Rail Travel news.

The happiest people live in Malta, the unhappiest – in Zimbabwe and Ukraine, a yearly survey of the Dutch professor Ruut Veenhoven, who is internationally known as “the happiness professor", shows.
Different groups of people were asked their opinions about living conditions in general and their lives in particular, PRIME-TASS informs.

Malta ranks the first with 74% of happy people, followed by Denmark, Austria and Columbia with 73% of people happy with their way of living. Island, Ireland and the Netherlands come next. Canada, Finland and Ghana end the group of ten countries where the happiest persons live. In these countries 69% of the population are satisfied with their lives.

Professor Veenhoven came to the conclusion that in the contemporary world money is not one of the decisive factors that make a person happy. Thus, the US ranks the 16th, followed by Guatemala and Uruguay. EU’s most powerful countries – the UK and Germany are on the 21st and 22nd places.

The last on the list are Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Moldova and Ukraine, countries where less than 20% of the people feel happy.

The hryvnia rate on the interbank currency market remained unchanged at 5.0 UAH/USD on Thursday for the eleventh business day.

According to dealers for commercial banks, during the trading session hryvnia fluctuated within the range of 5.005/5.015 UAH/USD.

Generally, dealers said that currency demand and offer were balanced and the National Bank did not enter the market.

The interbank hryvnia has risen by 5.76% from 5.3056 UAH/USD since the start of the year.

As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the hryvnia rose by 0.48% from 5.3310 UAH/USD on the interbank market in 2004. It also rose by 0.1% from 5.3365 UAH/USD on the interbank market in 2003.

President Viktor Yuschenko has changed the standard for placing information in passports of Ukrainian citizens issued for trips abroad by approving the inclusion of chips identifying passport holders.

Ukrainian News learned this from presidential decree No.1269 of September 14.

Now the exact positioning of words and data on the internal left side of passport cover will not be determined by recommendations of the International Civil Aviation Organization, but by international standard ISO/IEC 7501-1:1997 "Identification cards -- Machine readable travel documents -- Part 1: Machine readable passport."

Pursuant to the decree, the left side of passport cover contains a medium with electronic information content about the passport holder and data about crossing the border.

The description section of the foreign passport says that internal left side of the cover has the words "Ukraine" and "passport," a photograph, a type of document, country code, passport number, first, middle and last names, citizenship, data and place of birth, sex, personal number of passport holder, date of issue and issuing authority, passport validity and signature of the holder.

With his decree Yuschenko also altered the design of the first page by removing the words "the validity of the passport is extended until" from the top of the page and a protective holographic strip.

Inscriptions in Ukrainian and Russian on the first page with the request of the minister of foreign affairs of Ukraine to assist the passport holder are left untouched.

As Ukrainian News earlier reported, in March Yuschenko canceled changes to the form of foreign passport that provided for a digital image of the passport holder and all data printed in Ukrainian and English.

The Ukraine Minister of transport and communication intends to open the yacht marine on the base of the Yalta sea port.
While investigating the Yalta sea port the Minister representatives came to the conclusion e the freight port has no future development as it is lack of the railway line for  freight transfer.
According to the Ukraine News the Minister plans not only to open the yacht moorage but to found the infrastructure complex (marine) - yacht workshops, hotels, restaurants.
According to the Minister's mass media, the port representatives informed about the great interest on behalf of foreign owners of yachts to arrive in the Black sea ports of Sevastopol, Balaklava, Yalta. They would like to get better acquaintance with Ukraine.

In the museum of the Kerch History-Archeology 'the Golden Store room" was open. It is a special room where the visitors can see the objects found in the Kerch kurgans store places. This exposition includes golden figures, ear-rings, bracelets, dress decorations stored in the museum's storage places. In former days these things could not be disposed as it was difficult to guarantee their safeness.
This Kerch disposition of the golden things is the third if the third in the Crimea peninsula as informed by the Crimea tour server. Up to now the room-safes were known only in the Aivazovsky gallery and in Yalta Hitory and Literature museum. The next turn - the opening of the forth "golden store room" in the Crimea Republic local museum, which project has been already developed.