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Ukraine schools close to avoid flu
KIEV, Ukraine - Urging its citizens not to panic, Ukraine yesterday closed all schools nationwide for a week to avoid the spread of swine flu and suggested that nightclubs, cinemas, and food markets in the west also shut down.The World Health Organization said that there was no evidence that Ukraine had a bad outbreak of swine flu but that at the government's request, it had sent a health team in to help the country cope.
Ukraine's Health Ministry said yesterday that 67 people in the nation of 40 million had died of flu, but it did not say how many of those deaths were related to swine flu.
- AP
Summit planned to aid Zimbabwe
HARARE, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe's neighbors will hold a summit Thursday to try to break an impasse that threatens the southern African nation's unity government, a spokesman for Zimbabwe's prime minister said yesterday.Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai announced a boycott of the unity government Oct. 16, citing a surge in political violence and accusing longtime President Robert Mugabe of treating him like a junior partner or worse.
Leaders of Mozambique, Swaziland, and Zambia are to would meet in Mozambique's capital, Maputo, to discuss the crisis. Mugabe said he was ready to brief regional leaders on the nation's problems. - AP
Remnants of ship found near Greece
TIRANA, Albania - Pieces of a British destroyer that was badly damaged by Albanian mines in 1946, straining ties between the two countries for decades, appear to have been discovered near Greece, 50 yards underwater in the Corfu channel, U.S. and Albanian researchers said yesterday.Forty-four sailors died in the explosions that damaged the Volage and another British navy destroyer, the HMS Saumarez. Both ships suffered extensive damage but reached the Greek island of Corfu for repairs.
The incident halted talks between Communist Albania and Britain on restoring diplomatic ties that were broken earlier that year. The two countries only formally reestablished ties in 1991.
- AP
Elsewhere:
The Peace Corps will return to Sierra Leone after 16 years' absence, said Lynn Foden, the agency's acting regional director for Africa. Some 50 volunteers will arrive in June to work on education projects. The Peace Corps began operating in the West African country in 1962 and hosted 3,400 volunteers. But the program was interrupted by a bloody civil war.
A Russian businessman who had been convicted in Israel of being a KGB spy was shot dead in Moscow, police said. Shabattai Kalmanovich, 60, was killed near his apartment in Moscow. The killing appeared to have been carefully planned, and police were seeking at least two gunmen.
A fire swept through a residential building as people slept in a slum community in the central Philippines, killing 16 residents, including women and children. The fire in Bacolod city was under investigation.
