.

Parties expected to enter into parliament all broadly share a pro-Western line and are united in their calls to tackle rampant corruption and undertake root-and-branch economic reforms. Skepticism remains strong toward a political elite that many Ukrainians continue to see as self-serving.

Shelling has continued in eastern Ukraine despite a truce being called early September and in areas near the main focus of fighting the mood was subdued and turnout expected to be low. The east is where Yanukovych drew most of his support and one worry is that the voice of the population in this region could go unheard.

"The concern of whether this will be a free but also fair election — that is definitely one of the issues we are looking at," said Kent Harstedt, a coordinator for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly's observer mission.

The mood is particularly tense in Volnovakha, which is 60 kilometers inland from Mariupol and on the very fringes of the rebel front. District election commission head Anna Yeremchenko said election workers were staying away out of fear, putting the vote at risk.

"They are afraid of hostilities. There is a lot of weaponry here, we can hear artillery strikes," Yeremchenko said. On Saturday afternoon, the sound of artillery fire falling near the town could be heard for at least 30 minutes.

Vyacheslav Kryazh, a deputy commander of the pro-government Kiev-2 battalion, said the chairwoman of an election commission in the area was abducted Saturday. Kryazh said his men later tracked down the kidnapper and detained him.

Authorities have also received information that rebels will seek to provoke unrest on the election day, said Viktor Chelovan, who supervises the battalions operating under the Interior Ministry. "They will use all means at their disposal to either derail the vote in the Donetsk or Luhansk regions or to cast a shadow over the legitimacy of the election," he said.

In Mariupol, a government-controlled industrial port city near rebel-held areas in the eastern Donetsk region, residents revealed a blend of nervousness and resignation on the eve of the vote. Shelling remains an almost daily constant in nearby areas, pushing thoughts of the future to the back of people's minds.

"The turnout is going to be low because people are disillusioned," said Yevhen Chulai, secretary of a local election commission in the city. Almost 36 million people have been registered to vote nationwide. Poll officials say 15 out of 32 district election commissions in the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk will not be operating over security concerns.

Mariupol lies behind lines of Ukrainian government troops and has become a relative safe haven for families fleeing from areas under rebel control. Taras Shevchuk, a 27-year physical education instructor, left the town of Yenakiyeve two months ago but said he cannot vote in Mariupol as he has not been registered there.

Ambivalence over the relative merits of the warring sides fighting nearby is commonplace in the mostly Russian-speaking city of 450,000 people in a southwestern pocket of Ukraine that looks onto the Sea of Azov.

Vladislav Slobodyanin, 40, said that many previous supporters of the separatist rebel government that dubs itself the Donetsk People's Republic, or DPR, now support Ukrainian unity. "Most people who were for the DPR have changed their mind now," Slobodyanin said. "I know people who were fervent DPR supporters. Now they think differently. They see what it (support for the DPR) can lead to."

However, Slobydyanin said some of his co-workers were still eagerly awaiting rebels to sweep into the city. Political experts believe many erstwhile supporters of Yanukovych's Party of Regions will instead cast their vote for the Opposition Bloc, which includes numerous prominent figures from the former ruling group. It is uncertain the party will secure enough votes to overcome the 5 percent threshold required to enter parliament, however.

Associated Press writer Peter Leonard in Kiev, Ukraine, contributed to this report.