Issue 9

Volume Four KING’S EYE ON THE WORLD 00 28th February 2014

Editors:

Owen Parsonage

Jack Mills

Journalists:

Adam Bartlett

Alistair Smellie

Francesca Angel

Robert Batson

Jordan Willis Jonny Nixon Chloe Morgan CURRENT AFFAIRS ENRICHMENT………………READ ALL ABOUT IT!

Becky Perkins This week we have an Oscar-winning variety of stories. We Tasmin Feakes have federal hacking, unrest in Ukraine, and are giving the Will Ashton Cardiff owner a sporting chance. Also, F1 officials are racing away with plans for a London Grand Prix circuit, and the Scot Hodgson world’s largest aircraft, a giant airship, is flying high. We are Harry Jaquiss also looking at Moyes, the Manchester United manager, and

Kal O’Connor his fumbles. ‘Paws’ for thought with our article on the links between dog and human brains, and, hopefully, think on the Tom Ramsbottom Winter Olympics’ success – did they really gain anything, or Will Cotgrove are they skating on thin ice? In other news, an old British spy has been seen and recognized for infiltrating a Gestapo camp. George Bell All in all, a very eclectic mix! Jamie Berry

Cardiff City owner insists he is not a 'villain'

Harry Jaquiss 3HL

“Cardiff City's controversial owner Vincent Tan has insisted he is not the "villain" he is sometimes portrayed as.”

Tan, who has upset many Cardiff fans, said the "vocal minority" who oppose him should "apologise".

Tan has upset fans by changing the colour of the Cardiff kit from blue to red, his daughter’s favourite colour. He also sacked old manager Malky Mackay, saying Mackay “got lucky” when he was given the job, and replaced him with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. These actions infuriated the fans, because Cardiff were doing well before this change. However, Tan is convinced that Solskjaer will save Cardiff from relegation.

In a rare interview, and speaking for the first time since sacking Mackay in December, Tan also said he has the backing of 90% of Cardiff fans. He also claims that foreign owners are good for British football. However, he has decided to abandon plans to list Cardiff on the Singapore stock exchange.

He also refuses to change the club's colours back to blue from red.

In my opinion the owner should leave, because his selfish decisions do not consider the opinions of the majority of fans.

Badger culls were “ineffective and failed humaneness test”

Will Ashton 3PS

An independent scientific assessment of last year’s pilot badger culls in parts of Gloucestershire and Somerset has concluded that they were not effective. Analysts commissioned by the government found that the number of badgers culled fell short of the target set.

18% of culled badgers took longer than 5 minutes to die; this is a failure for the humaneness test. These culls were intended to limit the spread of TB in cattle. Contracted marksmen, paid by farming groups, were paid to shoot the badgers by night.

Prof Rosie Woodroffe, a scientist at the Zoological Society of London, said that the “findings show unequivocally that the culls were not effective and that they failed to meet the humaneness criteria. I hope this will lead the Secretary of State (Owen Paterson) to focus on other ways of eradicating TB in cattle”.

Research carried out by Prof Rosie Woodroffe in earlier trials in 1990 shows that failure to kill 70% of badgers within 6 weeks could actually make matters worse, as disturbed and diseased animals took TB into new areas. Robin Hargreaves, President of the British Veterinary Association, said that the BVA had taken a lead role in calling for controlled shootings to be thoroughly evaluated and tested before they were allowed take place.

In my opinion I think that the culls could have been handled in a better way. The percentage of badgers taking longer than 5 minutes to die needs to decrease for it to be humane. I also believe that £7.29m is too much to spend on culling badgers, and is a big waste of money. Moyes’ mistakes!

Jonny Nixon 3AI

David Moyes took up the position of manager of Manchester United, taking the baton from Sir Alex Ferguson, who won the premier league by a landslide of eleven points in his final season. Moyes has not been so fortunate. United is currently 15 points behind the title leaders, Arsenal.

Firstly, Moyes has not been himself. At Everton he believed in himself and followed his gut when making decisions. Now he appears scared of the crowd’s reactions to his decisions. There was a match against Newcastle where he had a great chance to bring off Robin Van Persie, but he decided not to because of the possible crowd reaction. Moyes should not care about what others think because he is at United as a result of his ability. He was the man chosen and now he has to believe in himself.

Another problem is how Man United have performed in all the head-to-head clashes with the big teams, losing to Liverpool, Man City, Tottenham and drawing with Chelsea. Losing these battles doesn’t only lose points but loses confidence and also gives opponents more confidence.

He spent £65m on Marouane Fellaini and Juan Mata but everyone is upset about the failure to land Cesc Fabregas. He was the man Moyes wanted and would have gone some way to addressing the club's biggest problem - midfield. Michael Carrick, Tom Cleverley, Darren Fletcher, Shinji Kagawa and Fellaini have only scored two league goals between them this season and, incredibly, do not have one goal assist. That is dreadful!

The team Moyes selects has no consistency. He has been changing the starting eleven since he was appointed manager in September. There has been an average of 3.5 changes per match, leaving players worrying about whether they shall be picked or left on the sideline. This can be very unsettling. Moyes must address these problems if he wants to win back the crowd and start winning again. British man accused of hacking into the Federal Reserve

Jamie Berry ShHB

The Federal Court in Manhattan has accused Lauri Love, 28, from Suffolk of breaking into Federal Reserve computers. Even though the man had hacked into the American Federal Reserve, his lawyer, Karen Todner, said that Mr Love was also being investigated by the UK National Crime Agency and that it was hoped that the trial would be concluded in Britain.

"If there is an extradition request from the United States it will be vehemently opposed," she said.

"We believe that if Mr Love is to face charges that they should be, and will be, in the UK."

The FBI has said that if he is accused then the potential penalty for a crime of this calibre is around 12 years. US attorney Preet Bharara alleged Mr Love was "a sophisticated hacker who broke into Federal Reserve computers, stole sensitive personal information, and made it widely available, leaving people vulnerable to malicious use of that information".

The offences date from October 2012 to Febuary 2013 and this is when he tried to get into the New Nork Federal Reserve Bank’s computer servers to take information which could not be accessed by any random member of the public. He took confidential information including the names, email, addresses and phone numbers of users of the Bank. Mr Love then posted the information on a website which he has previously hacked and now controls. The debate is still ongoing about which country should hold the trial.

World’s largest aircraft

Kalyan O’Connor 3AI

Recently, an aircraft has been designed and made that has set a new record for the world’s largest aircraft. Originally designed for the US military, a British company decided to take the project on themselves. The US decided against the idea of the producing and designing the huge aircraft after budget cuts in addition to the fact that it wouldn’t be very subtle and therefore an easy target.

This company is planning to build over 100 of these eco-friendly aircraft. They have designed it for passengers and cargo as it can hold up to 1225kg for 21 days straight but for shorter journeys, it may be able to take up to 5 tonnes!

Filled with Helium, the aircraft beats the previous size record of the Hindenburg and many more great aircraft. It was built in Cardington and is a size of 300ft (91m) in length. There are plans for it in the future to take up to 50 tonnes of space!

The design first shows nothing new in the shape of aircraft but in reality, it looks like three cigars stuck together. This design is used because recent studies have shown that the amount of helium used in one of the ‘cigars’ is able to carry the equivalent amount of a normal plane’s wing. It can generate the same lift as an aeroplane’s wing can. That is quite extraordinary for a blimp!

The designers have also made the aircraft just heavier than air which stops the need for many men using ropes to pull it in to land. The length of the actual aircraft is 2 and half times longer than the craft used for the first powered flight performed by the Wright brothers. This proves how big the new aircraft is.

One plane actually costs $100m (£60m) and if Britain is to plan to make 100 of these, they will need a large budget. The government is also funding a further £2bn of research for the new energy-efficient aircrafts.

In my opinion, I favour these aircraft because of their eco friendly promise in terms of reduced CO2 emissions and they provide a safe and easy way for anyone to travel. And The Oscar Goes To...

Scot Hodgson 3ML

This year there have been many outstanding performances in films. In this year’s 86th anniversary of the Oscars film awards, which will be held on Sunday night in Los Angeles, there have been many nominations. Nominations for best picture include American Hustle and Gravity, both with 10 nominations each, closely followed by 12 Years a Slave. The nominees for Best Actor include Christian Bale, Bruce Dern, Leonardo DiCaprio, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Matthew McConaughey. The nominees for best actress include Amy Adams, Cate Blanchett, Sandra Bullock and Judi Dench.

Unfortunately the weather forecast for this weekend in the city of Los Angeles is not exactly what was planned for with plenty of rain on the way. Due to this, it has been decided to put up a massive plastic tent to hold the event under so that the actors aren’t drenched by rain that we would expect in the British summer but not in Los Angeles. The out-of-this-world top hit, Gravity has been predicted to win the best picture award but 12 Years a Slave is not far behind. London Grand Prix?

Tom Ramsbottom 3AI

Parliament might have to lift the 30 mph speed limit as London's Monaco style Grand Prix race increasingly seems more of a reality than an idea. Anticipation is growing but Ecclestone believes it could be even better than originally thought. The Formula 1 race could bring revenue of well over £100 million and plans have taken a huge step forward this week. A detailed 3.2 mile long track has been drawn up by F1 owner Bernie Ecclestone and would start on the Mall and continue past Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square and Parliament Square.

Jenson Button is delighted about the developments, saying: 'When I first saw Santander’s plans for a London Grand Prix, I knew they were ambitious, but fantastic. The thought of a race through the capital’s streets was only a dream when they initiated the project, but this week’s changes to the law bring the idea a step closer to reality. 'When you really picture what it would look like it’s truly mind blowing. You could create such a unique Grand Prix through the streets of London – the roads are naturally very wide and long, so straight line speeds would be high, and you could create a real blend of corners. 'When you combine all of that with the world famous monuments that would feature in the backdrop you can see why it would be an awesome addition to the calendar. 'The dream has taken a step closer this week, and I’d love to see this amazing concept finally happen.'

Boris Johnson is supportive of the plans provided the issues with noise and pollution are met. He said: 'I am always interested in projects that attract jobs and bring growth'.

Eccleston said in 2012 'Think what it would do for tourism. It would be fantastic — good for London, good for England — a lot better than the Olympics.’ Looking back at a successful Winter Olympics

Will Cotgrove 3PS

In many ways the Sochi Winter Olympic games were very successful. Russia benefitted from the games in quite a few ways; they got tourism, money and will go down in the history books for one of the best Winter Olympics ever. Also for Britain it was a brilliant games as the athletes came home with four medals. However, Lizzy Yarnald was the biggest success story with her Gold medal in the Skeleton. She was a favourite to win a medal before she went, but that didn’t mean that it was an easy ride.

"I went to Sochi and it was just my dream for me to get there so just to be a part of the whole thing was really important to me and really special.”

Surprisingly, curling was a success story for the team from Great Britain. The women’s team had to settle for a Bronze and they believed they could have gone at least one better.

"I just don't think the curling gods were with us," said Muirhead, the Skip, afterwards. "That pick up was brutal. Losing a two off the bat from something you can't control against Team Canada is going to be tough to come back from. We did come back. But anything we left them they made today."

However the men reached the final but just got beaten to the Gold by a very impressive Canadian team. When they arrived home they were harassed by interviewers and TV reporters to hear their stories of how the games went for them. They were all obviously delighted with their Silver medals after it had sunk in but they were disappointed they couldn’t get the Gold.

The Sochi Winter Olympic games will always be remembered for being one of the best Olympics ever. In my opinion it was very successful for Britain, Russia and anyone involved. The death of Philip Seymour Hoffman

Jordan Willis 3ML

Film and stage actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman was born in the Rochester, New York, on July 23, 1967. He became involved in high school theatrics and then attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, graduating with a degree in Drama in 1989. He made his first film debut in the production Triple Bogey on a Par Five Hole (1991) as Phil Hoffman and a year later appeared in My New Gun (1992). He quickly became an icon of cinema, rapidly gaining a reputation as one of cinema’s finest actors. He later appeared in films such as Flawless (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) and Almost Famous (2000). Some of his supporting roles include Red Dragon (2002) and Mission: Impossible III (2006).

His reputation in the cinema continued onto the stage, where he earned two Tony nominations for best actor in True West and Long Day’s Journey into Night.

Unfortunately on February 2, 2014, Phillip Seymour Hoffman was found dead in an apartment in Greenwich Village, New York. It was found that there were two open packets of heroin next to him. Phillip Seymour Hoffman will be a huge loss to the movie industry and we will all miss him dearly.

Education subject to violent attacks

Alistair Smellie ShRL

There have been almost 10,000 violent attacks on places of education in recent years, according to the biggest ever international study of how schools and universities are targeted by acts of aggression.

These have included the murder of staff and students and the destruction of buildings in bomb and arson attacks, in countries including Pakistan, Colombia, Somalia and Syria. This account of violence against education between 2009 and 2013 has been published by a collection of human rights groups, aid organisations and United Nations agencies. The Education Under Attack report, published in New York on Thursday, reveals the extent to which education has been subjected to deliberate acts of violence. These are not cases of schools and their staff "just caught in the crossfire", says Diya Nijhowne, director of the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack. "They are bombed, burned, shot, threatened, and abducted precisely because of their connection to education." There were 9,600 attacks worldwide, with incidents recorded in 70 countries, with the worst problems in Africa and parts of Asia and South America. There was a pattern of deliberate attacks in 30 of these countries, where such violence was used as a "tactic of war", said Ms Nijhowne. These figures do not include the type of school shootings carried out against pupils and staff at Sandy Hook in the US in 2012. The country with the greatest number of attacks was Pakistan, with the most common assault being the blowing up of school buildings. Colombia was the most dangerous place to be a teacher, with 140 murders and thousands of death threats. For school pupils, Somalia was the country where children were most likely to be pressed into becoming soldiers. Syria's conflict has seen deadly attacks at universities in Aleppo and Damascus and there were high levels of attacks on students in Yemen and Sudan. The shooting of Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai (see image above) by Taliban opponents of girls' education in 2012 focused global attention on such attacks on education. Nicolas Quenelka Robert Batson 3RC

On the 28th of December 2013, West Ham United played against West Bromwich Albion in which Nicolas Anelka scored in the three all draw at the Boleyn Ground in London. His celebration was short but powerful, committing the 'quenelle' gesture. The quenelle is a gesture which is performed by pointing one arm diagonally downwards palm down, while touching the shoulder with the opposite hand.

The creator of the quenelle is French political activist and comedian Dieudonné M'bala M'bala. He described it as an ‘up yours’ gesture, however Jewish leaders, antiracism groups and public officials have interpreted it as an "inverted Nazi salute" and as an expression of anti-Semitism. Anelka, 34, has been banned for five matches, fined £80,000 and ordered to complete a compulsory education course. West Brom have suspended him until the outcome of any appeal and club inquiry. Due to Anelka’s gesture, their sponsor, Zoopla, co-owned by Jewish businessman Alex Chesterman is ending its sponsorship of West Brom.

Anelka will now miss a big match against Manchester United in their fight to win points to escape from relegation to the Championship. The next match he will be liable to play in will be at home to Tottenham Hotspur, in which they will only have four more games to gain points. West Brom are only one point above relegation-zoned Sunderland, who are not giving up without a fight to escape.

Anelka has seven days from receiving written reasons for his FA punishment to decide if he wants to appeal against the ruling. Anelka is considering whether to appeal against the FA's ruling. If he does, his five-match ban and fine would be put on hold pending the outcome. He must also pay the costs of the hearing in full.

Since Anelka committed this gesture has team has gone downhill. Their sponsors, Zoopla, have said that they won’t sponsor them next season. Also Anelka is not able to play for his team for five matches until 12th April against a talented Tottenham side. If Anelka is to appeal against the FA’s ruling, he had better get his facts right. Self harm numbers continue to rise

George Bell ShJJ

Recently, there has been lot of discussion about teenagers self harming. A recent survey has shown that 10% of young people self harm. However, this number could be much higher as many young people don’t tell others that they self harm.

There are lots of reasons why people self harm. The idea is that you are punishing yourself and letting out frustration or ‘venting’ as it is commonly called. A BBC survey showed that the main cause of self harm is bullying with 25% of cases caused by this. Family incidents took up 17% of the cases. Others causes were, pressure to do well at school (14%), emotional abuse (11%) and friendships (11%). The rest was taken up by minor things.

A 16 year old who has self harmed since she was 14 said, "You just get to a point where you need to do something about it and it’s just a way of venting your frustration. I was thinking, 'If you can hurt me on the inside, why can't I hurt myself on the outside?”

The NHS has also said that there were around 100,000 self harmers hospitalised in 2013 and 4000 under 25’s surveyed say they have self harmed.

Personally I think self harming won’t help – it just makes things worse. The idea of severing your veins to let out frustration will not solve anything. Instead people should speak to parents or teachers to address their problems.

Can our dogs really understand us?

Tasmin Feakes 3AI

Due to new scientific research, it has been discovered that the brains of dogs and humans are more similar than previously thought. For years, many dog owners have believed that their dogs can understand their voices, and now, as suggested by a new study, that is extremely likely to be true.

By placing dogs in an MRI scanner, some Hungarian researchers have found that dogs react to voices and emotional sounds (such as crying or laughter) in almost the same way that we do, although they reacted much more strongly to canine sounds.

Before the dogs used for the testing could go into the MRI, they had to be trained to lie still for up to ten minutes. Although this seems easy for us to do, it took twelve sessions of preparation and training before they were ready. When the dogs began the tests, the scientists on the project were surprised to see quite how happy they were in the situation- a lot more comfortable with the MRI than most humans seem to One of the dogs about to enter be. the scanner Both the 11 dogs and the 22 human volunteers spent seven sessions on the test, and they were each played a total of 200 sounds throughout the sessions (including human speech, emotional sounds and canine sounds), to record their brain activity. The dogs reacted far more strongly to emotional sounds, possibly because they are more similar to the sounds of other animals. The location of activity in the brain is also almost exactly the same- both species had a large amount of activity in the temporal pole when they heard human voices, although about half of the auditory cortex lit up on the scan for the dogs, while only 3% for humans. One of the scientists from the project said that the focus of their next experiments would be ‘to test if they (the dogs) showed sensitivity to words in the language their owners speak.’ In other words, seeing whether they can decipher emotion in their owners’ voices. This could be the beginning of finding out the scientific reasons and understanding how both dogs and their owners are able to read each others’ emotions extremely accurately.

This is the first time that anything like this level of voice recognition has been seen in a non-primate. I believe that this is fascinating research because dog behaviour can be very interesting. Furthermore, understanding why the bonds between dogs and their owners are so strong is a key question often asked. Lee Rigby Murder

Becky Perkins, 3HL

Earlier this week, the verdict was eventually given on the murder of Lee Rigby. Michael Adebolajo, 29, and Michael Adebowale, 22, drove into him before repeatedly stabbing him and even attempting to decapitate him with a meat cleaver back in March last year.

The case was difficult for the judge, as he had to make a decision as to whether this was a rare case where the murderers deserved a full life in prison, or a sentence that would allow release in the future.

The trial was very painful for family and friends, as Adebolajo and Adebowale continually shouted from the docks and continued to protest that they were ‘soldiers of Allah’ and this was an act of war, to which the judge replied it was a ‘betrayal of Islam.’ Still, they denied this and carried on shouting and acting violently until one family member needed medical care from the outbursts.

Lee Rigby was deployed to Afghanistan, and although the thought of him being killed wasn’t impossible then, his wife says ‘When you wave someone off you accept that there is a chance you will never see them again. You do not expect to see this on the streets of the UK’. Committed just while Lee was walking through the streets of London, the murder was unexpected and the public were horrified.

Adebolajo was eventually given a whole life sentence: however, after considering age and other factors, Adebowale has been imprisoned for at least 45 years, rather than the whole of his life. Protesters gathered outside against the killers, and though they were satisfied with the final punishment, many wanted to bring back the capital punishment for this rare case. MI5 agent controlled a group of Pro- Nazi residents in the UK

Adam Bartlett ShRA

During the war Nazi supporters were becoming a problem for the British so they sent an MI5 agent to infiltrate one of these groups – they decided to send Jack King. Incredibly, Jack King managed to convince one of the leaders of a group, Marita Perigoe that he had links to the Gestapo and as a result of this he identified several hundred dangerous Nazi supporters in the UK. Worryingly, many of these people were already trying and in some cases succeeding to deliver secret information to the Germans. This information included details of British jet aircraft research and trials of a new amphibious tank. King then even managed to convince the treacherous group to follow him. One of the ways in which he achieved this feat was by enticing them with gadgets such as invisible ink pens and engineering meetings in the secretive location of a basement under an antiques shop.

After he discovered the names and details of the members, he wrote this information down and sent it to the MI5 headquarters. He now knew the group’s every move and could arrange for a member to be arrested if their plans became too dangerous to the British defence. Later in the war, King gave the members badges which would apparently identify them as friends of the Germans if the invasion succeeded. In reality, these badges would mean that the British police could round up the traitors easily at the end of the war, eliminating the possibility that the members would slip away from the authorities and flee to another country. Strangely, the files that revealed Kings heroic operation were not released until very recently even though the files decidedly promote MI5 and do not disclose any information that is at all current, or any information detailing a failure of the Military Intelligence. This has prompted some suspicion but the delay of release is in all likelihood due to policies of the MI5 to leave a gap of a decided number of years before releasing information.

Left: An image of the original files that Jack King wrote, detailing the names and further information about the members of the pro-Nazi group. Urban hyena attacks

Chloe Morgan 3RC

In Ethiopia’s Capital city Addis Ababa, there have been many reports of urban hyenas attacking rough sleepers whilst they are sleeping. In the past year Addis Ababa has been plagued by hyenas that have moved into the city from surrounding hills, and taken up residence in the capital. So far it is estimated that there are between 300 and 1,000 of them living in the city. Some have been reported to be living in packs of up to forty.

Hyenas are very dangerous and unpredictable animals. At the size of a large dog, with the bite strong enough to crush an elephant’s leg, hyenas pose a very dangerous threat. Normally hunting in large packs, a hyena’s natural prey consists of zebras and wildebeests. They leave nothing of their prey, consuming their prey’s bones with relative ease.

Periodically they attack homeless people who sleep rough on the streets, and according to a volunteer working for a clinic run by the Mother Teresa mission, every month they give treatment to at least a couple of homeless or destitute people who have had their fingers or toes gnawed off whilst they were drugged or drunk. One man reportedly had much of his scalp ripped away by a hyena while he was sleeping, leaving it dangling from his eyes. In another shocking case a mother camping outside St Stephano’s church near the Hilton Hotel had her baby son snatched from her arms and torn to death by a hyena.

Some say hyenas are an asset to the community, reducing the population of stray dogs and feral cats, and consuming the carcasses of dead horses and other animals, in the long run decreasing the spread of disease in the area. It is now a tourist attraction to hand feed the hyenas from a stick.

However, authorities have commissioned a cull of the hyenas, as they are too dangerous to be associated with the human population of the city. They have also caused chaos in local cemeteries, digging up the graves of the recently deceased, and consuming the corpses of the poor buried in shallow graves. So far, licensed hunters have shot 10 hyenas, and over half a dozen dens have been reported to the authorities. Ukraine

Francesca Angel ShJJ

Crimea airport has been overtaken by Russian forces.

On Friday ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, at a news conference in Russia, said that he was not overthrown but was forced to flee under threat to his life.

"I intend to continue the fight for the future of Ukraine against those who, with fear and with terror, are attempting to replace the power. Nobody has overthrown me. I was compelled to leave Ukraine due to a direct threat to my life and my nearest and dearest," he said, speaking Russian, not Ukrainian.

Yanukovych, making his first public appearance since his removal on Saturday, said the newly appointed interim government was not legitimate and did not represent the majority of Ukraine's 45 million citizens.

He accused the interim authorities in Ukraine of extreme violence, saying that they were responsible for the bloodshed last week, in which dozens of protesters died in clashes with security forces, including snipers.

"I never gave any orders to shoot," he said, adding that he sought peace and that the security forces only took up arms when their own lives were at risk. He said the Western powers that had brokered a deal that hadn’t been put into effect, between his government and the opposition for early elections, and also bore responsibility for the current situation.

Yanukovych, who spoke backed by Ukraine's blue-and-yellow flags before reporters in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, about 700 miles south of Moscow, said he was "ashamed" that he had not been able to maintain stability in his country.

"I want to apologize in front of everybody -- to the veterans, to the Ukrainian people -- that I did not have the strength to stop what is now taking place in the country from taking place," he stated.

Yanukovych insisted he had not fled Ukraine but had left after he was "shot at virtually from all sides" while travelling within the country after quitting Kiev.

He said he had not met with Russian President Vladimir Putin since his removal and that he would not ask for Russian military support to return him to power. This is important because it shows that he is an individual and is not going to rely on others to return to power.

But he said he was "surprised," knowing his character, that Putin had remained silent so far on the events unfolding in Russia's western neighbour.

When asked how he intended to fight for Ukraine's future from outside its borders, Yanukovych said he would return to Ukraine once his safety could be guaranteed.

President Viktor Yanukovych said he will not participate in the presidential elections slated by the new government for May, he said.

Ukraine faces threats of secession.

"The elections of May 25 are illegal, and I will not take part in them," he said. "Elections must take place in accordance with the laws and constitution of Ukraine."

In the face of concerns that Ukraine's Russian-majority Crimean region may seek to secede, Yanukovych said the country must remain "united and undivided."

But at the same time, he said, "The citizens of Crimea do not want to be subordinate to nationalists and bandits."

What Yanukovych is doing is cowardly because he is not fighting to remain in power. The Ukrainian people were clearly right to remove him, as he is not a strong leader.