19-07-2010 15:56 http://www.nrcu.gov.ua/

The active phase of the U.S.-Ukraine military exercises Sea Breeze 2010 started by 15 ships from the Odesa port to the Black Sea, the Defense Ministry Press and Information Department informed.

In particular, seven ships and one boat of the Ukrainian Navy, three boats of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, one U.S. Navy ship, one ship and two boats of the Turkish Navy put to sea. During the first day of the exercises' active phase, two aircraft BE-12, one aircraft AN-26 and helicopter MI-14 of the Aviation Naval Forces of Ukraine also practiced their tasks in interaction with the ships. They conducted search and rescue provision of the exercises in the sea, participated in air defense of ships, search, rescue and evacuation. Multinational peacekeeping naval exercises Sea Breeze 2010 will continue on July 12-23. The main purpose of the exercises is planning and conduct of international anti-piracy operations.

19-07-2010 14:30 http://www.nrcu.gov.ua/

The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) has published the results of several studies dedicated to the attitude of citizens to a new system of the election of local council deputies, as well as the sympathies of voters to probable participants in these elections, according to the Kommersant-Ukraine newspaper.

According to the institute, 71% of respondents fully or partially supported the idea of electing the majority of deputies under majority system, where voters can vote for concrete candidates rather than party tickets. Some 19.4% of respondents were undecided, and 8.5% had negative feelings about this idea. The respondents were also asked which party or bloc they would vote if the elections to regional councils had been under party tickets on July 18. It should be noted that under a new law on the election of local council deputies, the heads of villages, towns and cities, the blocs of political parties are not allowed to participate in local elections. According to the results of the studies, the three percent election threshold can pass four political parties: the Party of Regions (39%), the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko (13%), Serhiy Tihipko's Strong Ukraine Party (8%) and Arseniy Yatseniuk's Front for Change Party (4%). The All-Ukrainian Svoboda Union would have received 2.5% of the vote and the communist Party of Ukraine 21%. The institute said in a statement that "the study gives a very rough estimate of the situation in some regions." A total of 5,507 respondents from all Ukrainian regions participated in the surveys conducted in June 2010.