Month: June 2014

By Christian Lowe and Marcin Goettig WARSAW (Reuters) – World leaders marking 25 years since Poland began its transformation into a free-market democracy had a message this month for neighbouring Ukraine: you too could follow the same path to prosperity. Fundamentals of the two economies suggest Ukraine can aspire to match the progress Poland has made since communism fell. Back in 1990, shortly before Ukraine split from the crumbling Soviet Union, it had a gross domestic product per head of population of $6,806 while the figure for Poland was only $5,976. “Ukraine has a huge potential for development,” said Pawel Borys, director for strategy and investment at PKO BP, Poland’s biggest bank.

By Philip O’Connor RECIFE Brazil (Reuters) – Luis Suarez can learn to stop biting opponents but it will not be a quick or easy process, senior psychologists have said following the Uruguay striker’s bite on the shoulder of Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini at the World Cup. Suarez, twice previously banned for biting, is under investigation by FIFA for the incident late in the Group D clash on Tuesday and faces another lengthy suspension. “From what I’ve seen in the video footage, Suarez took out his frustration and anger on Chiellini from blocking his access to the ball by reactively and impulsively biting him,” Eva Kimonis, senior lecturer at the School of Psychology at the University of New South Wales in Australia, told Reuters via email. “It may be one manifestation of a broader, long-term pattern of misbehaviour that involves other forms of aggression – hitting, bullying, shouting, physical fighting – and is common to people with particularly hot tempers and impulsiveness.” Liverpool forward Suarez was served a 10-game suspension last year after biting Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic in a Premier League match and spent seven games on the sidelines in 2010 for biting PSV Eindhoven’s Otman Bakkal while playing for Ajax Amsterdam.

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Don’t laugh, but the discovery of the oldest known human poop is offering valuable scientific insight into the life of Neanderthals who lived in Spain some 50,000 years ago. Analysis of the samples provided a new understanding of the diet of this extinct human species, offering the first evidence that Neanderthals were omnivores who also ate vegetables as part of their meat-heavy diet, they said. “So far, it is the only fossil evidence that gives us information of the ingestion and the regular meals of our ancestors,” said Ainara Sistiaga, a geoarchaeologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of La Laguna who was one of the researchers. “Understanding the diet of past human species closely related to our own will help us gain perspective on our evolutionary constraints and adaptability,” Sistiaga added.

By Faith Hung TAIPEI (Reuters) – China’s top official in charge of relations with Taiwan has returned to Beijing, hailing his visit to the self-ruled island as “historic”, despite violent protests that forced him to cancel several meetings. The visit by Zhang Zhijun, director of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, marked the first such trip by such a senior mainland official in 65 years since the Nationalists fled after losing a civil war to China’s Communists in 1949. Throughout his four-day tour of the island, Zhang was greeted by protesters, including at the high-speed train station in the pro-independence southern port of Kaohsiung on Friday. There hundreds of demonstrators gathered, some waving placards reading “Communist Zhang Zhijun, get the hell back to China”.