What to do while in Ukraine

Warsaw, June 13 (IANS/RIA Novosti) More than 100 people have been arrested after violence flared at a march of Russian fans in the Polish capital Warsaw, police said. The violence broke out during a march of 5,500 Russian fans through the city ahead of Tuesday night's Euro 2012 match between the two nations at Warsaw's National Stadium. Police fired warning shots into the air after coming under attack from Polish fans, some of whom had intercepted the Russian column. "It's more than 100 hooligans," said police spokeswoman Agnieszka Hamelusz, when asked how many people had been arrested. She said that those held include Russians and Poles. It was not clear how many were Russians and how many were Polish, she said. Ten people were injured, including seven Poles, two Russians and a German, a statement on the Warsaw police website said. Some of those arrested were held after an incident near the fanzone in the city centre, where thousands gather to wa

Polish prostitutes stripped against FEMEN with an appeal not stop them from making money on Euro 2012. "Euro-2012 sources of income and pleasure," "Go to hell from our business!». These and other claims on behalf of prostitutes, courtesans were made in Poland for the anti-euro campaign FEMEN at the opening of the stadium Warsaw. Their demands reinforced by the polka dance around naked giant pink ****. Exasperated FEMEN activity in Poland, activists demand FEMEN go home, calling on their  website Ukraine as stockyards of former Soviet-dominated communist thinking. In turn, activists FEMEN promise to double activity at Euro 2012, as willed us the great Lenin!

KIEV, Ukraine — Andriy Shevchenko made his coach look brilliant, scoring two great headers Monday to give Ukraine a 2-1 win over Sweden at the European Championship. After Zlatan Ibrahimovic had given Sweden the lead in the 52nd minute, Shevchenko responded by heading in the equalizer just three minutes later and then added the winner in the 61st. The victory gives Ukraine a serious chance of advancing from Group D after England and France drew 1-1, while Sweden faces an uphill battle to remain in the tournament. “We showed today our character, our good football,” Shevchenko said. “We have very good chances to qualify.” Shevchenko is already a national icon in Ukraine and carried the hopes of the team going into the tournament. In front of sea of yellow and blue in the packed Olympic Stadium, he certainly didn’t disappoint. He rewarded the faith coach Oleg Blokhin showed in the veteran who was not a certain starter for the tournament. Showing flashes of the scorer’s i

Why settle for just one realisation of this year’s UEFA Euro when you can let the tournament play out 10,000 times  in silico ? The rate parameters in a given match are determined by the relative strength of each team as given by their  ELO  rating. The advantage of this approach is that the tournament structure (which teams are assigned to which groups, how points are assigned, quarter final structure, etc) can be accounted for. If we wanted to take this into account when making probabilistic forecasts of tournament outcomes, we would need to calculate many conditional probability statements, following the extremely large number of possible outcomes. However, the downside is that it is only as reliable as the team ratings themselves. I used a weighted average of ELO and FIFA ratings. After simulating the tournament 10,000 times, the probability of victory for each team is just the number of times that team arose victorious divided by 10,000. Feel free to  get the code h

The 82nd minute: Andriy Shevchenko raised his eyes to the stands for a moment, and then shook hands with each person on the Ukraine bench in turn before taking his seat. The crowd was still on its feet applauding. In a final warm-up match that Ukraine lost 2-0 to Turkey last week, Shevchenko played just 45 minutes and missed two good scoring chances, prompting mention of the dreaded R-word: retirement. It's a decision that he considered back in 2009 once Ukraine's World Cup qualification hopes were quashed, but one that he delayed with the knowledge that his country would be co-hosting Euro 2012. Today his brace gave Ukraine a win over Sweden in its first-ever European Championship fixture. This was not an ordinary day of soccer. Though the draw between England and France ended with the traveling England supporters serenading their players with the national anthem, it was a game that rarely threatened to achieve the standards of play we've been treated to so far. The