Musician Elton John to be unable to adopt a child in Ukraine.

KIEV, September 15 (Itar-Tass) - British musician Elton John will be
unable to adopt a 14-month HIV-infected baby boy from an orphanage in east
Ukraine, Yuri Pavlenko, Ukraine's minister for family, youth and sport
told journalists late on Monday.

He said that Ukrainian laws gave priority rights to Ukrainian adoptive
parents although foreign adoptions were not impossible. But it's only
married foreign couples that are actually allowed to adopt a child in
Ukraine.
"As far as we know Sir Elton John is not married. Ukraine doesn't
recognize same sex marriages. Therefore, for us he is single," the
Ukrainian minister explained.
Besides, Pavlenko went on to say, the age gap between a child and his
adoptive parents shouldn't be more than 45 years.
All these factors would have forced us to turn down the singer's
request, had he officially applied for adoption, Pavlenko explained.
The minister noted that Sir Elton John didn't submit any adoption
requests to official state bodies of Ukraine. He just announced his plans
while he was visiting a specialized children's home in Makeyevka, the
Donetsk region, for children whose parents have died of AIDS.
Pavlenko thanked Sir Elton John for drawing public attention to
HIV-infected children and showing that adoption would give them a chance
to survive. The Ukrainian minister said that twenty HIV-infected babies
had found a family since 2008.


. Eighteen Russian polar explorers returning from expedition.

ST.PETERSBURG, September 15 (Itar-Tass) - The Yamal nuclear icebreaker
with Russian polar explorers onboard will arrive in the northern port of
Murmansk on Tuesday after a year-long stay on the North Pole-36 station,
Sergei Balyasnikov, the assistant director of the Arctic and Antarctic
Research Institute, told Itar-Tass.
"At the first stage the nuclear ice-breaker left Murmansk in the third
decade of August. He crossed the Barents Sea, rounded Franz Joseph Land
and reached a drifting area of the North Pole-36 station," Balyasnikov
went on to say.
"The icebreaker picked up eighteen polar explorers, two Eskimo dogs
and one hundred tons of camp fittings and scientific equipment from that
station," he clarified.
Balyasnikov added that at the next stage the Yamal took 15 explorers,
members of the North Pole - 37 expedition, to the eastern sector of the
Arctic. It disembarked them on an ice platform to the north of the
Wrangel Island. After that the icebreaker set on a back course to Murmansk.


. Exhibition of Vietnamese goods to open in Moscow.

MOSCOW, September 15 (Itar-Tass) - Ninety-seven Vietnamese companies
from all parts of Vietnam will display their best products at the Moscow
exhibition centre (Expocentre) on Tuesday.
Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Viktor Khristenko, his
Vietnamese counterpart Vu Huy Hoang and the head of the Russian Chamber of
Commerce and Industry Yevgeny Primakov will participate in the opening
ceremony.
A business forum titled "Vietnam - trade and investment potentials in
agriculture, the timber industry and fisheries" will be held straight
after the opening.
"This exhibition should give an impetus to trade and economic
cooperation," Vietnamese Ambassador to Russia Bui Dinh Dinh said.
"Vietnam is attaching great importance to the exhibition and hopes
that it will produce dozens of new contracts," the diplomat went on to say.
"Despite the fact that trade and economic ties between the two
countries are constantly growing, it's still below the potential of the
two countries. Vietnamese exports to Russia account for one percent," he
went on to say.
The Vietnamese-Russian trade turnover stood at about one and a half
billion U.S. dollars in 2008 while trade with the United States over the
same period was estimated at 16 billion dollars.
The Vietnamese ambassador believes that a high price of imported
Russian goods is to blame for the current situation.
Two years ago Russia and Vietnam established a business council that
had already helped building an ophthalmology centre in Vietnam. A house
of Vietnam is being built in Moscow, while a land plot has been allotted
in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, for the construction of a House of
Moscow.
The Vietnamese ambassador noted that Vietnam was improving the quality
of exports, while the price remained the same. He pointed out several
reasons that are slowing down the advancement of Vietnamese goods in the
Russian market. One is that the two countries are still using third
country banks for mutual settlements. A Vietnamese-Russian bank set up for
the settlements purpose is still too weak, although its' receiving aid
from the governments of the two countries. Besides, the diplomat said that
the quality of advertising Vietnamese goods in Russia left much to be
desired.