STOCKHOLM - Music streaming giant Spotify announced Tuesday it was launching its service in Russia and 12 other countries around Eastern Europe.
Spotify would become available to users immediately, according to a statement, which added that the Swedish streaming service was now accessible in 92 markets.
In addition to Russia, Spotify was rolling out in Albania, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia and Ukraine.
"Launching in these 13 markets is an important moment in Spotify’s journey, especially as we welcome fans and artists in growing music markets like Russia, where streaming is being widely adopted," Gustav Gyllenhammar, VP for Markets and Subscriber Growth, said in a statement.
Spotify said Russia is the 17th largest market for streaming, and is growing at a pace that would see it reach number 10 by 2030.
Spotify has been relatively unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic and even returned to profit in the first quarter of 2020.
In late April the music platform reported 286 million active users, of which 130 million were paying subscribers.
Agence France-Presse
KIEV, Ukraine--A comedian whose political experience is limited to playing the president on TV is likely to top the first round of voting when Ukrainians go to the polls on Sunday.
Actor Volodymyr Zelensky's bid started as a long shot but he has leapfrogged establishment politicians amid public frustration over corruption and stagnating living standards.
The 41-year-old star of the political comedy "Servant of the People," which returned for its third season this week, is polling above 25 percent, well ahead of his nearest rivals.
If Zelensky wins the presidency he will lead a country of 45 million people that in recent years has known war, loss of territory and uprisings, and remains one of the poorest nations in Europe.
The main question now is whether incumbent Petro Poroshenko or ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko will meet Zelensky in a run-off next month.
One recent survey put them neck and neck at around 17 percent, though another showed Poroshenko pulling ahead of ally-turned-foe Tymoshenko to make the second round.
Zelensky, who has a young support base, acknowledges that he has "no experience" but nonetheless insists he has the strength to lead Ukraine.
"I don't have all the knowledge but I'm learning this now," he told AFP in an interview this month.
"I don't want to look like an idiot."
Even in the final days of campaigning he has eschewed rallies and interviews in favor of playing gigs with his comedy troupe.
Critics point to the vagueness of his manifesto, the key pledges of which were chosen following a public vote on social media.
But supporters say only a brand new face can clean up Ukraine's murky politics.
Some accuse Zelensky of acting as a front for the interests of oligarch Igor Kolomoysky, who owns the channel that broadcasts the entertainer's shows, but he denies any political links.
STANDING UP TO RUSSIA
Poroshenko was elected president in 2014 after a revolution forced Kremlin-backed predecessor Viktor Yanukovych from office.
The pro-Western uprising was followed by Russia's annexation of Crimea and a conflict in eastern Ukraine between Kiev's forces and Moscow-backed separatists.
Poroshenko came in on promises to tackle graft, align Ukraine with the West and shut down the fighting in the east.
But five years on, corruption is widespread and the simmering separatist conflict has cost 13,000 lives.
"I am absolutely confident that despite all of Russia's attempts... the Kremlin will not block the European or Euro-Atlantic integration of my country," Poroshenko said after his final campaign rally.
The 53-year-old president has positioned himself as the only person able to stand up to the Kremlin and has promised to return Crimea to Ukraine if he is re-elected.
The pledge has been widely dismissed as unrealistic.
RECORD NUMBER OF CANDIDATES
Tymoshenko -- who was once known for her traditional plaited hairstyle but now opts for a more conventional pony tail -- has focused on the cost of living.
She has promised to cut consumer gas prices in half and boost pensions as she appeals to an older base during her third bid for the presidency.
With a record 39 candidates on the first-round ballot, analysts say the race remains open despite Zelensky's dominance in the polls.
Barring a shock result in which one candidate crosses the 50 percent threshold in the first round, a 2-person run-off is to be held on April 21.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
LONDON -- More than 130,000 people were newly diagnosed with HIV last year in Eastern Europe, the highest rate ever for the region, while the number of new cases in Western Europe declined, global public health experts said on Wednesday.
European Union and European Economic Area countries saw a reduction in 2017 rates, mainly driven by a 20 percent drop since 2015 among men who have sex with men. That left Europe's overall increasing trend less steep than previously.
All told, almost 160,000 people were diagnosed in Europe with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS, according to data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the World Health Organization's (WHO) regional office for Europe.
"It's hard to talk about good news in the face of another year of unacceptably high numbers of people infected with HIV," said Zsuzsanna Jakab, director of the WHO regional office. Calling on governments and health officials to recognize the seriousness of the situation, she urged them: "Scale up your response now."
The United Nations AIDS agency UNAIDS warned in July that complacency was starting to stall the fight against the global epidemic, with the pace of progress not matching what is needed. Some 37 million people worldwide are infected with HIV.
The WHO's European Region is made up of 53 countries with a combined population of nearly 900 million. Around 508 million of those live in the 28 member states of the European Union plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
The joint report said one reason for the persistence of HIV in Europe is that many people infected with the virus are diagnosed late, meaning they are more likely to have already passed it on and are also at an advanced stage of infection.
It also found that in the European region, men suffer disproportionately from HIV, with 70 percent of new HIV cases diagnosed in 2017 occurring in men.
Since the start of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, more than 77 million people worldwide have become infected with HIV. Almost half of them - 35.4 million - have died of AIDS.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
