•<B>Guinea. President escapes assassination attempt.</B> Guinea’s ailing leader Lansana Conte survived an assassination attempt on Wednesday morning, his security minister said, after unidentified men in military uniform were reported to have fired on his convoy. Conte himself appeared on state television late on Wednesday, sitting in an armchair and looking well despite a long illness. “Those who have put people on the street to fire on me are irresponsible. They must know that my end has not come,” Conte said in a declaration on the main evening news program.

•<B> LONDON. EU warns food industry on junk food advertising. </B>A senior EU official has said urgent action is needed to tackle obesity among Europe’s young and has warned the food industry it faces legislation in a year unless it stopped advertising junk food to children. Health and Consumer Affairs Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said Europe used to consider obesity to be a US problem. “We made fun of the Americans in a way. It is a European problem now,” Kyprianou told the Financial Times in an interview yesterday. “I would like to see the industry not advertising directly to children any more,” he said.

•<B> Ukraine. Court ruling propels Yushchenko to power. </B>Ukraine’s Supreme Court yesterday upheld Western-leaning Viktor Yushchenko’s victory in a presidential poll re-run, clearing the way for his inauguration and ending weeks of turmoil in the former Soviet republic. Court Chairman Anatoly Yarema, issuing the ruling just before 3 a.m. (8 p.m. EST Wednesday) after days of deliberation, said the judges had rejected an appeal by Viktor Yanukovich, Yushchenko’s rival in the Dec. 26 election, that the ballot was unfair. “This decision is final and not subject to appeal,” Yarema said after Yanukovich failed to win his case that the poll was distorted by weeks of street protests.