BEIJING-Swimmer Octavian Gutu will not compete for Moldova at the Olympics after the Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed his case on Saturday.

CAS rejected the application filed by the Moldovan National Olympic Committee against the IOC, ruling that Gutu was ineligible to compete for Moldova because governing body FINA didn't approve his nationality switch. Gutu swam for Romania at the 2007 world championships at Melbourne, Australia, where he failed to qualify for the 50- and 100-meter freestyle final.

A swimmer can change nationalities if they receive the approval of both national Olympic committees in question and FINA. In this case, both committees agreed to Gutu's switch but not FINA, which meant the International Olympic Committee couldn't allow him to swim at the Beijing Games.

Moldova was hit by the worst flooding in the past one hundred years. The risen waters of the rivers Prut and Dniester submerged 46 settlements, destroyed about a hundred houses and caused evacuation of about six thousand people, leaving thousands shelterless.

In response to the call from the Government of Moldova, Lithuania is sending the following relief supplies: 10 motor rubber boats, 9 rubber boats, 150 pairs of rubber boots.

The relief is scheduled to leave for Moldova later today.

Lithuania has already shipped relief supplies to disaster-hit Ukraine and Romania.

In Moldova 10.500 ha of crop sowing areas suffered from floods, reported Anatoliy Gorodenko, Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry of Moldova.

According to him, sunflower, winter wheat and sugar-beet sowing areas suffered the most. 246 ha of sunflower, 167 ha of winter wheat, 162 ha of maize, 102 ha of sugar-beet, 100 ha of soy are among destroyed crops.

The lives of disabled orphans in Moldova will be brightened by a group of caring children and church supporters.

The children from Christ Church United Reformed Church, Clacton, have collected together toys, toiletries and play things for disabled youngsters in an orphanage.

The children have also decorated the 67 shoeboxes, which have just been collected by TEECH, a charity set up to help eastern European countries and the people who live there.

The charity is currently taking volunteers out to Moldova to revamp at least three of the dormitories where there are some 200 children.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will allocate 1,966,500 kroons worth of humanitarian aid to Ukraine and to Moldova in order to liquidate the consequences of floods and help those who suffered from them, writes Äripäev.ee.

Minister of foreign affairs Urmas Paet noted that a number of persons have died from the catastrophic floods in Ukraine and in Moldova and dozens of thousands of residents have been forced to leave their homes. “Estonia will help relieve the situation for the victims of floods in order to improve their options for returning to normal life,” said the minister.